Swimming through the waters of time
I love local authors. I love local books and I love reading about the old days. I like how nostalgic these types of books make the reader; they make me want things to be like they were, and despite having a good footing in the development field, I hate to see old buildings replaced by car parks.
A car park, if you can call it that, is the setting for this book. If you've ever been to Sun Lane in Wakefield you'll see what the council calls 'Sun Lane Car Park. It's a piece of waste ground with rubble strategically levelled out to form some sort of surface.
The city baths use to stand here – Sun Lane Swimming Pool, a lovely building.
Ducking and Diving was written by a bloke who grew up in Eastmoor and lived there until he was in his 20s. He was a member of the local swimming club, the Kingfishers, spending most of his spare time at the baths, although after reading his other book Magical Moments it looks like he led a full childhood.
Ducking and Diving is full of really interesting facts about the baths that are really interesting, including a top secret government experiment that had the great Barnes Wallis, the dam-busting expert, pay a visit.
Among the many great characters featured the baths boss George Newell, nicknamed Steamship, because whenever they saw him he was in the water floating on his back. He was the sergeant major type who would run things military fashion, something which we could do with today.
It's a nice little book; it's nostalgic and humorous and full of nice little facts. I just wish I had more space to tell you more.
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Weather for Wakefield
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -6 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -0 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
