The Real Town Pool!

[Michael Alexander]

This photograph is posted elsewhere on this forum of ours. I got to staring at it for a few minutes this morning, my aging memory filling in the kids, the splashing and above all the sound of one hundred kids laughing and shouting as water thundered beneath the Big Diving board as the latest volley of human cannonballs connected with the crystal blue waters....

This image captures everything that was the town pool to me..... this was the town pool that was tiled and not fibreglassed along it's belly.... this was the town pool that had a genuine channel that moulded into the edge of the walls, where the water would run along and disappear into those gaping holes along the edge.... and not the metal safety rail that we have today.. This was the pool that had a plug at the centre of the deep end.... a place at the depths of this massive swimming pool, where it was rumoured that many a young life had been lost as the drain had sucked and swirled causing a young submariner to be "vacumed" to the floor of the pool..... Above all this was pool that had the big diving board..... the diving board, was not just any old diving board, as many an adult might have thought, No Sir!, this was a launch platform, a runway, a walk the plank.... this was where many a young man's imagination could let rip, as he hurtled 2 metres above the raging crystal blue ocean below.... this was the launchpad, where if you had the right technique you could vault high enough into the clear sky and see the vast surrounding desert.... where sand meets ocean.... where forever I would be an astronaut about to hit the town pool.....

[georgswa (Georg Ruf) (RIP)]

Mike is nostalgic again !!! ??? what does that mean to us ???

[Michael Alexander]

Sigh!!!!!!! I miss the 70's today.....   

[Mike Voden (RIP)]

Nothing remains as it was Mike.............. Happens to all of us.

I remember the late Frank Quirk tell me when we had just arrived in Oranjemund  "Mike, he said, I'm sorry to say the good days have gone" and that was back in 1981

[Bertie Horak]

Not to mention the beautiful  's that surrounded the stone-wall.  The smell of those branches that were cut from them before Xmas so everybody could have a natural cypress "tree" in their lounges for Xmas. Add the smell of the small Christmas candles lit in the tree ----- that was Christmas!

[SandyB]

Mmm instead we had to contend with a spiked  wall for our late night .. er uhm   early morning  dip ...

[Michael Alexander]

er.... Uhm, Sandy, I do not think I will be able to do that again on your next visit up here...

[SandyB]

Und vy not ?? 

[Patricia Lotte]

And don't forget the nipping out the back door to pop into Cora's cafe to grab a sausage roll and a cream soda or raspberry drink that you would bring back to the pool and savour with your buddies. We were so fortunate !!!

[DUNJA WRBKA]

Hey Mike, do you think you could post of a pic of the pool today?  Interesting to see the changes...

[Malcolm Bertoni]

Hi Mike

Just to let you know that I took that photo in 1972 or 1973 on one of my rare visits into town from Affenrucken.

Malcolm

[Delia]

Wow, it's amazing how just looking at that photo brought a flood of memories back.........i could literally feel being back there..........in the holidays me, jackie, paula, sheena, natasha, ........lying on the grass on left of the boys change rooms baking in the sun, smoking skelm, watching the guys......kevin, mark, steven dive bombing off the high board, a few us being brave enough to join them..........or just rolling into the pool to cool off..........i used to love  lying on the side of the pool facing the water and sliding down into the pool..........as patricia mentioned one or two of us running thru the back door to cora's to get some grub............walking home afterwards looking like lobsters.......off to the session/moves at the youth club that night.  Damn.......i miss those days............young and carefree..........no worries.

[Michael Alexander]

Thanks for that Malcom, I was not sure who had taken it, but it is a rare one, taken to include everything that was important of the pool in those days... ie. the asbestos buscket seats, both diving boards....

[Michael Alexander]

To True Delia.... I forgot that part.... soaking wet, lying on the hot cement next to the pool.....

[Delia]

yah, those bucket seats - so comfy to lie on and just check the goings on, lekker rustig - being asbestos they warmed the cold body nicely after coming out the pool.  Oh man i could go on forever about that pool - played a HUGE part in my life.........my roots very much there..........learnt to swim in that pool with Mrs Lindhout, have photos of me as a baby in my carry cot under those huge trees sitting up checking out the happenings with the fascination that only a baby can have, eyes darting everywhere, my mom sitting protectively close, Linda & Lance running around the baby pool being about 3 and 5 at the time............all the years in between till closing my junior school years with the traditional jump, school clothes and all............high school holidays..........late night skinny dips..........cuts, bumps, bruises, battle scars from that pool.


Thanks Malcolm for posting that pic and resurrecting some beautiful memories i will treasure for ever.