cookie_monster said:
gon2seed said:
Now the Brine Baths ..... they were something else! I'll save that for another night.
is that where the litten tree (fka newt and cucumber, faces, bejams!) is, along the river and underneath the council building?
Yep that is it, twas a beatiful Victorian Building, Black and white, inside wonderous in a grotty chic kind of way. It was similar to the ones in Manchester that won the that progamme on the telly to be renovated.
Fascinated me as a kid, seeing the folks come in to use the bathroom type public baths, because they didn't have that kind of novelty in their own house (And this was only the late 60's!) There were brine baths for healthy immersion, and a steam room if my memory serves me well.
Swimming lessons took place in a former brine pool in its own room towards the back of the building. A truly scary place made no easier by the stern fella who taught swimming. His name escapes me, but people of my age all had him as he was probably the only swimming teacher, we were all terrified of him. Hell! if you put your foot down!!!!
Under the building were a series of arches that housed the scouts canoes when I was a kid. This site was formerly used to hire boats and punts to those taking in the delights of Victoria Park. Well before my time. The river was not a weed strewn piddle in those days. It was 5ft deep or deeper throughoutm and wider. Serious flooding forced the good burgers of Stafford to take out the weirs and thus lower the levels, and in the process ruin the river as an attraction. (Didn't really cure the flooding either.)
I could tell you about the fishing that was encouraged by the warm water outflow from the Gas Works, or what we discovered when we pumped out the cellars of the Curry Kuteer during the floods of Nov' 2000, or even why Stafford had Brine Baths in the first place, but then I'd have nothing else to relay on another evening, so I'll say a fond goodnight to you all, keep your fingers and toes crossed for the Mighty Rangers who take on Brighton in the FA Cup Tomorrow. I am double booked and have to miss the game, but my kids are going.
)
