A long way down

The Urban Swimmer makes a pilgrimage to the Tooting Bec Lido...

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The Urban Swimmer is a North Londoner. He's had phases when he's lived in "Saarf" London, but these days it takes a lot to get him very far south of the river. This is doubly so of Tooting, the south London suburb, famous as largely being the butt of a number of jokes. However last summer TUS made a pilgrimage to a Lido of some repute. On the edge of the leafy Tooting Common sits the largest freshwater pool in England, and the 2nd biggest outdoor pool in Europe - the mighty Tooting Bec Lido.

After all the anticipation the Tooting Bec Lido is, truth be told, fairly innocuous. Hidden slightly behind a few trees it's a long rectangle of open water. There are some rather pretty, brightly painted changing cubicles on either side of the pool, a small cafe, small kiddy pool, showers and the obligatory ugly fountain (see TUS on Hampstead's Parliament Hill Lido).

Shocker: ugly fountain.

I am reluctant to say too much about the Tooting Bec Lido. The Lido you see, attracts a very loyal band of followers. It is partly run by the South London Swimming Club and supported by a core group of all year swimmers. In the 1990s the SLSC appear to have largely saved the Lido from closing, and jolly good too. Icy plunges have never really appealed to TUS, though apparently the Lido does have a small sauna, which he supposes, might just make the whole experience bearable.  A number of Lido loyalists blog about their daily swims. If you are interested in the Tooting bloggers or becoming a cold water adrenaline junky you should check out Unusual Love Affair in London, Quick Dip and Musings of an Aquatic Ape.

The pool is a huge 91.4 meters in length, which makes a single length quite an effort. That said it isn't especially deep. TUS got down there on a late summer Friday after getting slightly lost on the Common. It was a pretty quiet time to visit the pool, towards closing time, and only a handful of regulars did lengths around him.

The nearby trees mean the pools gets quite a few leaves in there, that and the little changing cubicles give the place a rather rustic feel. The Lido is over 100 years old. It's been here since 1906 and was built by unemployed people living in the area. The whole place and experience seems like a noble tribute to the spirit of amateurism. If TUS had to make a choice between amateur and professional, he feels that he is firmly with the former. It's the amateurs that love things purely for the sake of them isn't it? He knows aging amateur runners more keen on their sport than any young Olympic hopeful; home cooks who care more about their food than any Michelin starred Chef; and so on and so on. Could it be that fictional Tooting resident Wolfie Smith has in fact been living just down the road from a place that is a living embodiment of "Power to the People". In short the Tooting Bec Lido is a place with Soul...and that isn't easy for municipal buildings.

Now that Spring is in the air, TUS hopes it wont be too long before things warm up a bit and he can make another journey south.

Truly Urban: Swimming in the Thames.

The Urban Swimmer goes down the docks...

Last July The Urban Swimmer got the opportunity to swim in the Thames. He took part in the London leg of one of the British Gas sponsored Great Swim events. These events usually take the form of an open water, one mile swim in lakes, reservoirs, lochs and areas of great natural beauty such as Windimere. The London leg however takes place in a rather contrasting environment, the industrial wasteland and urban dereliction of the London Docklands. The now vacant Royal Victoria Dock to be precise. Still, at the time TUS had probably never swum as far as a mile, much less in a wetsuit, and it seemed like a challenge worth taking. Plus if you've ever seen the Royal  Docks, the place is daunting in its scale, and TUS could not resist dipping his toe.

Spot the Urban Swimmer. Clue: he is wearing an orange hat.

The Royal Victoria Dock is a site with quite some heritage. Nowadays it serves a largely ornamental function sitting next to the appallingly ugly and horrifically spelled ExCeL Conference Centre (soon to be a venue in the London Olympics). The docks are occasionally used for events like the London Triathlon, however in its hay day (1850s-1950s), when London was the world's busiest port, the docks serviced huge steam powered cargo ships. While reading about the docks TUS came across an interesting picture from the London Illustrated news of March 1879 showing the 17th Lancers loading their horses on board ships to fight in the Zulu Wars. You can also see what Charles Dickens, Jr (the son of the great novelist) wrote about the docks in his Dictionary of the Thames (1881) , check out the fancy-pants first class salon. During the Blitz the docks and the nearby Silvertown area specifically came under horrific levels of bombing. TUS is reminded of the Blitz episode of The World at War when an east end man describes seeing the whole of Silvertown area appearing to be on fire. Sadly TUS can't find that particular clip online, but he did find this excellent German propaganda film showing how specifically the docks were targeted. It's arguable that not since 1666 and the Great Fire of London has an event so dramatically effected how London looks at a city.

TUS has no idea how deep the docks are, but as he swum across the watery depths it occurred to him that it must be a long way down. He did not find the sign below particularly comforting...

The Great Swim organisers arranged a course starting from a pebbled beach start at one end of the docks, a three-quarter circuit around some giant floating buoys and arrival at a steeply slopping ramp. The water itself is murky grey/brown sediment filled stuff which is dark and has zero visibility when your head is in the water. The water has a surprisingly salty tang, though I wouldn't recommend drinking too much of it...yuk! Anyway TUS is not sure if he really can recommend swimming in the docks, you wont see much, and the surrounding area is hardly picturesque. On the other hand it rare in the city to find such a large expanse of water, and if you've never been in there you might be tempted. This year's event in on May 26th and at time of writing there were still lots of spaces left.

Some other swimming blogs...

The Urban Swimmer is currently in New England for a holiday, so wont be in London's pools for a week or so. While putting this blog together TUS has come across a couple of other London swimming blogs. It turns out that not only is this blog not an original idea, but there are people out there who've been doing it longer and better than him...curses foiled again. Still while I'm away you might want to check them them.

First up is the swimming round london blog. This blog contains sensible information like the address of the pool, and how much the lockers are. Darn, should have thought of that. The writer is South London based, so it's a little more focussed on that side of the river.

Second up is Poolside Percy. Percy writes more of a short swimming diary, so tends to focus on a small group of North London pools, however sometimes he wanders...

Just doing it for the kids...they're behind you!

...the Urban Swimmer paddles at The Archway Leisure Centre.

A few Saturdays ago the Urban Swimmer packed his knapsack and headed out Highgate way in search of a new swimming venue. Some months ago TUS had been in the Archway area and stumbled across signs for a pool. At the time he had no idea that there was a pool in the area, so imagine his excitement when on conducting an internet search he found out not only was there a pool, but a pool with "a wave machine and flume"! TUS hadn't encountered a wave machine since being about 10, he wasn't entirely sure he knew what a "flume" was, but after he worked out that it was probably one of those big winding slides, he was pretty damn keen to check it out. The exotically named Archway Leisure Centre can be found just around the corner from the Whittington Hospital. The Urban Swimmer's mother has always claimed that he is in fact a very distant descendent of the original Sir Richard Whittington - former Lord Mayor of London, medieval merchant big shot, and famous pantomime character. TUS has always suspected this to be a somewhat tall tale, however just outside the hospital you can see small statue of Sir Richard's cat. The cat is behind metal bars to protect it, and looks a little forlorn like an unhappy monkey at the Zoo. TUS could sadly not hear the Bow Bells ringing from Highgate Hill, as the traffic was rather noisy. Still, the cat seemed a good omen so on he headed.

The first thing to be said about Archway Pool is that sadly, you aren't going to do a lot of swimming in there. Whilst the pool is quite a big 25 meter square of water, it is incredibly shallow. It slopes downwards, but even in the deepest bits you can basically stand up. Although the centre does offer lane swimming during commuter hours, I find it hard to imagine you'd get many laps in without banging your knees. No, what we have here is basically a "family pool", i.e. it's for kids. There are all manner of stuff for kids: funny water jets, a rather tame wave machine, a funny sort of island bit you can swim around, a thing that spouts water over your head, and of course the all important Flume - which was closed: damn it! On top of this TUS went on a Saturday afternoon, when the pool was rammed full of kids and some poor unfortunate parents trying to control the blighters. At the time of my visit there were no less than four life guards on duty to stop the sprogs from drowning.

So there I was, pool you can't swim in, crap wave machine, too many screaming kids, and a broken bloody water slide; not exactly ingredients for a good time. And yet, and yet...weirdly enough, TUS quite enjoyed himself. Why you ask? Well here's the thing, a lot of the time the Urban Swimmer hits the pool, he finds himself in semi-empty pool. Or when he's in a busy pool it's full of serious looking lane swimmers doing endless lengths. But pretty much everyone in this place was clearly having a great time. I mean a really GREAT TIME. Seeing a pool so well used by what amounts to the next generation of London swimmers made TUS feel all warm inside, and whilst he didn't get a great workout he was swept up in the sense of fun and had a nice splash around. I mean to hell with the x-million pound Olympics Aquatics Centre - this is the future.

TUS wont become a regular at this pool any time soon, but he hopes it continues to be as popular as he found it. After his swim TUS took a stroll up the hill to the excellent Prince of Wales on Highgate High Street for some rather more grown up R and R.