An appeal has gone out for people to donate home-made woollen wartime swimming costumes from 1939 to 1945 to help promote an embryonic campaign to safeguard Keswick Leisure Pool.
Former town crier Bob Bryden is keen to maintain the swimming facility in the town and is working on developing a campaign to persuade pool owners Allerdale Borough Council to keep investing in it.
Mr Bryden, 83, placed an advertisement in the classified section of The Keswick Reminder asking for people to send him adults and children’s, male and female woollen swimming costumes knitted during the Second World War.
He plans to use them to put on display and promote the campaign and if his appeal draws a blank then he may ask people to take up their knitting needles to create costumes for a competition although he admits “it’s all in my head at the moment.”
Mr Bryden said that for several years he used to visit the The Millfield care home in Keswick and listened to the memories of its residents and one of the topics often discussed was woollen costumes that their mothers made them wear.
“When they would wear them at first they were very pleased but when they got into the water they (the woollen costumes) got sodden and very often ended up at the bottom of the lake, so they were a mixed blessing,” said Mr Bryden, a retired headteacher.
“The memories of people in their 80s, like me, is very sharp about these swimming costumes. Once they had been used they started to disintegrate
“During the war there was a desperate need in a lot of homes for a swimming costume. But once the war was over a lot of people got back to cotton costumes and I think a lot of the woollen costumes were either thrown away or used as floor cloths.”
Wool is not a material found in today’s swimwear but in the 1930s, when swimming was becoming increasingly popular, it was the material most commonly used in the making of recreational garments.
This was due to the commonly held belief that wool was a good material to use in close-fitting clothing due to its elasticity.
Out of the materials available at the time, wool served to be the most financially and structurally appropriate, but when wet it became very heavy. Due to the availability of wool, and the re-emergence of knitting as a popular hobby at the time, it meant that people at home were able to knit their own swimwear and often used fashion magazines for inspiration.
“I want to link these swimming costumes with a campaign,” said Mr Bryden. “A number of us are getting stirred up about Keswick swimming pool remaining exactly where it is and where families want it, next to the park. If it’s sunny the children play on the swings in the park and if it’s raining they go for a swim in the pool.
“It’s a good thing if young people and families have got an easy access to learn how to swim, particularly in an area like Keswick where there is plenty of water about.”
One of those who has responded to the advert was mother-of-three Margaret Taylor of Portinscale.
“I did not have a home made one but I had this machine knit one from about that era,” said Mrs Taylor. “It’s a very finely knit one.”
She found it in a drawer while clearing out her late mother Linda’s house at Morland and she has event tried it on describing it as “quite prickly and itchy and not very comfortable”.
Mrs Taylor said that she supported Mr Bryden’s “quirky” promotion of his campaign to keep the pool open as it was the place her children had learnt to swim and all had enjoyed birthday parties there in the past. “If it gets some interest going then it’s a good thing,” she said.
Mr Bryden was also approached by picture researcher Vicky Wright who provided some images of woollen bathing costumes.
A spokesman for Better, a charitable social enterprise that is the customer facing brand for GLL, which manages Keswick Leisure Pool on behalf of Allerdale Borough Council, would not expand on the future of the facility but did say: “We are in ongoing discussions with Allerdale Borough Council regarding a timetable for reopening leisure facilities across Allerdale.”
