Turnstone column: Hunstanton writer John Maiden reflects back on a sponsored walk to raise money for Hunstanton’s old swimming pool
In his weekly Turnstone column, Hunstanton writer John Maiden discusses footpath news and the building of Hunstanton’s old swimming pool…
Last Thursday morning it was refreshing to wake up to the news that the coastal footpath between Hunstanton and Sutton Bridge had finally been completed with the inclusion of a seven mile stretch from Snettisham to Lynn.
In my opinion it is a great pity that acquisition of land to accommodate a railway line was not included at the same time.
Shortly after I started teaching at Hunstanton Secondary Modern School (now Smithdon) in 1970, I took part in two sponsored walks involving members of staff as well as students.
Coaches dropped us off at Wolferton station and we trudged back along the track bed of the Lynn to Hunstanton Railway, which had been axed the previous year, for reasons based on false information.
The rails were removed with indecent haste to prevent rail enthusiasts from taking over the railway, thereby disproving the dubious statistics on which the arguments in favour of closure were based.
For this reason, anyone seeing the sponsored walkers on the railway track bed in 1970 might have thought it was part of a campaign to bring back the railway, or to transform the disused railway line into a cycleway and public footpath.
Either of these two options would have made perfect sense, but the purpose of the sponsored walk was to raise money to build a swimming pool at the school.
The urgent need for a new swimming pool, was due to the fact that the public swimming pool, in which previous generations of local school children had learned to swim since it opened in 1928, had been demolished in October 1967 without warning or consultation with local users.
These included the chairman of Hunstanton Seagulls swimming club, Colin Brooke, who owned the adjacent Kit Kat with his younger brother, Peter.
Perhaps the fact that Hunstanton Urban District Council failed to provide any kind of replacement swimming pool, prior to its demise under local government reorganisation in 1974, was a key factor in the secondary school getting its teaching pool without a long wait.
The same cannot be said for the local inhabitants and visitors who had to wait until 1984 until the Oasis Leisure Centre opened, complete with an indoor, heated bathing pool.
With the Oasis coming to the end of its forty years lifespan for a public building (be it hospital or leisure centre) the Hunstanton Advisory Group appears to be considering a replacement for the Blue Lagoon swimming pool, which would provide an opportunity to hold galas and stage water polo matches, and could include a diving basin.
If built in an art deco style it might even help to bring back the resort's lost character. The Blue Lagoon name was, I believe, taken from a film in the 1940's.
I mention this here, because a film about the life of Mercedes Gleitze is being released in the near future, so the stage is set for the opening of a new a new chapter in the history of my home town.
For the benefit of newcomers to the area, Mercedes was the first English woman to swim the English Channel, which is why she was invited to open our swimming pool in 1928.
The following year she swam The Wash, starting from Lincolnshire and coming ashore at Heacham.
Her name should be linked to the creation of a new Blue Lagoon. It is highly apropriate to mention Mercedes, since this column was written on International Women's Day.
