The memories I have of this wonderful attraction. In my teeage years I lived at "THE POOL" during the summer with all my friends helping out as a lifeguard on busy weekends. It was a fabulous facility. 12000 bathers on a sunny day. The Pool was doomed from the day Southport was forced into Sefton. Due to lack of maintenance and neglect it became derelict. They could not find money to maintain it but managed to find the money to demolish it. Shame on them!!!
I agree with everything you say Brian. I too would spend my summer holidays there. A bottle of Tizer and a Kraft cheese slice sandwich and I was in heaven!
Ditto.... some crook friend of Derek Hatton got a £3M grant and cleared off with the cash! My dad was a lifeguard and swam to Blackpool and back in 1959... They used to do a Christmas day length swim in the pool after breaking the ice!
my parents used to take my sister and I on Sunday afternoons in the early 70s with a picnic. We had such a lovely time. I can't believe how awful Southport looks now. It used to be beautiful and very upmarket with some stunning properties and architecture. It's just dreadful now unfortunately.
Used to be such a wonderful day out back in the 70's. Great shopping in Lord Street too. I remember a specialist coffee shop that had such an amazing aroma that we used to go in just to enjoy the wonderful smell of all the different coffees they stocked. There was also another shop that stocked 100 different flavours of ice creams. Southport Open Air Baths was always my favourite though.
sick of sefton taking all the good things and putting eating places and coffee shops everywhere the kings gardens are OK but the rest sefton is wrecking and everyone's fed up
This is the unfortunate fate of so many attractions in seaside towns. Southport's history has been swept away by disastrous development and astonishingly shortsighted planning which has caused a slow and inexorable decline.
Yeah but development is essential to places like Southport. It helps bring the town into the 21st century. Same goes for Blackpool. And I know that Sefton Council aren't treating the town right either
Awesome video I grew up going here and stood with a petition outside the local spar to keep it open I was gutted when they pulled it down and put a brewers fayre on the site, shocking from the council
Is that the Alan Thomas from Kew who liked a sing song in the Volly, I used to go in the Volly on a monday with my Wife and used to pick you up a lot in my cab. Always a pleasure.
@@therespectedlex9794 Hi, We live in NZ so not been in since January 2016. It had changed its name then as well. All the old punters had died. Used to enjoy chatting to George Medway and others in there. We left in 2007
Southport is not an exciting place to visit anymore. Thousands of visitors would come to town on summer weekends. I used to love the open air baths and having stockingfeet in the Funhouse at the Pleasureland funfair. Sadly the baths went in the 1980s, and the funfair lost all the original rollercoasters and the cable cars.
Stephen Collins I remember swimming in it circa 1984 feeling like it had a reprieve.But I was aware the age of memories and magic was at a close.Pure Sausage.
My dad learnt to swim and did his lifesaving awards at the "Open Air". Endless hot summer days. I caught the last ten years before it fell into disrepair and closed down. If only the authorities had the foresight to save it ! Those pictures of it derelict are a shameful insult to the people who designed and built it. Still Morecambe and Grange Over Sands both made the same mistake with their "Open Airs"
What a great video, loads of happy memories going there with my mum in her 2CV in the 70's, it was a tad rundown even then in hindsight, not that it bother me at the time.
So many happy memories from my school days, I had a contract and spent all summer holidays with my friends, we used to sit on the top walkway to the right of the restaurant, all schools represented, Birkdale sec, Meaols cop Our lady od Lourdes, Christ church., thank for the memories
