By Ian Scott
I would have been about six when, along with my shivering classmates, I lined up along the edge of the pool and the large lady instructor told us to get into the water. Those who hesitated were given a hefty shove. I was one of them and the next minute the blue waters closed round my head and I was thrashing about the shallow end until the man with the long pole and hook fished me out by my trunks and deposited me in a soggy, gasping heap on the side. Thereafter I tried to dodge visits to the Pleasance though I was very much in the minority because the ‘Baths’ was one of the most popular places in the town as it had been from its first day in September 1932. The official opening of the handsome Art Deco building by Provost Archibald Logan was on a Friday and the next day 2000 people turned up for a dip and on the Sunday when the new pool was only open from 7.30am to 9.00am another 1000 joined the queue! Certainly the people had waited long enough. As far back as 1905 Robert Dollar had offered to pay towards a £3000 swimming pool in Grahamston provided the council agreed to take it over when it was ready. The councillors accepted the offer but then fell to arguing about where exactly it should be built with some wanting even bigger and more expensive facilities. Nothing was done and the idea was not revived until after the population had recovered from the Great War and its aftermath. Meantime the people of Grangemouth had pressed ahead with their own plan to build an outdoor pool in Zetland Park which opened in the 1920s. It was amazingly popular given the Scottish climate and for the next 50 years the hardy Portonians braved the elements until it was replaced by the new sports complex and pool in Abbots Road. The outdoor pool was demolished in 1972. But no matter how popular the new pool, there are still those who talk nostalgically of the great outdoor experience. It takes all sorts! Back in Falkirk Baths the great Bobby McGregor brought fame to the town in the 1960s but a decade later the building was falling well below the standards of the new style leisure pools which were appearing across the country. The decision to build the Mariner Centre in Camelon signalled the beginning of the end for the Pleasance. The Mariner opened officially in 1985 but by then the Howgate centre was well underway and the builders were advancing towards the old baths. I’m not sure when the last paying customer swam a length but sometime around 1983 the bulldozers arrived and the familiar building bit the dust. Nowadays almost all of our secondary schools have modern pools open to the public and our community has never been better served. Despite this excellent provision there are still many folk who cherish happy memories of the old places. I am not one of them.