As a kid I disliked the public swimming baths in my home town of Preston, especially when pressed to go with school. It was a huge smelly, echoey brick box filled with chemically dead water, the chlorine gas rising from the pool like fog, through which screaming grubby boys somersaulted into the deep end like depth charges as we gawped at a sign that said No Heavy Petting, wondering on the school bus back what on earth it could be!
Even worse were the changing rooms. Stinking steaming cubicles with clothes baskets and a tiny bench. The very worst thing was the sodden floor, awash with chlorinated trunks bilge, snot, piss and Christ knows what!
The only good features of those God-forsaken baths were the medallions you got for surviving the ordeal - I got to Intermediate - and the mug of hot sweet tea in the cafe afterwards, slowly dissolving an everlasting chew strip in your mouth whilst drinking cha.
All in all it put me off public baths for life.
Well this week in Germany we took the Grandkids to the very opposite of those rank depths, the very mirror of their crud. A modern multi-bath emporium of liquid fun: clean, family friendly, quiet, calm and simply wunderbar.
Fun pools, baby shallows, salt baths, warm outdoor pools, hot tubs, curving slides, tipping buckets, loungers, cafes, saunas and best if all a circular flume.
Yes, sports swimming pools were there too for keen crawlers but who wants them!
The kids adored the place and we've been twice in three days.
What was and what is your public baths experience readers?
