Enjoy!

Moseley Road Baths Tour from Alex Gamela on Vimeo.

This year’s Memories and Memorabilia Day forms an important element of Pool of Memories, the three-year history project for which we have received a Heritage Lottery Fund Your Heritage grant.

An exhibition showing a selection of the photos, video film, reminiscences and artefacts already collected by the Friends of Moseley Road Baths as part of the Pool of Memories project will be on display and we’re really keen for those amongst you who swam, washed, worked, dived or danced at the baths to add your own memories (and memorabilia) to our growing archive by recounting and possibly recording your stories to our oral history volunteers who will be on hand for just this purpose.

Following last year’s superb illustrated talk by Played in Britain series editor Simon Inglis’ on Britain’s historic indoor swimming pools, we are delighted to welcome Neil Bonner from the Victoria Baths Trust in Manchester who will tell (and show) us all about the past, present and future of these glorious Grade II* baths (winners of the BBC’s inaugural Restoration series in 2003)! Neil’s presentation is scheduled for 2:15pm.

As in previous years, we’ll be providing guided tours of Moseley Road Baths, including the Gala Pool and ‘slipper’ baths.

There will be three tours (Noon; 1:00pm and 3:30pm), and we’ve been asked by the Council to limit the number of places per tour to 20, so advance booking is advised. Tours start from the Church (why this is will become clear on the day) and will last just over 1 hour. Please note that the tours take in areas of the Baths where there are steep steps and uneven surfaces.  Places will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis. To book please e-mail us at memories@friendsofmrb.co.uk marking your e-mail ‘Baths Tour’ and stating which tour you would like to go on.

Admittance to Memories and Memorabilia Day is free and refreshments will be available, although donations to the Friends of Moseley Road Baths group are most welcome. Car parking is available at the church centre (Mary Street entrance).

We look forward to seeing you all.

The vast majority of people who enter the building are quickly won over to fiercely believing that this valuable and unique facility should be restored to its former glory and kept for the purpose for which it was intended – a comprehensive swimming facility to serve local residents.

Having that discussion with the current state of the building and the contempt of some decision makers isn’t easy.  It can sometimes take a big stretch of the imagination to see how neglected areas can be brought back into use.

However, Alex Gamela and others on the HashBrum team have done some great work on documenting last Saturday’s ‘Memories and Memorabilia Day’ and showing both the passion and potential of the campaign.  Here is Alex’s film which I think captures the bittersweet feelings of so many of us really well.  Thanks ever so much!

Steve Beauchampé who has been a member of the group from the beginning and is the co-author of ‘Played in Birmingham’, which charts the heritage of Birmingham at play, led two tours of the building.  The tours took the public into areas that have been unopen for many years.  Apologies for all those who were unable to make the tour, we really were pushing the limits of how many people we could get in!  If you didn’t get round to putting your name down for future tours then please drop us a line at contact@friendofmrb.co.uk to be added to the list.

Just one of many bits of memorabilia shared with us

Simon Inglis’ talk on the history of swimming in Britain and Moseley Road Baths’ important place in this was standing room only.  He has some marvellous photos of historic pools, including images of a floating greenhouse on the Thames!  If you liked what you heard then there are several books in the ‘Played in Britain’ series which document Britain at play, including ‘Great Lengths’ featuring Moseley Road Baths, which are available from our group or online at www.playedinbritain.co.uk.

1890s Swimming Costume from Joan Gurney's collection

Joan Gurney brought along her impressive selection of historic swimming costumes to display.  Whilst the days of knitting your own swimming costume are thankfully behind us, there were some really gorgeous and fashionable outfits.  Perhaps wearing shoes to swim won’t catch on again, but many of the costumes made your average set of speedos look rather dull!

Thanks should also go to the groups who put on stalls and some really good displays.  Mentions here for the Victorian Society, Friends of Sparkhill Baths and Balsall Heath Local History Society who were showcasing their ‘Tales Out of School’ project.

To learn more about the day and our campaign, Andrew Brightwell and other students on an MA Online Journalism course documented the day and have put a selection of articles and films up on the HashBrum website, including some videos of yours truly getting rather excitable talking about the possibilities of the building!

I was also on hand to conduct filmed interviews with members of the public who wanted to share their memories.  Gordon Whittle brought along some fantastic photos from Woodcock Street Baths and shared his memories of working at Moseley Road Baths from 1970 onwards.  However, it was May Allen who trumped everyone to the earliest memory of the pools by a couple of decades; she recalls swimming there in 1938!

If you missed out on the opportunity to share your memories with us then please contact us to request a form to share your memories.  We will strive to put a downloadable form on here shortly, but in the meantime please e-mail us at contact@friendofmrb.co.uk in order for us to send the form out to you.  We really value all contributions, even if it is currently taking us a while to process them.  Hopefully our funding application to the Heritage Lottery Fund will be successful, enabling us to do more than simply scratch the surface of these amazing memories!

Some of the costumes date back to the Edwardian era – so come and see how the first swimmers in our pool may have been dressed when they went for a dip!

Joan is a swimming historian who will be on hand on the day to answer questions and show you her exhibits.

We would also encourage you to search around at home and bring old costumes of your own, however embarrassing!  We are starting our own collection of swimming costumes, accessories, certificates, badges – in fact anything to do with swimming – as part of our oral history project. Come on the 31st October to the Memories and Memorabilia Day to share your memories!

As we are a small voluntary group we’re reliant on people passing on the word to other people. We’re always completely overwhelmed by what a great response we get. If you’ve not told people around you then please take the time to let others know about the event. Full details are here:

http://www.friendsofmrb.co.uk/2009/10/memories-and-memorabilia-day/

We’re also eager to hear from anyone who wants to share their memories, so if you want to be interviewed drop us a line at contact@friendsofmrb.co.uk. Likewise, if you want to bake a cake or have an unusual costume you can dig out to show us then let us know!

Moseley Road Baths 102^nd Birthday celebration

Saturday, October 31st, 12:00-4:30pm

Moseley Road Methodist Church, Balsall Heath

The Friends of Moseley Road Baths (FofMRB) group is staging its second Memories and Memorabilia day to celebrate the 102nd birthday of Moseley Road Baths, one of Britain’s most historic and architecturally significant swimming baths.

The free event runs from 12:00-4:30pm on Saturday, October 31st, at Moseley Road Methodist Church, directly opposite the baths and will include:

• A 1hr illustrated talk (starting at 2:00pm) on historic pools by Birmingham-born Simon Inglis, co-author of the recent English Heritage book, Great Lengths – the historic indoor swimming pools of Britain.

• An exhibition of photos, video film, reminiscences and artefacts including old swimming costumes provided by swimming historian Joan Gurney.

• Guided tours of the baths building, (including the Gala Pool and ‘slipper’ baths) at 12:30 and 15:30.

• A trip on the Virtual Tour of the baths.

• Activities for children with a swimming theme.

• Stalls from local history groups and community swimming organisations.

• Complimentary refreshments

Visitors will be encouraged to recount (and record) their own memories and bring along their own memorabilia for use in the three-year Pool of Memories project, for which the FofMRB recently submitted a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund.