MEMORIES FROM PAM AND ARTHUR BARRETT
We moved to the Island in 1973 and at that time we had no knowledge of the pool. Our first recollection is a few years after when we started to bring our grandchildren to the pool. The pool was then actually open, albeit with quite primitive dressing rooms, which appeared dark and with quite temporary flooring. As the building progressed the changing rooms for male and female swapped about.
Access to the pool was gained by paying, when entering the main gate, in a little wooden shed and handing in the ticket at the pool. Memories also of one Saturday afternoon, along with other volunteers, hacking and stamping down the rough ground where the clinic now stands, to form a temporary care park.
The gradual and more permanent development of the dressing rooms and showers, the addition of the learner pool, diving boards, etc., came about gradually up to the present-day Sports Centre. All this is mainly due to a small band of people who had the foresight and ‘stickability’ to give up their time over a long period.
West Wight Swimming Pool
