I was having my post-yoga swim in the pool at Kirkstall Leisure Centre this morning when a 10 year old dive bomber reminded me of Garston Baths and another lifetime. Nowadays, the swimmers like me are neatly cordoned off from school holiday mayhem and even that is 'health and safeteyed' into submission

In the 60s noone would have understood what a "leisure centre" was or going to a "pool" for a swim. Garston Baths was about a mile and a half from where me, Steve, Luke and Fizzy all lived at Aigburth. Outings to the Baths was a daytime escape for us from the age of 11 upwards. It's now been levelled and is being offered as a 'site for redevelopment'.

On a Saturday we would extract 2 shillings (10p) from our parents and catch the 82c bus down to Garston for an adventure. Garston was rough - still is. So it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that we entered the old victorian era baths with numerous nooks and crannies and changing cubicles, with wild west saloon style doors, running down the sides of the pool. No locks.

The noise was usually deafening and it was everyman (and woman) for themselves. Anarchy prevailed with only the occasional intervention by an attendant (who were usually the scariest people there) when an ambulance was needed or the smell of riot was in the air. There were two pools as I remember it and you could promenade between the two if you needed to chill away from the psychopaths.

Dive-bombing was de rigeur and I don't think it ever occurred to us to use this leisure opportunity for swimming. It was all so exciting and edgy for genteel Aigburth residents like us and we all emerged high as kites and starving.

Then it was decision time. An enormous and painful dilemma. Remember we'd started with 2 shillings.

Sixpence fare in each direction and a schilling to get into the Baths.
We had sixpence left, - just enough to get us home by bus.
We could either take the bus back home or, lulled by the siren smells of the chippy across the road and the prospect of Wooly's broken biscuits, blow the sixpence on food and walk it on our tired little legs.

Sixpence worth of chips usually won the day and I have no regrets. I've never tasted better or enjoyed better company.