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MEMORIES Sir Robin MacLellan CBE Where was I? Westbourne Church or the Western Baths? To a 4-year-old in the snell winter of 1919/20 both seemed hugely mysterious. Both had balconies; both were filled with curious sounds called echoes. One, however, had a kind of basin up front, where a man in a gown washed babies' heads on Sunday mornings. Presumably the Western Baths?
The manner in which my dear Grandmother dressed dissolved all confusion. Muffs and furs and fashionable hats equalled Sunday equalled Church equalled Westbourne. But all connection to with the same lady had to be hotly and cravenly denied when school-fellows mocked her appearance in the other place clad in black cotton bathing costume and rubber cap. I can still feel those lumps of cotton woll (Granny-speak 'wadding') being rammed down my ears. Little boys, I recall, were allowed to mingle with the ladies - or was it the other way around?
A family move to Helensburgh in 1923 ended Phase 1 of my connection with the Baths. Phase 2 began after World War Two, when my wife and I came to live in Kelvin Drive. Faces - and figures - are clear, names not quite so. But I do recall Keith Lyon, Scott Pearson, Ross Higgins, Archie P. Lee, Jamieson Clark, Arthur Sutherland, David Marhsall and Graham Hardie and his sons Bonar and Donald. And of course Mr Jamieson and Tommy. (Did Mr J have a first name?) I look back to those early evenings at the Baths with considerable pleasure. A haven of coolness in the summer and warmth in the winter. Would that the weighing machine told the same tale now.
Then came another move, to a district that made membership of the Western Baths (and indeed Westbourne Church) less convenient. Thanks to good Cranworth Street training I have kept up my slow labourious swimming.
So picture me in a public baths, with a couple of local sprats tadpoling around me, my white head and majestic chassis moving majestically along. Clearly I had made a great impression. "Whit's Yer name, mister?" asks Sprat No.1. "MacLellan." Then triumphantly, to his pal, "There! Ah telt you it wisnae Father McGuire!"
It couldn't have happened at the Western Baths.
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