Gordon I Gandy Posted August 25, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2011 Just to update everybody on Adrian Moorhouse - he visited the baths to officially open the new gym, which was part of a £60,000 cash injection for the leisure centre. I trawled through quite a few newspaper articles to get the info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon I Gandy Posted August 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2011 This is from Richard J. Delahunty Jnr in the good ol' USA. A long way from Warrington now but reading so many comments concerning Leigh St. Baths brought back many memories. I am sure many of us in our declining years will recall that the ‘10’s with the addition of the wooden floor, served as an emergency first aid centre for a large part of World War II. Philip Delahunty’s grandfather, Richard J. Delahunty was in the ARP at that time and despite his full time occupation in charge of the Roastery at Walkers Brewery ( the inventers of the famous Christmas brew ‘Winny’ after Churchill, of course) spent many a night there as well as fire watching. It was a place I knew well as a child, not just for the swimming baths but with an in depth knowledge of the exterior also. You see, the managers of the Drill Hall were Mr. & Mrs. Packwood and their son Derek and I were great pals. We would leave the Drill Hall through upstairs windows and clamber all over the roofs, finding our own way of breeching the gap between the baths and the Drill Hall. As children, those war years held no fear for us and all the military practice that went on at the Drill Hall were just great fun for us, specifically having ‘friends’ who would provide us with mercury(II) fulminate, or Hg(CNO)2 from hand grenades! (and yet I am still alive!). Happy days and then scampering home across Bank Park hoping that ‘Daddy Owl’ the park keeper would not catch us for cutting across the Park lawns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Newall Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 Those illicit photos brought back many happy memories. I was a pupil at Richard Fairclough Secondary Modern School (Dickie Flourbags) from 1956 to 1960, and we were taken regularly by bus to the Legh Street baths for swimming lessons by Mr Anderson. I was mad keen on swimming in my teens, so much so that I had a season ticket. The baths had a workshop where my grandfather Jim Gibbins worked. He was a carpenter by trade and I would go and find him in the workshop after I had been swimming. I knew that area of Warrington well, I was in the army cadets which used the drill hall for training. I spent a year at Warrington Infirmary out of the three years that I did training as a nurse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 There was a cafe opposite the Baths, where we used to get a hot dog on the way home, or we'd call in the old market for stuffing butty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
algy Posted October 17, 2011 Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 They're not hanging about with the redevelopment of the site, I passed yesterday and the steelwork is well on its way, anyone know what it is going to be when finished (no wisecracks by the residents please such as - a building). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted October 17, 2011 Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 I think it's going to be a health centre in some kind of pass the parcel type deal involving Garvin Place and the town halls administration. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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