stewamax wrote:I went to Rhyl Grammar School, and swimming lessons (or just swimming) in Rhyl Baths were compulsory. They were unheated, and no allowance was made nor excuses accepted for the glacial water temperature in the Spring. We felt the school motto should have been "Mens sana in corpore frigore".
Ha. Reminds me of the outdoor pool at my school. A bequest specifically for the pool was enough money to offer the choice of either heating the pool or installing some wrought iron ornamental gates. Of course the decision was made to install the gates.
In April the water was cold enough to turn your skin blue, and it did.
It did not help that the schoolmaster who invigilated the pool was of course the most homosexual of all the masters, whose nickname affectionately coined by the pupils was "Hooker". He would ensure that each boy entering the frigid pool was administered a sharp smack on the buttocks.
Now he would be arrested and put on the child sex offenders list. Then he was merely considered a character-building anomaly.
Happy days. Sorry for the digression.