Portobello Open-Air Pool

      

          Poster based on a painting by Tom Curr.

We might only manage it on a couple of occasions over the school summer holidays, but one highlight was spending the day out at Portobello Pool. On one occasion I can recall being there with a very glamorous group of Oxgangs girls, mainly from the Patricia Browne dance group including the lovely Audrey Smith (6/8 Oxgangs Street) and the McKenna sisters (Oxgangs Farm Drive). 

Mrs McKenna and two of her daughters Winnie and Caroline

When I was quite young even going off a low board or to contemplate a swim out to the raft was probably beyond me. Before I could swim properly I somehow thought if only I had a pair of swim-goggles then I'd be fine and that when the raft was quiet and free from the older boisterous lads I might be able to make my way out there one day such was my lofty ambition.

The pool seemed to have seen endless summers and we never considered that one day it would be torn down. After all even my father who was 30 years older than me had dived off the top when he was but a lad in the 1930s.

Ken Hoffmann

It was a great place too for meeting girls, early romances or cementing existing ones. Because we had travelled so far and we only had a small amount of money you wanted to stay there for a good chunk of the day; but even on the sunniest of days your ardour might be slightly cooled as often at some point during the day you felt cold and huddled under your towel hopefully cuddling up to the opposite sex whilst sharing some chips which always seemed to be heavily salted with vinegar. And then when the wave-machine came back on we were all immediately drawn back into the water once again.

I recall Liz and Fiona Blades (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue) and me crossing the whole of Edinburgh by busses the seven miles from the hills to the sea, Oxgangs to Portobello to the beautiful Art Deco Portobello Open Air Pool nowsadly demolished - just imagine having such a cultural asset as a lido today

Photo by Danny Callaghan.

After enjoying playing in the pool, balancing on the raft and the high dives and then spending our bus fares at the fun-fair we made our weary way a mile distant to 45 Durham Road to be refreshed, watered and fed turning up unannounced at my grandparents' doorstep starving.

Nana and Gaga as they were affectionately known by we three grandchildren were never daunted when I arrived with a group of pals. A grand tea and spread was always rattled up from nothing,usually a small plate (on the famous local Buchan Pottery) of bacon, egg and fried potatoes followed by scones and home made strawberry jam and a plate of buns.

The table at 45 Durham Road, an atypical spread; photograph Heather Robertson

Whilst Liz and Fiona behaved immaculately in my grandparents' presence there was a streak of mischief to them too. I recall while visiting the loo and mid-flow casually glancing up to the upper window to see them balancing precariously on the windowsill, laughing and giggling away, whilst looking in at me having a pee - God, I almost wet myself!

To top off the day we were then chauffeur driven home in my grandfather's big grey Ford Zephyr; once back home we'd sleep well before the Big Ben repeater alarm bells at 6/2 and 6/6 Oxgangs Avenue rang out early the following morning, the bells calling us to papers rather than to church; aye we had to pay for such innocent pleasures.