WITH the temperatures soaring and everyone working themselves up into a sweat just to stay cool, wouldn’t it be nice to have an outdoor swimming pool to have a leisurely dip in?

Well, you can’t!

The council closed the Abergavenny pool in 1996 due to health and safety issues and a lack of funding.

But what we do have is a few pictures to get misty-eyed over and a tale to tell.

The Bailey Park swimming pool was 44 yards long by 14 yards wide, was over eight feet deep, and held 162,000 gallons of water. It was opened by Mayor W. Rosser in April 1940, but is now all dried up.

In April 2006, Monmouthshire County Council decided to fill in the main pool and the adjoining learner pool due to concerns about vandalism.

Only grass remains and one or two of the original walls, which still stand in mute testimony to Abergavenny’s aquatic adventures.

Never shy to take a long and meandering trip down memory lane to rake up the past and muddy the waters, the late journalist Don Chambers once told the Chronicle, “When I became a pupil at King Henry VIII Grammar School in the 1940s, I found there was more to learning than Latin and algebra. An hour or so on one day every week during the summer, we had ‘swimming lessons’ which meant a trip to the pool in Bailey Park to avoid drowning.

“We ran like gazelles, charging down Pen-y-Fal Road and across the Fairfield to the little gate at the very end while taking off various items of clothing en route. By the time we reached the pool, it was just one final ‘strip tease act’ and we were in the water.

“The best part was not splashing ice-cold water over ourselves but plunging in before anyone else. To be first meant the title-holder for that day was revered and even looked up to, even if the ‘winner’ was gasping for breath and had to be pulled out.

“In later years, when I became a reporter, I was invited by Mr Dyer, the pool superintendent, to watch him dive into the inviting waters - in mid-winter. With snow on the ground and ice on the pool, he cut a narrow lane from end to end. As I watched him I shuddered. I never became a strong or even an enthusiastic swimmer - but I did admire that man’s courage.”

In an edition of the Abergavenny Chronicle from 1967, it’s reported that the record attendance at Bailey Park swimming pool in one day was 2,025 people.

The report states that Mr Dyer is a retired and unbeaten area champion in the breaststroke and is assisted in looking after the pool by Mr W. Foulser.

It adds that Mr Dyer has been in charge of swimming pools for about 31 years, the last 20 at Bailey Park.

It reads, “In all these years, he has never had a serious accident at any of his pools. Over the season, an average of about 600-700 people a day visit the pool, and the record of 2,025 was in the early 1950s - a glorious day when a sheep dog trial was held in the adjoining park."

Imagine that!