BC - RECORDS OF BATH CITY COUNCIL AND BATH & NORTH EAST SOMERSET COUNCIL
- BC/13 - Bath as a Spa, Cultural and Tourist centre: records of Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council's responsibilities for culture, leisure and tourism
  - BC/13/12 - Records relating to the Thermae Bath Spa
    - BC/13/12/1 - Records relating to the Bath Spa Project (1997-2006)
      - BC/13/12/1/1 - Audio recordings of interviews conducted to aid in the development of displays for the Spa Visitor Centre, Bath

Interview with Veronica Macmillan who recalls her experience of learning to swim in the Cross Bath, Bath.

Reference Number: BC/13/12/1/1/11
Alternative Reference Number: 0779
Level of Description: Item
Title: Interview with Veronica Macmillan who recalls her experience of learning to swim in the Cross Bath, Bath.
Date: c.2005
Extent: Extent: 1 minidisc
Description: An audio recording of an interview with Veronica Macmillan who describes her experience of learning to swim at the Cross Bath.

This interview, along with others, was conducted to aid in the development of visitor displays at the Spa Visitor Centre, which opened in August 2006. Further details of the date and location of the recording have not been captured, and it is not clear who is conducting the interview.

The recording is 00:01:43 long with the interviewer’s voice coming in at 00:00:02. Below are the extracts of what was said during the interview. Please note this is not a complete transcript as the superfluous conversation in between questions has been removed:

[Veronica Macmillan] ‘I used to have swimming lessons in the Cross Bath in Bath with a lady called Mrs Shepard. This would have been in about 1967, 68 when I was five or six. I can remember incredibly vividly walking in and especially on a cold day it would be a very mysterious place with steam coming up off the water. Couldn't see across to the other side of the bath at all.
We used to have to get changed first of all in funny little open air changing rooms. I'm sure that they must have had a roof but I can't really remember it. I just remember them being really cold because the wind would be coming underneath and tugging around your ankles. They didn't have doors, they had green oil skin type curtains which you'd have to pull across and shiver in while you were getting changed.
Then when we came out the water was dark green and very murky and I was absolutely convinced that the bath was completely bottomless because you never ever felt the bottom in it. And now when I look through the window and I can see that it's actually not that deep at all it astonishes me because it was terrifying at the time.
The lady who taught us was very scary as well and she'd tie a rope around our middle and drag us around the swimming bath to make us swim. And she would also have a very long wooden pole that she'd poke us with if we were holding on to the edge or not doing anything properly. But we all learnt to swim there and had lessons with another friend. My mother can also very vividly remember her going blow, blow which didn't really help very much either. So it was an amazing place to learn, very special but really rather alarming’.
Existence and Location of Copies: Digitised MP3 versions are available on Preservica via internal access at Bath Record Office.