TAKING a daredevil plunge from on high usually ended up with rebel schoolboy divers being yanked - kicking and struggling - from the choppy waters of the St Helens public baths, before being propelled into the streets outside.

For those young Tarzans were not only risking their own lives and limbs, they were also putting other swimmers in peril by leaping off a high balcony surrounding the packed oblong pool.

Moss Bank reader Harry Bradbury swims back to the mid-1950s in remembering those hair-raising episodes, durings an era of simple boyhood pleasures when Boundary Road baths were crowded to bursting point every Saturday morning.

Harry was then part of a junior-school gang which included his brother Michael, Harry Flood and Mike Manning whose dad, Arthur, was a well-known local swimmer and water polo player.

It was Arthur who taught the the gang how to swim.

"I think it cost threepence in admission for the boys and sixpence for adults back in 1956," says Harry. Grown-ups got changed in cubicles, fitted with stable-type doors, which ran along the sides of the pool. But the kids had to scamper up stone steps near the shallow end to reach what was known as 'the boys' penny balcony.'

They changed on slatted benches, bundling up their clothing inside their knotted jacket sleeves and carefully hiding any odd coppers inside a sock, stuffed into the toe of a shoe.

"I don't know how we kids ever managed to learn to swim," says Harry, "because the shallow end was always a mass of small bobbing heads."

Further down, where it became gradually deeper, far fewer young swimmers ventured. They liked the security of being able to stretch a toe tip to the tiled bottom of the swimming pool while splashing about

"But," Harry recalls, "now and then you'd see some young lad squeeze between the balcony's safety rail and leap into the deeper water, about 15ft below.They were nearly always caught and thrown out."

Swimming sessions were followed by a quick shower before passing a battery of small cubicles on the way out.

"Looking inside, you would see a white enamelled bath and a chair with a folded towel and small bar of soap on it."

These cubicles were mainly used by factory workers who could enjoy at least one good, private scrub-down a week.

"Most workers then had to make do with a tin tub brought in from the backyard," explains Harry. This was then parked in front of the open coal fire before being filled with kettles and pans of boiling water, heated up on the old black-iron range or the gas stove. Before leaving the baths, Harry and his urchin gang would pause to watch the Teddy-boys operating the Brylcreme dispensing machines. Their pennies were rewarded with a good squirt of the stuff which was rubbed enthusiastically into the hair before the great combing ritual.

Harry used to look-on fascinated as the Teddies carefully swept back their locks before the final flick of the comb to achieve the desired quiff at the front. "It amounted to street cred in those days."

Once they had tumbled out onto the pavements, Harry's gang would dig deep into their trouser pockets. "If we'd a spare copper, we'd cross the road to Greenalls, the bakers, to buy a delicious crispy roll, fresh from the ovens."

A few coppers more could purchase an extra-special treat. A back entry to the rear of Horace Street led to an unlocked back door. There, in the verandah, an old lady, whose name is now forgotten, was busy making her own steak pies for sale.

"These were delicious and always piping hot," recalls Harry, "and they were very difficult to eat without spilling gravy all over your shirt front. But somehow we managed it ..."

It was a different world during Harry's 'fifties childhood, spent in Wilson Street, St Helens.

Schoolboy gangs were very territorial by nature, forming individual groups from kids living as neighbours or from no further than two or three adjoining side-streets away.

Streets beyond that boasted various gangs of their own, and confrontation was avoided by being very careful not to step into rival territory.

But that was the only small shadow over a childhood spent in times when it was safe to roam at large with little fear of being knocked down by heavy traffic, being mugged or confronted by sex freaks and other undesirables.

THANKS, Harry, for that pleasant little ramble down Memory Lane...

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