This film was made by Sheffield grocer George Surgey. Surgey made a number of 16mm family films in Sheffield during the 1930s. He had a strong sense of humour that shows in his films, not least in Sheffield Spartan Swimmers. His son Keith, who can be seen very young in the films, has written an unpublished account of his father’s life over 20 years retelling many humorous anecdotes relating to his father.  Joy Batham, whose father Bert is on the film - play acting at the beginning, and...

This film was made by Sheffield grocer George Surgey. Surgey made a number of 16mm family films in Sheffield during the 1930s. He had a strong sense of humour that shows in his films, not least in Sheffield Spartan Swimmers. His son Keith, who can be seen very young in the films, has written an unpublished account of his father’s life over 20 years retelling many humorous anecdotes relating to his father.  Joy Batham, whose father Bert is on the film - play acting at the beginning, and pretending to shiver near the end - has collected numerous newspaper cuttings featuring the Spartan Swimmers, copies of which the YFA now holds.

It might be that Surgey came from a family that originally came from Russia, his great great grandfather anglicizing his name Sergei to Thomas Surgey, and who was known as "Russian Tom" by his mates at work. However, Thomas Surgey was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, and his father died when he was just two, in 1851; and at age 12 he ended up in a Horncastle workhouse.  After working as a sailor on ships in the Baltic Sea he eventually settled in Sheffield. 

Whether this is the family history or not, Surgey himself thought that he was descended from a titled family, hence the appellation ‘The Bold Sir guy’, in the film. His grocery shop at Woodseats can be seen in the film, and he and his friends for several years used to get up every morning of the year at 7.15 to walk the 2 miles down to  Millhouses Pool. 

The idea of ‘Spartan’ swimming clubs goes back some time, and similar ones existed elsewhere; some of which are still going, such as the one at Brighton. The word ‘Spartan’ is taken from the ancient Greek state of Sparta, which, partly due to a need for land because of its own its poor soil, developed a strong militaristic state. The word can be applied either to a situation or to character traits that the Spartans developed: hence the connotations include discipline, simplicity, hardiness and self-denial. In the film the swimmers certainly exhibit hardiness – or foolhardiness! As can be seen from the film, the group often played practical jokes on each other. 

One regular swimmer in the pool, whose father was a ‘Spartan’, recalls that to qualify as a member one had to swim every morning of the year; and that, ‘for many years the Telegraph and Star used to publish photos of the ice being broken for the Spartan dip.’ But another user of Sheffield Forum has a post which states: ‘we both became "Spartans" after swimming every Sunday morning throughout the winter and Christmas Day and broke the ice on several occasions. I remember the admission was 9d., but if you were a "Spartan" you got in free.’ It isn’t known exactly when the Spartan club ceased its activities, but it continued into the 1950s when there used to be a bandstand outside the pool entrance. After the Second World War the large pool was divided into two and re-named ‘the lido’. Some of the film is at Langley Park.

Like so many others, the lido at Millhouses closed in 1989 due to high running costs, although the park is still there. The original pool had changing rooms, as seen in the film, with floors paved with gravestones from St Mary’s Church (at the time there was a shortage of building materials).  The tea room that can be seen in the film was at the back of Millhouses Pub.  According to a post on the online Sheffield Forum, ‘Millhouses swimming pool had the coldest water in the world outside Alaska, as well as the highest diving board’.  The site of the lido is now a grass field with a children’s adventure playground and a skate board area. Posts on the Sheffield Forum testify to how extremely popular it was right through the 1950s, 60s and 70s.  The boating lake and café are still there. Other contributors to the Sheffield Forum remember the lines of ice cream vans (Granelli and Manfredie) that formed outside the park – presumably not when it was snowing though!

Next to the lido were paddling pools that on one occasion became flooded with contaminated water and had to be closed because of the dangers of infection. There is some dispute as to exactly what was contaminated and where from. One version has it that it came form the nearby River Sheaf; another has it that a "red"  liquid, natural iron ore in the ground (although possibly containing lead), seeped into it from land drainage coming from under the railway tracks, but starting from a spring that flows down through Hutcliffe woods.  

Another contributor to the Sheffield Forum – whose father was the superintendant at Millhouses for many years – maintains that: ‘The baths were originally just one pool . .  about three times larger than an Olympic sized pool. The water for the pool was continuously bled in from the river, through filter beds and a chlorination system, so yes it was cold, but it was the only pool where you could not detect the chlorine in the water, it was like swimming in a mountain lake.’ He also states that: ‘There was a scare during the polio epidemic in Sheffield – probably in the late 1940's – it was rumoured that the pool used raw water and was threatened with closure. I remember the water was tested by the "Officials" and it was found to be spot on so the pool remained open.’ However, apparently there was a sad case of a death in the old swimming pool and the body wasn't found for several days because the water was so murky.

As with many leisure activities, swimming started as an activity in its own right in the seventeenth century at British seaside resorts, where it was linked to water therapy. Lidos originally derive from the town of that name at the northern end of Venice, and which has for a long time been a fashionable resort.  From there the name started to be used in the 19th century for many fashionable beach resorts, or outside public swimming pools, across Europe.  Before the advent of holidays abroad, lidos were extremely popular: in the 1930s 169 were built across Britain. Many of these were beautiful art deco buildings. 

Most of these have now closed: outdoor swimming pools have never had proper public funding. However, there are a significant number of pools still open, and attitudes are beginning to change, thanks to campaigners like the London Pools Campaign. The Twentieth Century Society ran a campaign to save lidos and in particular to get Scarborough lido, South Bay Pool closed in 1989, as a listed site. The YFA has a lot of film of this in its heyday.  But this has now been filled in, and the promised redevelopment has not materialised at the time of writing (March 2009). 

The great social value of open-air swimming pools in bringing people together is beginning to be recognised, and many are starting to reopen, some with roofs to allow for winter use. As Sir Josiah Stamp said at the opening of the Morecambe Super Swimming Stadium in 1936: "When we get down to swimming, we get down to democracy."  Only in this case it is the Spartans, the enemies of democrat Athens, that show the way.

(With special thanks to Michael Hardy)

References

 Thomas van Leeuwen, The Springboard on the Pond: An Intimate History of The Swimming Pool, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999. This is written in relation to the US experience of swimming and swimming pools, but goes well beyond this. 

Janet Smith, Liquid Assets: the lidos and open air swimming pools of Britain, English Heritage, London, 2005.

Posts on Sheffield Forum One and Two

Lidos in the UK

This has a wealth of information and links to other sources, including a list other films featuring lidos.

The Twentieth Century Society campaign to save lidos

This also has an interesting historical overview of lidos.

Information on lidos, past and present: Lidos and Outdoor swimming pools in the UK

Nice photos of old lidos at Lost Lidos, but at the time of writing (October 2009) none on Sheffield