PELLS POOL turned out to be one of those so-called ‘lidos’ that seemed to spring up everywhere during the 1930s. The lidos, many of them now fallen into disrepair, were intended by the noble and multitudinous Pleasure Grounds and Baths Committees of this country’s great local and borough councils to be necessary improvements upon and replacements for the old public baths and public park swimming lakes, many of which were themselves so far beyond disrepair at that time as to be most definitely unhygienic, if not entirely unusable. The lido craze had caught on everywhere: I remember back in London reading about the opening of a Tottenham Lido and a West Ham Lido, and I had myself on a number of occasions visited the famous Tooting Bathing Lake, which had been converted into a lido and become an unlikely south London tourist attraction.
Morley, perhaps surprisingly, was not a great fan of the lidos, believing them to be an example of the government interfering with and trying to control every Briton’s inalienable right to swim in unsafe, unfiltered and often stagnant water wheresoever, whensoever and howsoever they wished, entirely for free and at their own risk. In his essay ‘On Liberty and the Public Good’ (Amateur Philosopher, January 1936), which does not mention the lido, but which does worry about the public park, he argues that ‘To free individuals to act in accordance with their own best interests is a sure sign of a civilised society, just as to instruct individuals on how to use their freedom is a sure sign of the barbarous.’ His ideas on such matters were, admittedly, subject to change and often contradictory but fundamentally he believed that everyone should be left alone to take responsibility for their own lives, though he also believed that we should support and provide for those who were, for whatever reason, unable to take responsibility for themselves. Basically he believed in duty and in charity and in generosity and rather distrusted what he called ‘Bolshevik’ ideas about social justice and equality. Thus, he was generally anti things like the lidos – though at other times, he could be pro. He was the kind of liberal who no longer really exists in this country, or indeed in any other: he believed in the Enlightenment ideals of rationalism, yet he also believed that men were always unlikely to work in their own best interests, let alone the interests of others. His strongest and abiding belief was in the simple idea of Englishness. If only we could educate our fellow men in English habits of discipline, self-respect and good manners, then all would be well; and maybe, in his strange, complex, muddle-headed way, he was right.
Anyway, Pells Pool was a fine example of everything that Morley both hated and admired: a square-set, brick-built, municipal-type compound, provided for the public good, but which one had to pay for the privilege to enter.
A stone plaque on the wall outside stated that a freshwater swimming pool had first been established here – by public subscription – in 1860, which surely must have made it one of the oldest pools in England. I was keen to see inside. The new place had been opened as recently as 1935, and was surprisingly easy to crack into. I pulled myself up and over the main entrance gate, swanned past the ticket office and into the lido.
It was much, much larger than I’d expected – the pool was at least 50 feet wide and perhaps 150 feet long. There was a grassy lawn off to the right, with changing rooms signposted down at the far end. There were signs of recent building work or maintenance: piles of bricks, scaffolding planks, debris. The place was pleasantly cool and damp. I wondered idly if I might find the source of the spring that fed the pool.
(At St George’s, during the years we worked together, Morley undertook a number of ambitious aquatic landscaping projects of his own. There was a stream, for example, that was fed from a series of ponds that were in turn fed by various springs, that flowed eastwards down a slope past the north side of the house, ending in a large pool that had silted up. He spent hours – weeks, months – dredging that pool and using the silt and sludge to construct an island, upon which he eventually built a grotto-cum-bathing house, designed by someone who he claimed was a ‘trained Italian grottoist’, whatever that was, and who had imported decayed lava stone from Italy, constructing walls that glistened with water from hidden pipes designed to drip and cascade, depending on the weather. It was pretty awful. In an alcove sat a little marble Venus, being constantly spurted at. The place was inspired by a Moorish palace in Seville, according to the grottoist, though it might just as well have been inspired by a visit to the Windmill Theatre in Soho. But the pond became a very pleasant natural swimming pool, and I spent many happy hours there with Miriam over the years, lounging away what little remained of my youth. Looking back, I was a lucky man.)
Though it was still dark I could clearly see there was water in the pool. Looking closer it seemed to be only half full – just a few feet, rainwater perhaps, and there were leaves and branches, algae and scum floating on the top. I thought of the hundreds of boys and girls who had doubtless learned to swim here over the years.
I noticed that a large area of algae had collected down by the far end of the pool – a dark mass, darker even than the rest. I wondered if this might be the source of the spring water.
It was not.
It was a young woman, floating face down. She seemed to have something caught around her neck.
I waded in, fully clothed, and pulled the body to the side of the pool.
Lizzie Walter.
The Hudsons’