From pool to pools

By Rob Batiste

Adie Locke has made La Vallette bathing pools sparkle again, despite being only halfway through a makeover due to be completed in 2010. (Picture by John O’Neill, 0611878)

TAKE a summer stroll along the La Vallette promenade and there are parts of the grand old bathing pools which look every bit as venerable as their 150 years.

And until a few weeks ago, the gem of the four-pool complex, the ladies’ pool and its tired-looking changing and refreshment facilities, struggled to stand out from the battered and worn features of the men’s and horseshoe pools which precede it as you walk along the promenade from Town.

Enter Adie Locke, a man who knows an awful lot about pool – though not so much about the plural form.

Many years ago he saw an opportunity to supply island bars with pool tables and now he has turned his attention to reviving the bathing places that remain.

Having taken on a long-term lease, Mr Locke has wasted no time in polishing the gem.

The makeover is barely half-complete and it will be 2010 before it is finished, but he has made a dramatic impact on the area and, in particular, the building from which he feeds and quenches the thirst of swimmers and non-swimmers alike.

Suddenly, the place is sparkling again and among those who approve are the Polar Bears swim group and regulars such as Tom and Ruth Walsh, who have lobbied long and hard for Culture and Leisure, and the Recreation Committee before it, to spend more money on the public facility.

Ruth, 71, has returned virtually daily to La Vallette in the 63 years since she learned to swim there.

She is thrilled to see the sudden improvement.

‘It is absolutely brilliant what he [Mr Locke] is doing.

The sad-looking Horseshoe pool.

‘It is something we have been waiting to be done for years. He really is getting the place spruced up.

‘The terrace is the best I’ve seen it in over 60 years.’

A long-term critic of governmental attitude to the area, she is encouraged by recent redevelopments.

‘The States seem to be getting a bit more interested and keeping them a bit more clean. Things are getting better.’

Mr Locke is certainly revelling in the challenge of breathing new life into the once esteemed saltwater bathing spots.

He pulls no punches as to what he thought of the place when he took over.

‘It was an absolute disgrace. It really was.

‘It was suffering after 20 years of neglect.’

When asked to give reasons for its demise following the glory years when hundreds flocked to watch galas and a similar number, particularly townies, would use it to safely splash about, he raises three fingers.

‘It was a triple-whammy,’ he said.

‘There was the opening of Beau Sejour, the removal of the diving boards and the closure of the amusement arcade in the aquarium.’

And although none is set to return, Mr Locke oozes belief in the area’s rejuvenation potential.

He is seeing a revival already and when the main pool and its sidekick, the children’s one a few yards to the south, are fully repaired, he expects to see a steady surge in numbers.

The latter, which holds 500,000 litres of water and is about six- to-seven feet at its deepest point, has already had its bed cleared of unwanted rocks.

Next on the agenda is the main pool, which holds 1.5 million litres when brim-full.

‘The actual pool is in good repair,’ says the new leaseholder.

‘We have plans to get the digger in, but it will take two days to empty it and the tides have to be right.

‘It won’t be done this year but we’re certainly looking to do it for next season.’

Its perimeter staging is, in parts, looking sorry, with cracked cement in need of more repairs.

It will be done in good time, promises Mr Locke, who speaks with an air of confidence that anything is possible, except the reintroduction of the high boards.

La Vallette’s new look.

There remains about 8ft of water beneath where the old 10m board stood, but there is not much more the other side of the wall where submerged boulders would surely be in range of anyone diving, or of foolhardy tombstoners.

But with the 150th anniversary of the pools only four years away, thanks to Mr Locke and new-found encouragement from Culture and Leisure, there is real hope that it will be a birthday worth celebrating and not hidden.

Ruth, for one, is 100% behind them.

For her, the pools have been a second home for virtually her whole life.

‘From the first time I went down there, I thought it was a magic place,’ she says.

Can they survive another 150 years?

She is more confident now that the pools will be around for a while yet.

‘They have been the Cinderella and been allowed to deteriorate.

‘But if there’s the will, with some good stonemasons, I think they could still be saved.’

An early shot of a crowd that lined the sides of La Vallette ladies’ bathing pool, possibly for one of its popular galas. (0613810)