Final days of summer lovin’ at Parramatta pool

GARY and Ruth Carter fell in love at Parramatta’s iconic pool. Today, they will take their final swim at the pool before it closes to make way for Western Sydney Stadium.

Gary and Ruth Carter fell in love at Parramatta pool as teenagers in the 1960s. Picture: Justin Sanson

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“SHE had a nice black hair bob, a lemon one-piece with flowers, and bright blue eyes.”

It was more than enough to stop 14-year-old Gary Carter in his tracks on a hot summer’s day in 1966.

“I saw Ruth sitting on the grass verge at the pool and I went and struck up a conversation,” Mr Carter said.

“We had our first date at the Roxy. We watched the James Bond film Casino Royale.”

The teens — Gary from Mays Hill, Ruth from Granville — were both students at Arthur Phillip High, and like most kids back then they spent their summer of young love at the Memorial Pool, just like thousands of others have done over the past 57 years.

“Back then, everyone met at Parramatta Memorial Pool,” Mr Carter said. “It was the peoples’ pool, a place for everyone.

The Carters will visit the site of their meeting one last time on Friday before the pool closes.

More than 170,000 people visit the pool each year.

“That place has a lot of memories for me and many others. We weren’t rich people and we didn’t have a beach and in the summer there was no better place than the pool. Everyone was there and the summer seemed to go on and on. We used to meet girls and mates. We ate fish and chips and had a lot of fun.”

Gary and Ruth had their summer fling but like a lot of young loves, theirs melted away like a summer ice cream and they went their separate ways.

Breaking up is always hard and that’s what hundreds of people will be feeling the end of this week too as the pool is shuttered and then demolished.

A family of ducks has taken up residence at the pool ahead of its scheduled demolition.

Final days: Lifeguard Lachlan Hayes keeps watch over a lone swimmer on Monday. Picture: Peter Kelly

Gary and Ruth’s story does have a happy ending though. At a school reunion in 1995 Gary turned and saw Ruth step through a doorway. They smiled at each other and a new love was born.

“We got together shortly after that and in 2003 we got married.”

The couple will go for their last swim at Parramatta Memorial Pool on Friday evening and may even sit on that grass verge shoulder to shoulder one more time.

ATTACHMENTS RUN DEEP

“Meet you at the pool” has been the catch cry for generations of Parramatta residents who have swum, laughed, stoked the barbie, made new friends and even met future husbands and wives.

But on Friday evening Parramatta Memorial Pool will be silent for the first time since opening its doors in 1959, a victim of what some see as progress — making way for a new $300 million super stadium.

This is truly the people’s pool, Olympic-sized and part funded by residents buying tiles at five shillings a piece (around 50 cents in today’s money), and home to generations of swimmers.

The idea for a then state-of-the-art open air pool first surfaced in the wake of Australia’s swimming success at Olympics in the 1920s and 1930s which encouraged people to take up swimming.

The pool opened in October 1959. Source: Parramatta City Council Archives

An aerial view of the pool in the 1970s, before Parramatta Stadium was built.

Parramatta wanted to ride the wave of enthusiasm.

Parramatta City Amateur Swimming Club organised fundraising events for a new pool from 1956, including swimming carnivals at Granville pool — which opened in 1936 but had become too crowded 20 years later — with the proceeds going towards the construction of the Parramatta pool.

By 1957 £6000 had been raised by the citizens’ pool committee with a commitment to raise £20,000 — the rest of the funds to come from a loan raised by Parramatta Council.

In June 1956 the council voted to rename the fundraising committee the Parramatta War Memorial Swimming Centre Appeal Fund, “and that when completed the structure be dedicated as a memorial to the memory of those who gave their lives in the 1939-1945 war”, said the council minute of the time.

The pool is one of the few remaining in Sydney with its own dive pool.

More than 1000 people pass through the gates on the busiest days.

That same year, the site in Parramatta Park was chosen for the pool and after discussion with the Parramatta Park Trust, six acres were handed over on a 50-year lease.

Three years later the pool officially opened and it has been hugely popular ever since.

Janice Woodward, 66, is Parramatta Memorial Swimming Club’s Learn to Swim co-ordinator and she says the closure is both sad and “the end of an era”.

“The pool has been threatened with closure before,” Mrs Woodward said, “but we’ve always managed to fight back and hold on to it.”

The pool has not only played host to amateur swimmers, it has also been the training ground for Olympians and Commonwealth Games stars including Angela Harris and been the place where primary schools introduced thousands of kids to swimming for the first time.

The pool attracted many patrons with its two giant water slides.

Elise and Olivia Selip enjoy a final swim at the pool on Monday.

Ruth Rossettin, 71, started swimming at the pool in 1978 when her two boys started to learn the strokes. Frank and John are 48 and 45 now but they still go for a dip whenever they are in Parramatta.

Mrs Rossettin remembers when you could park all day for free — now it is limited to two hours — and says she has such great memories and experiences linked to the pool.

“It’s been over 40 years of my life. After being trained by the great Beth Haines I became her apprentice and I taught thousands of children and their children and even their grandchildren. It is very much the end of an era.”

But the Memorial Pool concept may survive. Parramatta Council asked the RSL Parramatta sub-branch if they would be happy for the new pool — likely to be built in Parramatta Park — to be called the Memorial Pool.

“It would be appropriate,” Parramatta RSL’s Ron Gracesaid.

“This pool has given so much enjoyment to all who have used it over the years since it first opened but it is also a memorial to all those from the district who have served in the defence of our country, and many paid the supreme sacrifice. It will be a sad day when it closes but if we can get a new pool called Memorial Pool that would be very good.”