By Julie Lewis
I was destined to spend a large slice of my childhood summers at the public pool. My grandmother, Rita Smith, was a champion swimmer in Queensland in the early 1930s, her exploits the stuff of family lore, and it was a special treat when we grandchildren visited her house if she let us look through a sheaf of newspaper clippings the colour of tea stains that took us back to her triumphs.
It was an era where swimming reporters bylined their stories with sobriquets like "Mermaid" and "Pacer", when sports fans keenly followed swimming records and spectators filled meets.
Rita Smith (front row, middle) in a group photo of women members of the Sandgate Amateur Swimming Club .
The Townsville Bulletin recorded that when "a quartet of four lady swimmers from Brisbane", my gran among them, swam one Wednesday night in 1932 at the City Baths, "the seating accommodation was fully taxed, in fact there was barely standing room".
Also in 1932, "a record attendance of swimming enthusiasts" turned out to watch world-record breaker Andrew "Boy" Charlton swim an exhibition six laps at gran's club pool, Sandgate. That night gran "gave a sterling performance in the ladies A grade 100 yards handicap". She was, one newspaper reported, "one of the best swimmers Queensland had ever known".
Rita Smith (standing, second from right) and other swimmers on tour with chaperones.
Brisbane's Ithaca Baths, Valley Baths, and Sandgate Baths were hallowed names to me; so too the Bankstown Baths – the place where my mother spent the warmer months of her girlhood.
My mother's elder sister by five years had swimming ambitions. Early each summer morning, my gran, aunt, mother and uncle cycled from Revesby to Bankstown Baths so my aunt could train then cycled back after school so she could follow the black line again. On Saturdays they went back to watch my aunt race.
As a girl my mother followed the stars of two universes: the Hollywood legends whose movies she would cycle across Sydney to see and, closer to her orbit, those of Australian swimming. Don Talbot and later the Konrad Kids swam at Bankstown.
She saw Lorraine Crapp swim at Cabarita Pool but best of all saw her model one of Esther Williams' swimsuits at North Sydney. Bankstown Pool remained a big part of family life although my aunt traded her podium dreams for study and her siblings never wanted to race.
Children at the Bankstown Baths.
My gran had nine grandchildren. None became a competitive swimmer. Every summer, gran, mum, my aunt by marriage and the seven grandchildren who lived nearby drove to the Dapto pool and spent hours there. Gran never pressured any of us to train, she never lamented our lack of interest or talent; she let us enjoy splashing around and playing mermaids.
One summer holiday I swam a lap of breaststroke, and then challenged myself to swim another and another. Never good enough to race, I nevertheless discovered the satisfaction of persistence. It remains a blue-tiled, diamonds-on-the-water-ahead memory to this day. Persistence has become a personality trait that has served me well.
Children having fun in a pool continue a summer tradition.Credit: Dean Sewell
There were no cheering crowds at Dapto, but that pool might be the scene of gran's greatest triumph – where she let her grandkids discover themselves and swim their own races.