But with the recent news that the well-loved Harbour Band Arena and go-kart track are to bite the dust as redevelopment of the resort continues, there will still be many people wistful for Morecambe's past glories. And one of the places which still holds wonderful memories for people is the Super Swimming Stadium which
we have featured several times on this page.

LOUISE BRYNING has some more of those memories:

Mabel Pakenham-Walsh and David Bristow who now both live in Wales remember the Super Swimming Stadium well as they used to work there...as lifeguards.

Mabel learned life saving at school, at Lancaster baths and used to swim in the Lune in the 1950s.

"My main memory of the super stadium was the cold, cold water. Even the Crook O'Lune was warmer," Mabel writes.

"During the 1950s Wakes Weeks, up to 6,4000 visitors came to see the
beauty contests at the Super Swimming Stadium run by Morecambe Corporation.

"The pool opened in 1936 and at 137 meters long was the largest outdoor pool in Europe accommodating 1,200 bathers and 3,000 spectators.

"With a £1,000 cash prize, there were dirty tricks in the beauty contest. Competition between the lady contestants was so fierce that fights were fought. Rumours circulated of strategic pins, scissors used, also padding.

"Then there was the corner by the diving board where with a little 'help', the belle could be manoeuvred into receiving a drip from above.

"It was a cattle market but glamorous."

Mabel was a lifeguard for a summer holiday job in 1955 starting with no perks at £3 a week.

"Others did waitering or waitressing with some tourists offering waitresses larger sums than their wages.

"Later some worked making dinosaurs etc for the Morecambe lluminations.

Anything was preferable to cleaning the green and dark changing rooms.

"We livesavers in our woollen costumes made sure that the swimmers didn't drown.

"Incredibly David Bristow, now an architect, received a thank you letter from the father of a young girl he had rescued. I was fully dressed ready to cycle six miles uphill to home when I saw my final punter – she was doing the recognisable vertical 'scratching a butterfly' gesture ie: drowning. This time I held her and asked her to say thank you. None of mine did but this was one was polite under interrogation."

David Bristow has particular memories of the 'entertainment' on offer at the pool.

"Perry Blake who was one of the star diving champions in the aqua show, would climb to the top of the ladders dressed in a track suit,
flying helmet, and a towel soaked in paraffin.

"He would light the paraffin with the aid of a cigarette which he had been smoking during the ascent, flick the fag end into the pool and execute a small dive in flames into the pool. After all he claimed to be the RAF diving champion.

"As he was fairly punch drunk when landing a couple of us had to help him out of the pool and point him towards the very often non existent audience to accept his applause.

"Do you remember Col Fosberge? He was a long distance swimmer who used to practise swimming lengths of the pool for what seemed like hours on end and always in the coldest of weathers, often the only person in the pool. One of us had to stand in the rain with one of those bamboo poles with a hook on the end to pull him out because we had no intention of diving in to rescue him.

"I can remember having to hit him on the head with a stick because he didn't respond to us shouting that the pool was about to close."

"One of the people who entertained hundreds of people at the stadium during the late 1940s was former councillor David Wood of Over Kellet.

"He was a member of the Diving Aces team who put on public displays in Morecambe.

"They performed at least a couple of times a week in the 1948-49 seasons including appearances in front of a packed stadium during the Miss Great Britain contest heats.

"At one performance David dived from the lower boards with fireworks strapped to his legs, fizzing spectacularly as he plunged into the water during the very popular midnight bathing extravaganza.

"The only problem was unexpectedly the fireworks didn't go out when he hit the water but continued to crackle and blaze."