When Two Parents Are Not Enough!, Health and safety policy in a flap? Options

[Heather]

Scotsman, we were the same at the North Woodside swimming pool, we were always packed in like sardines after waiting about an hour in the queue. Then we were lucky to get 20/30 minutes in the pool.
As the girls pool was small, we used to sneak into the boys pool and sometime got away with it, sometimes chased back to our own wee pool.

We were there every Saturday morning and pestered the life out our mum for the money to go as often as we could during the School holidays.
When I was old enough to go on my own, I was there every Saturday morning as soon as the pool opened.

I still have somewhere up in the Loft, the Swimming Certificates I won swimming in the Glasgow School Gala's, including my Life Saving Certificate.

[Jupiter]

Heather Im glad you put on your memories of Woodside Baths.I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined the packed pool.Things must have changed by the time angel went there.

[wee davy]

This is complete non-sense to me.

The only reason the 'industry' have the rules they do, is to protect them selves from prosecution.

Councils/private concerns can only provide a level of service, which for ONE set of parents, will be inadequate - whilst for others, totally acceptable

In my view, the only way to ADEQUATELY supervise a pool, is to have the right number of lifeguards - unfortunately it is simply not practical to have 1 guard, per 5 square metres of pool lol

Even loving parents/grandparents are not necessarily technically 'savvy' when it comes to knowing what to do in the event of an emergency.

The answer? completely demolish ALL swimming pools, and force parents, guardians to take all their kids to the seaside - MUCH more healthy for the little cherubs lol

The added benefits of this policy, is you would quickly teach said children a very salutory lesson - which is - there aint no heated pools, out there, & its bliddy CAULD !!

[frame]

Another day another receptionist and the situation may not even have come up. These health and safety laws that are creeping ever so much into everyday life are fine, if there is some consistency. There isn't.
"the crowded pool" is the problem here. It's like a crowded store, how many times has a mother or father turned around and somebody has disappeared. In the case of the store, if the kid can't be found almost immediately, then security moves into play. But switch that situation to a swimming pool and you just know what kind of trauma starts to penetrate a parent's psyche.

Where the inconsistency occurs is that not all situations where there is a threat to safety are looked upon as being dangerous by Health and Safety.

Take cyclists on pavements where there isn't specially marked out zones for them. These days you see quite a few in the city centres. What about young children being led along by parents holding their hand, someone on a bike weaving their way through the crowds, no prizes for where the danger lies there. Statistics on average are quite substantial for injury to pedestrians by cyclists on pavements. I know there is a danger on high traffic roads for cyclists, so they have a case too.

Skateboarders, another problem. About a year ago I came across this accident where there had been an injury to both a youngster and a dog. The skateboarder attempted to go around the little girl from behind who had a small dog on a lead with one hand and holding her dad's hand with the other. Just as he made the manoeuvre the dog moved out and right into his path. He took evasive action but hit the girl, the impact knocked her to the ground. The dog was injured because he fell on it. The father was mad enough to want to kill everyone in sight.

As yet I don't see any health and safety laws pertaining to that. When that skateboard accident happened I was actually amazed to see this guy appear out of nowhere and inform the girl's dad that he was a solicitor, they must be trolling the cities looking for buisness, he advised the father that he should take no action against the skateboarder but rather, take a case out against the council since they allow it to happen.

The pool incident was the right call I think, because of the over crowding. However, as Martin said, the family might have come at an earlier time when it was less crowded but then would have had crowds building up while they were in there and how do you legislate for that.

[stratson]

Just my 2 cents worth here .......

If the Easterhouse pool was as busy as the spokesperson said and according to their Health and safety guidlines ,I think the right decision was made , however , I can't for the life of me figure what the outcome had to do with the Commonwealth Games .

I'm very pleased that this young family did manage to get swimming and participate in this wonderful activity .

Am in agreement with Angel on this one.

[angel]

I would guess , once a cetain number of people in the pool was reached then no more allowed in , there would have to be a cut off .

[*Katherine Paterson*]

Hi everybody, and what would have happened to me. I took 3 or 4 of my bros and sis to Woodside Pool regularly in the fifties. I was perhaps 12 then- I watched out for them of course. No lifeguards then. Just a lady with a long pole with a hook at the end of it to drag us out if we were over the time limit.

Nobody thought anything about that - she could have injured us with that big hook - no wonder kids today are halfmad - theyre being mollycoddled like nothing else.

I say poor souls.
Katherine

[*Guest*]

It would be good to let my young kids go out like I did when I was young but the fact is that there just is not as much green space as there used to be because there has been loads of flats built into every free square. We're in one! And also the swings and things in the play parks that are left have usually been vandalised or are filled with broken glass left by the young boozers who are out every night of the week now. Believe me, I would love to let them roam like we did but its just not an option today.

Ann Marie.

[mlconnelly]

I went regularly to Woodside in the 60's, even after we moved away I still went with my brothers, 5 and 3 years older than me, every Saturday. I had to change in the girls changing area and was then allowed into the boys pool because my brothers were there to look after me though I would say they spent more time trying to drown me than not . Does anyone remember the name of the female pool attendant. She had dark curly hair and looked like a man and I though she was really scary. Brilliant memories of Woodside. Mary

[Jupiter]

She was a man and her name was Neilly.

[mlconnelly]

I seem to think her name was either Maggie or Betty and it would around 1964/65. Do you think its the same person Joop? Mary

[ashfield]

Hi everybody, and what would have happened to me. I took 3 or 4 of my bros and sis to Woodside Pool regularly in the fifties. I was perhaps 12 then- I watched out for them of course. No lifeguards then. Just a lady with a long pole with a hook at the end of it to drag us out if we were over the time limit.

Nobody thought anything about that - she could have injured us with that big hook - no wonder kids today are halfmad - theyre being mollycoddled like nothing else.

I say poor souls.
Katherine

Katherine, do you have a brother called Jim who went to St Teresa's. He would be about 62 or 63 now.

Sorry for going off topic My solution to the problem would be to remove all that nasty, dangerous water from the pool

[Jupiter]

Mary, I was being a wee bit TIC but there was a guy called Neil worked there for years and the last I heard he lived in Summerston.An amiable big guy.

[Heather]

Katherine, we were the same.

We always went with our older sister and friends with their older sisters. A crowd of us all went together and we were all School age. This would be during the late 40s early 50s.

We moved to Barlanark in 1953 and went to Shettleston Swimming Pool which was always busy, but not as busy as Woodside as we seldom had to queue up to get in.

The only time I saw the Woodside Swimming Pool quiet was when I was married and not working, I used to go during the day when all the children were at School.

[mlconnelly]

Mary, I was being a wee bit TIC but there was a guy called Neil worked there for years and the last I heard he lived in Summerston.An amiable big guy.

The woman I remember Joop was horrible, a real bully. But I didn't have too much to do with her as I was allowed into the boys pool with my brothers most of the time. I hated it when it was my sister and my cousin who took me swimming as I had to stay in the wee pool. Other than that , I had a great time at Woodside. Mary