Illustration by @LeeGoater
Hannah Nicklin finds out what swimmers think about Shipley Pool …
Over the past few weeks I’ve been hanging out a lot in Shipley. You know, Shipley; it’s technically in Bradford but for goodness sake don’t say that out loud when you’re there unless you enjoy censure and disapproval.
Shipley. It’s got that weird clock tower, near Manningham and on the way to Keighly (keith-ly). It’s got a brilliant sandwich shop, and independent stationers, and if you ask for directions to the swimming pool people look at you blankly for a couple of minutes and then go, ‘Oh! Near ASDA!’ There.
I’ve been at the swimming pool in fact. As an artist in disguise as a Normal Person, hanging around and inviting people to talk to me in exchange for someone to listen, and a lollipop.
“I’ve lots of flaws these days”
“my mum threw me in the pool. She swam the channel”
“you see what we’ve got going here”
“the first time you get a kid out of armbands – I get a big buzz”
And by and large, they have talked to me. Some at length, some in passing. Some with vague puzzlement, most genially, some passionately and others with a level of gentle vehemence you feel as if they’re gripping your arm. Even though they’re not.
I have been listening to the pool users and staff members at Shipley Pool. Asking them how they feel, what they thought about while they swam, their first memories of swimming, and of the pool and its building. And as time went on, refining those questions, seeking out people to have more extended conversations with, it’s amazing what people will tell you if you tell them that you’re going to listen.
“spare a thought for the poor parent”
“floating feels quite scary”
“when I’m in the water I look normal”
“I imagined that I was in Greece”
“I count lengths – you don’t want to cheat”
I am doing this as part of Northern Big Board. Northern Big Board is the brainchild of Emma Adams. A playwright with a life-long fear of the Shipley Pool 5m board. Last year, for a piece of writing, Emma took her first ever leap off that board. And she decided to write a play for the pool. A way of marking it – the pool, its significance for her, and its place in the life of the town where she grew up.
Emma describes these communal, municipal spaces as ‘secular cathedrals’ – spaces of purpose but also meeting; communion. With self and others. She describes Northern Big Board (in the Yorkshire Post ) as a way of celebrating these places where “everyone goes and is together as a community, regardless of things like race or age or gender […] we need to recognise how important these places are. I wanted to write something that would celebrate the stories of the people who have these emotional connections to the place, but I wanted to celebrate the place itself too.”
“I find it unbeliveably boring”
“before you dive you feel your heart pumping – and in the middle of your dive everything goes, really, all of your senses.”
“I count in Spanish, up to Cinquento, which is 50. But after that I count backwards, which is harder”
So Northern Big Board is a play performed for a community in a swimming pool co-produced by Chol Theatre, and Slung Low. But it is also a series of free writing workshops run by Emma, a Big Board Amnesty each Friday where members of the public have been getting diving tuition and been invited to leap off that top board. It’s a gala where the play happens, but also a Bradford Esprit diving exhibition, synchronised swimming, a brilliant Mexican food van, cake and cafes and also the thing that I’m working on; 6 installations pieces, each made for 1-2 people at a time, to be experienced around the building. Each inspired by the themes that emerged, the stories people offered me, the feel of the building, sometimes difficult experiences of the staff, the criss-crossing of paths, old friends, parents in mutual waiting, people there to get away, people there to have a conversation where otherwise they might not have seen another person all day.
“I wish I were 28, I were 28 once”
“where else can a lady whose 71 go and be on her own? Well, there is nowhere, but there is here.”
“fish and chips afterwards”
“I like the idea of mastering the fear.”
Whenever I start a story-collecting project I am always worried, worried about if anyone will talk to me, if they will have anything ‘good’ to say. Because you forget, you forget because the people in charge of our stories, who re-package them and send them out as ‘the media’, like us to forget; people are brilliant. I am continually astounded by the generosity and willingness of people to engage. People are brilliant. Alive with amazing contradictions and adventures and sensations and articulacy. And also sometimes angry, or selfish, or scared, lonely. But above all, full of stories. If there’s one thing I learn every time I do something like this, is that the best thing to sometimes be in the world, is someone who listens.
Emma’s right. These places at the hearts of our communities; these places where members of staff have worked for over 25 years, who know the names of the children of the children they knew the names of 20 years ago, the place where people face fears, overcome injuries, meet friends, excel at things, do things even though they know they will never excel; these places are designed for something that is not there to make a profit, but to profit people.
Now I just have 15 days to write the bloody thing.
@hannahnicklin is a theatre maker, activist, blogger and academic based in the East Midlands. Before this, Hannah trained as a competitive swimmer.
Northern Big Board (northernbigboard.com / @nbigboard) is taking place now until 18 November at Shipley Swimming Pool. Leap Off Fridays are 2 November & 9 November, with Big Board Amnesties on the same dates at 6-7.30pm. Competent swimmers over 6yrs can join the amnesty and coached by the superb team of instructors from Bradford Esprit, learn to jump from the 1m, 3m or big bad 5m board that are the stuff of intrigue, urban myth, a little bit of fear and hopefully – accomplishment.
The Northern Big Board Gala is Sunday 18 November from 2pm. Details here via northernbigboard.com