The Lido (Big Swimming Pool)

A Memory of Dagenham.

I remember moving to Dagenham when I was 4, I lived at 46 Boulton Road. After school me, my sisters (Mandy and Sally) and friends would go over to Valence Park and when supper was ready my mum would come and get us. We used to call the big swimming pool 'the lido'. You had to pay to get in so one would pay and go and open the gate at the back of the Lido for friends to get in if they never had the pennies to pay. One weekend I was chucked in the pool in the hope of landing on the rubber tire. I fell through it and panicked, from that day I never went back in the pool. I would sit on the edge, quite happy enough to dangle my feet in the cold water - I was 6 at the time.