ALMOST unbelievably for people who remember the traumas and campaigns that led to it being built, Worcester's Lower Wick swimming pool is 41 years old this summer.

The Lower Wick pool emerged from the determined efforts of a group called Worcester Citizens Swimming Bath Association, which took the bull by the horns in the 1960s after plans to replace the elderly and privately owned Parks's Bath in Sansome Walk with a new facility, hit the buffers when the City Council suddenly announced it hadn't got the money for such "luxury" projects.

Led by the ebullient Alderman Stanley Marshall, the WCSBA eventually got the money together and looked at all sorts of sites, including Cripplegate Park, the YMCA in Henwick Road and the edge of Pitchcroft by The Moors, before dairy farmer John Bennett - son of a former mayor - generously donated land at Lower Wick with the pool water heater ingeniously powered by methane gas from his cows.

The pool eventually opened in 1974 and here are a few pictures from over the years. The young life savers at the pool in Weir Lane invariably did well in competitions, notably Tracey Bidwell, who scored in both life saving and competitive swimming events. Today, as Tracey Tayar-Bidwell, she has two very good swimming daughters of her own, aged 12 and 14, and coaches swimming at local schools.

One of the undoubted characters at the pool was manager Godfrey Harvey, always a fund of interesting stories and picture opportunities. In 1991 the pool launched a Roman Baths area and especially for the occasion Godfrey recovered his toga and laurel wreath from the attic and joined in the fun for a photo.

The Roman section included a spa bath, a sauna, steam room, showers and lounging area. It was all the work of builders on the government's re-training programme, which involved re-training long term unemployed.

"The Romans understood the benefits of unwinding and we hope this will help people beat the effects of stress," said Godfrey. Which made it just the place after a hard day in the Colosseum.