Stonehaven’s popular open-air swimming pool looks set to feature in the new series of BBC television show Grand Tours of Scotland.
With a Victorian guidebook in his hands, Paul Murton travels across the country tracing the changes that have taken place since the birth of Scottish tourism 200 years ago.
“We are keen to include an item on the old open-air pools which were so much part of the Scottish holiday scene from the 1930s until the 1970s or 80s,” said Kathryn Ross, series producer for Timeline films.
“As Stonehaven is one of only two such pools to survive in Scotland, and is particularly attractive, we would love to feature it, ideally with both archive material and also in interviews with some of the people who remember the pool in its heyday and who still swim there today.”
The pool has been heated since 1935, the year after it opened, and it may well have been the first open-air pool in the UK to boast such a feature.
The Friends of Stonehaven Open Air Pool have been working closely with Kathryn to identify likely candidates for on-camera swimming and interviews, and are also supplying the archive material collected to celebrate the pool’s 75th anniversary in 2009.
“We are absolutely delighted that the pool is likely to feature in one of these interesting programmes,” said Friends chairman Mike Robins. “We are hoping that people in and around Stonehaven who have material from the 1930s up to the 1970s will get in touch and allow Timeline to use what they have.
“So far we have photos and memorabilia such as the original programme from the opening ceremony, but we do not know of any movie footage, which would obviously be invaluable to let people see moving images of the pool in its heyday.”
The Friends are therefore appealing not only to local individuals, but also to local newspapers and TV stations to check if they have any material which may be suitable, including home movies or professional movie footage of the pool, dating from any period between the pool’s opening in 1934 to about 1979.
Anyone who thinks they may have something suitable for use should contact Kathryn Ross at Timeline Films, 16 Woodside Crescent, Glasgow G3 7UT, contact 0141 255 0322, or email kathrynross@timelinefilms.co.uk
The Friends of Stonehaven Open Air Pool is a voluntary organisation formed by the local community to ensure the future of the pool when it was threatened with closure in the 1990s.