Super Swimming Stadium

Super Swimming Stadium by Darren Hayman from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

"Essays on memory and lost, bold, civic dreams"

 There is  an interview with Darren about all things Lido over at The Quietus.

 We are now taking pre- orders for Lido:

The vinyl LP can be ordered from WIAIWYA HERE

The CD can be ordered from Darren HERE

Or from Clay Pipe Music HERE

Purley Way Remix by The All Golden

There's knowing people and there's knowing people isn't there?

Or what I mean to say is, 'knowing' someone doesn't mean what it used to.

This a remix of my song Purley Way by The All Golden aka Pete Gofton.

I 'know' Pete but I've never met him. I met him on Twitter. He seems more than alright.

He made me laugh a couple of times by the way he hated Van Morrison and loved Mike Nesmith in almost the same nuanced way that I did. Made me think I could drink with him or that he would make a good job remixing one of my songs.

Purley way is a strange one, when it comes to Lido history. It was closed in 1980 but the unqiue Deco diving board still survives inside a gardening centre. Dan Mayfield did some field recording there for my album Lido.

As well as the album and CD I'm very proud to announce that Lido will also be an exhibition.

An exhibition of artwork from Lido

Lido is an instrumental album by Darren Hayman about open air Swimming Pools.

3rd to 16th September 2012

Rough Trade East

'Dray Walk'

Old Truman Brewery

91 Brick Lane

London

E1 6QL

T: 0207 392 7788

8.00am - 9.00pm - Monday to Thursday

8.00am - 8.00pm - Friday

10.00am - 8.00pm - Saturday

11.00am - 7.00pm - Sunday

A special instore performance from Darren Hayman on the 3rd September from 7pm.

Frank Sherwin

Morecambe and Heysham - poster by Frank Sherwin.

My name is Frances Castle and I run Clay Pipe Music the small label that is releasing Lido on CD. I started Clay Pipe initially to put out some of my own music - and this quickly led on to releasing music by other people. Darren's CD will be the sixth on Clay Pipe. The idea is  to stay well clear of  plastic jewel cases and put out limited edition CDs in hand made covers that I design and illustrate myself. I guess the time and effort put into every release is a direct response to mp3/download culture where it seems like music and its packaging has been devalued at bit. It is also looking likely that some future releases will be on vinyl.

The music I have put out so far has largely been British atmospheric and instrumental, but the musicians have come from varied backgrounds and genres.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

I wasn't sure what to write for this blog until Chris Ingham posted his poem about Ikley Lido. By chance the poster he used to illustrate it was by my grandfather Frank Sherwin who as a commercial artist in the 1930s-50s  did a huge amount of work for the railways both before and after they were nationalised. He and his contemporaries were largely responsible for promoting the image of the golden era of the British seaside holiday as we think of it today.

My Grandfather was born far from the sea in Derby in 1896, the son of Samuel Sherwin who was a Chemist by trade but also a keen amateur artist. During the first world war he served with the Honourable Artillery Company and fought in Italy. On demobilisation he studied at Heatherleys Art School in London.

I don't know how the images were commissioned though I would imagine that he went to the places in the posters and sketched from life. This is the way he usually worked, I doubt he used photographic reference.

He was a watercolour artist at heart, and I think probably saw the poster work  as purely commercial, he also did more traditional watercolours that were used as carriage prints – hung up in frames above the seats, as well as prints for Medici, and many greetings cards and book covers. In fact the work he did isn't that far off the kind of work that I do as an illustrator today. As a child I wasn't aware of all the commercial work he had done, and thought of him purely as a traditional artist. I remember him sitting at his desk skilfully moving watercolour paint across, stretched wet paper. He died in 1986 aged 90.

Beautiful Records

 Although not officially released until August, the Lido Vinyl and CD have arrived.

It's the first time I've collaborated on album artwork with another artist. The cover itself is designed by Frances Castle who runs Claypipe Music who will be releasing the CD edition.

Each recycled card cover of the CD edition is hand Glocko printed by Frances herself. The CD all comes with a 16 page booklet with line and water colour drawings of all the Lidos.

The 12inch has been pressed onto a beautiful marine blue coloured vinyl and also comes with the booklet. It will be released by WIAIWYA records.

Like many artists I've been trying to make the physical editions of records these days as pretty and as covertable as possible.

I hope you like it and buy it.

- Darren

Ilkley Lido – Yorkshire by Chris Ingham

The Diving Board by Chris Ingham

 

Closest I ever got to heaven,

Above the moors at 14’ 7’’.

Slippery steps, tiny board,

Pool below, friends all roared.

Don’t look down, can’t look up,

Can’t move forward, feet are stuck.

Closest I ever got to heaven,

Above the moors at 14’ 7’’.

Queue behind, getting lairy,

To stay or go – be quite contrary.

Deep breath in, what’s the worst?

Split in two, like a Damien Hirst.

Closest I ever got to heaven,

Above the moors at 14’ 7’’.

Leap of faith, tumble down,

Hit the Water – felt like ground.

Red skin, feel quite ill,

Never again will I climb that hill.

Closest I ever got to heaven,

Above the moors at 14’ 7’’.

The diving board, now long gone,

They say health and safety spoiled everyone’s fun.

Me? I’m glad it’s gone. Don’t care who’s to blame,

A monument to my pride and shame.

Closest I ever got to heaven,

Above the moors at 14’ 7’’.

Fact File:

·       Opened in 1935 as part of King George’s Silver Jubilee;

·       Designed by Frank Skinner, the Borough Surveyor;

·       Entertains 4000 visitors on a hot summers day and 150,000 people a year;

·       Water temperature ranges between 14 and 22 degrees C;

·       Shaped like a half mushroom, with an unscreened fountain and an art-deco coffee shop;

·       Hosts live music and events.

·       Friends of Ilkley Lido:  http://www.ilkleylido.co.uk/index.php

 

Jubilee Pool, Penzance by Johnny Lamb

When thinking about lidos, my thoughts turn immediately to my friend the musicologist. She has one of those minds capable of the kind of focus that all academics must have, but also, she has the gift of the childlike ability to turn that focus to the irrational and whimsical. The musicologist loves the lido at Penzance, until the summer though, it was a place of indifference for me. That has changed. Now that place with its iron fencing perched on the front and isolated from the sea that it longs to join and merge with in playful reunion is a potent sign for me, and a portrait of someone now absent. Despite the apparent tragedy of the pool’s separation from the ocean, it is a beautiful thing.

The musicologist had devised a game. We were to swim in all of Cornwall’s tidal pools, allowing ourselves time for hot drinks or brandy afterwards. To her I think it was a romantic vision of crisp university lawns, esoteric conversation and cream cakes. If you could punt in a tidal pool, I’d like to think she would have. To me it was more an image of misbehaving in beach-front bars, a bearded, chain-smoking wastrel, hell bent on the masculine practice of seeming impervious to cold water, while relentlessly pulling on an endless supply of boxes of ten Mayfair. The EA composer completed our team, comedically wetsuited and cheerful, with a healthy look to his face. I think we went to three of them. The list hung largely unticked above the musicologist’s desk for too long. I regret this.

The musicologist has a friend in Penzance, and she would regularly disappear for the day, returning to tell stories of her swims. Once, the sun had rouged her white skin, making it vicious across her shoulders, tight and hot, livid and threatening to peel. I never went with her, except one day when the lido was closed, to try and make a recording for this project. It was the first time I really looked at it. It’s wonderful. And now, with the musicologist far away, I go out of my way to go past it.

I walk from the fisherman’s monument at Newlyn, along the coastline towards St Michael’s Mount. On the best days, when it’s raining, the waves will reach out over the road, soaking car and cyclist indiscriminately as you approach the pool. It is a relic I suppose. Some strange idea of the Victorians, to tame an unambitious section of the sea, so they could bask like seals in the drizzling Cornish summers, whipped by pious winds. How very fucking English. I imagine those giant striped swimming costumes completed by a stupid straw hat coupled with a judgemental gaze and a closeted and bitter sexuality. But this is one of those rare things, a relic that remains of use. It refuses to die, or change. (It seems like an echo of Newlyn’s tired and diminished fishing fleet, which I also love). The barbed iron gate seems to lock out the development around it, like a cultural nature reserve. As the old seaside charm gives way to nightclubs, pretentious delicatessens, chain bakeries, sports bars and pound shops, the whitewashed walls of the empty pool lie dormant for another summer of shrieking children, reclining women and strutting men, escaped for a short time from the details of their lives.

Lidos seem like photographs, a site for atavism. Even the very old are childlike when they swim. It is often the noise of people swimming that occurs to me. It’s one of those strange formless sounds where human beings seem like a swarm. But excited human voices are full of timbre and melody, unlike bees or locusts that drone in uniform tones.

Delight in something so simple, so primal. There is no need for technology in the water. No need even for company. Just the body within the element. The lido is in Penzance, but it is also separate, somewhere else. To enter its space is to leave the town behind. We swim in our nostalgia willingly, removed from the outside, and immersed in more than the water, and to each person I suppose a different time. I cannot help but relate the pool to the nineteen eighties, but to others it would be other numbers that date their image of a lido. I relate it too to the musicologist and the half forgotten, never made trips to the tidal pools. When she visits, I will take her to Penzance.

Johnny Lamb is a recording artist and works under the name 30 Pounds of Bone

Greenbank Lido by Joe Lepper

Copyright Philip Watson (All Rights Reserved) www.flickr.com/rpw934

 The water at Greenbank lido in Street, Somerset, is always a toasty 30 degree Celsius. Temperature is something of a preoccupation during my visits, as I’m in and out of the pool a lot with my two children, who every five minutes alternate playing between the pool and the fountains and slides at the far end of the lido. One minute I’m luxuriating in the cosy water, the next cold and wrapped in a towel while watching my kids dive in and out of giant water spouts.

When I moved to Street from Brighton six years ago I discovered my new home was blessed with not one but two swimming pools. While the indoor pool run by a council contractor serves its purpose it is Greenbank, the lido built by the shoemaking Clarks dynasty who are still based in Street, which is the real draw for swimmers and families.

There’s barely an inch of the village that The Clarks family have not either owned, currently own or have some kind of say in its running. They built my son’s primary school, own the fields that are dotted between the houses, which they in turn either still own or at least used to. The discount retail park in the village centre still bears their name and the distribution centre and headquarters of their shoe empire dominates the local labour market. 

Photo by Joe Lepper

I’m a little uncomfortable with one company controlling so much of my life, but I can’t deny this millionaire family of Quakers have splashed their cash well at times, in particular Alice Clark who created Greenbank in 1937. Part of Alice’s motivation for developing the pool for local people was her background as a suffragette and campaigner for women’s rights. At the time the men and boys of street, many of whom used to work for her family, used to swim naked in the River Brue, which separates Street from its more bohemian neighbours in Glastonbury. With women effectively excluded from this nude, post work dip, she decided to plough some of the family gold into a place where they could swim.

It was gifted to the village after completion and Greenbank remains a charitable trust to this day, receives a grant from the local parish council which ensures the spirit of Alice Clark lives on by giving local people a nice discount on season tickets.

It is the key place for young people to meet and the focus for family life in Street from May to September. “When’s the outdoor pool opening,” says my eldest son regularly during the winter months. 

Copyright Philip Watson (All Rights Reserved) www.flickr.com/rpw934

 Of those lidos that remain many are in the urban south-east and London, but this is a prime example of a well used rural lido that as soon as the temperature gets anywhere above 18 degrees becomes packed. Even when it’s colder there are still regular swimmers among its snug ripples. We use it even more as recession bites and family life gets more expensive. We only live around the corner from it so its no trouble on a warm Saturday afternoon in June to march down there loaded down with our season ticket, towels and snacks.

As well as being near to us, its location within Street offers a constant reminder of it heritage and rural setting. To one side cows and sheep graze in an adjacent field and to the other side is the High Street and headquarters of Clarks, complete with the giant, red brick chimney of this shoe family’s old factory, high above the family fun below.

Joe Lepper is a freelance journalist. For more information visit his website here http://www.newsandfeatures.co.uk/ He also co-edits the music website Neonfiller http://www.neonfiller.com