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INTERVIEW: New book on Morecambe's outdoor Super Swimming Stadium is launched

Barry Guise with the new book In The Swim: Morecambe's Super Swimming Stadium

A new book on the history of Morecambe's outdoor Super Swimming Stadium has been launched.

'In The Swim: Morecambe's Super Swimming Stadium' has been written by Bolton-le-Sands couple Barry and Lesley Guise.

Barry and Lesley, who are retired teachers, held their book launch at the City Museum in Lancaster on Friday.

The book is full of archive photographs of the Super Swimming Stadium, which was open on the central Morecambe Promenade from 1936 to 1975.

LISTEN NOW to our interview with authors Barry and Lesley Guise:

"In the 1920s Morecambe was a flourishing resort, but with no swimming pool," said Barry.

"So the council decided that a swimming stadium was needed. 

"They chose a site opposite the Winter Gardens."

Lesley said "thousands" of people would flock to the Super Swimming Stadium at its peak "particularly when they put on the Aqua Shows and Miss Great Britain competitions".

The stadium was closed down because it was "crumbling away", said Barry.

"From the late 1960s they were having problems with the concrete, which was beginning to rot.

"Plus there was a change in social attitude to entertainment."

After the swimming stadium shut down, the site was still used for outdoor swimming at the Morecambe Leisure Park and Bubbles complexes in the 1980s and 1990s.

The central promenade land has been disused since The Dome theatre closed in 2010 and is now earmarked for the Eden Project North.

Barry taught geography for 16 years at Morecambe High School, leaving in 1988 to work at St Martin's College. Lesley was a geography and maths teacher at Lancaster Girls Grammar School. 

They are both now volunteers at the Winter Gardens theatre in Morecambe.

The book is available at the City Museum, Lancaster Maritime Museum, Morecambe Heritage in the Arndale Centre, Morecambe Visitor Information Centre and Carnforth Bookshop.

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