Box Diving Platform on the By Brook L to R: R Vivash, W Baxter and Hubert Sawyer
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Box Swimming Club
Yes, there really was one once! It was run by Dr JP Martin and a local committee. Reprinted July 2014 from article by Hugh Sawyer first published in Box Parish Magazine in 2007. All photos courtesy of Hugh Sawyer. The club was started in about 1913 by Dr Martin to teach young people how to swim as recorded in the Parish Magazine of July 1924. |
It was held in the brook upstream from Box Mill. My father, Hubert Sawyer (aka Bunno), was Secretary for the Club in the 1920s/30s, and I have come across records that I have entrusted to the Swindon & Wiltshire History Centre at Chippenham. There are books of committee meeting minutes from 1926 to 1938, financial records from 1924 to 1939, a newspaper article dated 24 August 1935, and several photographs.
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The Club was managed by the local GP, Dr James P Martin, and facilities consisted of a wooden shed for changing rooms, and a rickety diving platform. It seems that most children in the village learned to swim there.
Certainly my Mum can well remember swimming in the freezing water – once alongside a rat! She told me that they taught you to swim by attaching you to a harness tied to a pole, which the instructor held at the river bank. This photograph shows my Auntie Phyllis (far left) and Dr Martin holding the pole. |
The Committee Meetings were held at the Rifle Range – a place which used to exist in the fields behind the cemetery (which I remember well from the old days because we kids used to search there for spent cartridges!).
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Club Competitions
The minutes show how active the Club was. In 1928 there were 68 members, of which 30 were school children. Annual membership was 2 shillings (10p) for adults and 6 pence (2½p) for juniors, under 16. Each year there was a Swimming Gala competition, for different cups, and certificates were issued for those that swam 50 yards and a mile. My auntie achieved the latter and was awarded her certificate at the Annual New Year’s Eve Dance, on 31st December 1928, aged 20. The newspaper article (right) is dated Saturday 24th August 1935, and shows Colin Scoble winning the Style Swimming Cup and P Green winning the Challenge Diving Shield. The Annual New Year's Eve Dance was held at the old Bingham Hall on Chapel Lane, and from the description in the minutes was a very popular social occasion. In 1939 activities were suspended at the outbreak of the Second World War, and when it ended people favoured more conventional swimming baths and the Club ceased to exist. Before Dr Martin died in 1943, he passed the Swimming Club savings book to my Dad, with the request that the outstanding balance of £7.10s.9d (£7.54 in new money!) be donated to a local youth organisation. It later went to the Junior Branch of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade. |
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It was fascinating to view this snapshot in time. It showed just how socially-organized the village was in what were quite hard times for many people.
It also revived in me lots of happy memories I have of growing up in the village – such as the Cubs, Boy Scouts and Box C of E School.
And isn’t it amazing how much life has changed in what is basically
one lifetime!
It also revived in me lots of happy memories I have of growing up in the village – such as the Cubs, Boy Scouts and Box C of E School.
And isn’t it amazing how much life has changed in what is basically
one lifetime!