County Durham - WE NEVER CLOSED

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 21st Year

Issue

Issue No.

6

Date Released

Feb 1968

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1CONTROL
2. 2County Durham - WE NEVER CLOSED
3. 3ATOMS & ENERGY

Story

Story No. within this Issue

2 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: about the all-year-round swimming pool at Dawdon Colliery, Co Durham.
NCB Commentary - Dawdon Colliery’s a big mine near Seaham Harbour, where of all things the pool is internationally famous throughout the world of swimming.
Man who has seen it all grow up is ex-miner Frank Watt, now retired but still very active as secretary of the Dawdon Colliery Swimming Club.
What today is a first class swimming pool started life as the colliery reservoir - so the water’s warm all the year round and it’s 14 feet deep all over.
In 1946 they’d been in operation just a year, and held their first Gala.
Then in 1949 they started to build the 10 - meter board - one of the few outdoors in the North. Miners from Dawdon built it in their spare time - an odd busman’s holiday for men accustomed to working hundreds of feet underground.
Since then, the world’s top divers have appeared at Dawdon, and used it for open air practice, even in the winter.
Dawdon has staged international contests with teams from all over the world.
And the pool is a focus for the whole community. There’s not a day when it’s not in use, and thousands of children have been taught to swim and to dive.
At Dawdon they find that, using the belt and rope technique, children learn to swim much faster in deep water than they do in pools where they can touch the bottom. Confidence comes to an early age.
Diving practice starts in tender years too. Some of these kids may be names to look out for in competitive swimming in a few years time.
Grown men are taught to swim in special afternoon sessions where they won’t be embarassed in front of an audience.
And men who have been injured at work have benefitted enormously by having to exercise limbs they’d forgotten how to use.
For Frank Watt and his colleagues of the swimming club, Dawdon’s success has been a worthy reward. And they’re always looking out for something new - combining issues as diverse as safety or entertainment.
Dawdon’s swimming club has come a long way in its more than 20 years of activity. It’s one enterprise that can justly repeat the old phrase - We Never Closed.

Keywords

Swimming; Mining

Locations

England; County Durham; Dawdon Colliery

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32   /13 Scripts for Mining Review, 1960-1963

Credits:

Sponsor

National Coal Board

Production Co.

National Coal Board Film Unit