Love letters to North Melbourne Pool
This collection of love letters captures and celebrates the strong sense of community at North Melbourne Pool, opening with an overview of the importance of urban swimming pools, the history of North Melbourne Pool and surrounding area, and the story of the campaign to save the pool from closure in the 1990s. Local water lovers recount their many reasons for swimming here, recall some of their fondest memories from the pool, and reflect on why it means so much to them.
The printed book and ebook can be purchased here soon.
The printed book can also be purchased locally here soon.
NB. All writing, editing, proofreading and reviewing of the book was undertaken on a voluntary basis. All profits from the book sales will be donated back to the North Melbourne Recreation Centre to help fund swimming lessons at the pool.
Praise from the critics
Love Letters to North Melbourne Pool is a beguiling book. The highly personal letters are placed within a broader local and social history, so that the stories of this particular pool in this particular place become recognisable to readers who may never swim there. The letters roam from the pool, to the beach and lakes, across the country and to the other side of the world. There are stories about bodies and water, told through experiences of one special, yet mundane, body of water. Love Letters made me think differently about the many local pools I've swum in, and the lives of the other people in the lanes and change rooms. I was left pondering the ephemeral - the seasonal rhythm of pool life, the other swimmers like 'Yellow Cap' who pass anonymously up and down the lanes, the triumphs and vulnerabilities in the history of the provision of municipal services, the heavy work of local citizens to protect and revive treasured community assets. Most of all, it made me want to swim, outdoors, alongside my neighbours, and fall in love again with our pool.
Sarah Bell, Professor of Urban Resilience, University of Melbourne
Australia’s suburban and town public pools are national treasures. They play an unheralded and unassuming role as democratic spaces, welcome to all for a modest entrance fee. They are gathering places, healing places, recreational places and sanctuaries from the ‘outside’. This beautiful book articulates and celebrates these multiple pool values through the accounts of sometime, current, irregular and regular users of the North Melbourne pool. This important document records the history of lived experiences in this unique place, which we can imagine being multiplied in similar ways throughout the country at all the other unique pools bequeathed to us. It’s a precious legacy insufficiently recognised.
Patrick Fensham, North and West Melbourne resident, swimmer
Take a dip into this inspiring collection of stories to discover just how much spontaneous joy, well-being, friendship and good citizenship grows around your local swimming pool. A parable of community cohesion for a disjointed world.
Graeme Davison, Emeritus Professor of History, Monash University
