Anyone who has read the blog for a while will know that I’ve spent a chunk of the past ten years championing Moseley Road Baths, a Grade II* listed Edwardian Swimming Pool in inner city Brum. It’s a spectacular building, full of marble flooring, stained glass, original tilework, huge steel arches and wooden panelling. It houses old ‘slipper baths’ for washing, which were used up until 2004 and closed during my brief stint working on Reception in the building. It even has a steam heated drying rack, a remnant from its former days when the public laundry was a busy and important amenity for the local community.
But really those bits are incidental. What really makes the space so alive and vital is the way it embraces the local community. It’s not just somewhere to swim, it’s a real community hub. Many swimmers have been coming for decades.
The Friends of Moseley Road Baths wanted to capture this, so asked me to make a film as part of their ongoing collaboration with the World Monuments Fund, since Moseley Road Baths was listed on their 2016 Watch List. The resulting film was used to kickstart a month long social media campaign to show some love for the building before the scheduled closure in Summer 2017.
If you need that again, here’s the deal…
- Share online through words or images why you want to swim at Moseley Road Baths
- Use #keepswimmingmrb – and #moseleyroadbaths if you can too!
- Share the posts that are being put up by the Friends of Moseley Road Baths and spread the love!
To see the results, head over to the group’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages. And don’t forget to contribute and share!
Pupils have really loved the tours and have asked some really great (and challenging!) questions about the building and how it was built and is maintained. On several occasions I’ve seen pupils dashing up to parents and teachers to tell them all about the things that they’ve learnt. Apologies if you’re one of those people who has been bombarded with trivia! However, we know that young people are exactly the kind of ambassadors we need to ensure future generations enjoy the building.
All of the children have picked up on the film-making really quickly. We’ve had some real giggles mucking around with the microphones and playing around in front of the camera! We soon managed to form film crews with a Director, Sound Recordist, Camera Operator and Interviewer. Many of our interviewees have commented on the professionalism of the group.
Back in December I spent the day with people who live in and around Kingshurst. Part of the morning was spent interviewing pupils from Kingshurst School. The rest of the day I had the privilege to run a workshop with some of Kingshurst’s older residents. I call it a privilege as it really felt special to indulge in chatting with them about their memories of the area and its development over the past six decades. We were lucky enough to be able to use a selection of photos collated by local resident Stan Tarrant to provoke some really interesting discussion. The result of the workshop is a lovely selection of interviews, illustrated by Stan’s photos of the area over the years. We’ll be launching the film sometime in March, so watch this space for an update on that.
Also in December, the