THIS summer drawing to a close makes it a sad quarter-century since we lost our last outdoor swimming pool.

We once enjoyed three: Dunbar, Port Seton, and the last to close being North Berwick.

When the harbour cross pier was built in North Berwick in the early 18th century the tank created behind it became a popular, if unsanitary, swimming hole.

The local swimming club raised funds to line the basin and provide tidal sluices to make a proper swimming pool, opening in 1900.

A large wooden shed called ‘the Ark’ was the only changing facility.

It was then taken over by the town council in 1906 and the influx of two-week ‘bucket-and-spade’ holidays between the wars encouraged it to develop it into an Art Deco lido in 1929, with proper changing rooms, two rows of cubicles, two high dives, two springboards, two chutes and a wooden boom cutting off an infant pool.

This left a 50m by 25m main pool sloping down to 3.5m depth under the dives.

Access was open but season tickets could be had for as little as 4/- (20p).

Throughout the season from early June to late September, the tidal sluices filled it with seawater.

This would arrive at 13 degrees Celsius, but several days in the sun might take it to a ‘balmy’ 18C.

This was a pool for fun, not serious swimming.

There was raft moored in the middle to crowd onto, plenty of benches for socialising and a little kiosk selling ‘chittery bites’.

Right into the 1960s, it was busy with locals and visitors alike, holding galas, swimming contests and even midnight bathing.

To meet modern tastes, it was heated and enclosed in 1962. Gas boilers, where the Seabird Safari office is now, fed pipes but heat loss was so bad visitors doubted it was heated.

This, combined with jet holidays to the sun, eroded attendance and East Lothian Council, who inherited it in 1976, moved to close it.

Pat Marr’s 4,000-signature petition, Julie Davidson’s national press coverage and Frank Thomas’ comprehensive business plan with funding could not sway a council apparently fearful of embarrassment should they succeed.

The council’s decision in 1996 resulted in it being filled in as part of the Seabird Centre project. The sad thing is that lidos have made a comeback.

Both Gourock and Stonehaven retain their outdoor pools through council and community co-operation. Neither of them have as magnificent a setting as North Berwick’s once had.