The Clorine. The Fire Ants. The Durban North Pool.

The car stops and parks under the shade of a rambling tree, the sun is so hot that the red sand is rock hard under our feet. We fling the doors open, run like crazy across the car park screaming as fire ants sting our soft feet (the fault of our bata-toughies throughout the term)

We run through the turnstiles knowing that mom and Dad will pay up so we don’t get thrown out, we fling our towels onto an open patch of soft green grass and run across the stoned paving and jump in. The water is always colder than we thought it would be, the diving board is higher, the deep end is deeper, the chlorine is stronger.

If we are lucky friends will come and go and the day will end when the water is just too cold and our feet are too wrinkled and mom is too burnt. Sometimes there is a stall there and we can get cotton candy or those marshmallows covered in coconut.

We are too scared to use the showers cos the lights never work and there are always big people there, other kids moms.



I remember fragments of memories from the hundreds of days spent there, my sister Tracy is four years younger than me – in all of our Durban North Pooling, there was one problem, one thing that stopped us from having hours of fun…she was scared of the diving boards.
The Scene:
Picture it, lumo spandex costumes, pink and yellow zink on our noses, stick-thin white legs and arms, running around the pool like ‘cool dudes’
I finally reached breaking point, I liked my sister, she’s a funny chick, makes me laugh, but I was having to stay with her in the shallow end while all of my-aged friends jumped, whizzed and splatted off the diving board.
So I got her to jump off the small one (it took hours of coaxing) and then I got her to climb the stairs to the top of the high board. Now, I am an exhibitionist at the best of times, I like a crowd, and so does my sister…. I ended up standing on top of the board calling out to the kids in the pool to come and swim in a semi-circle around the base of the diving board (so that Tracy would jump) they came from all over to cheer her on and get her to finally jump. Some kids promised to help her if she got worried or if she couldn’t swim up – it was such an awesome moment! Well, she jumped. They cheered. We were famous : ) well, for about ten minutes till the big-boned kid from Sunningdale Primary got a nose bleed in the shallow end.

Any memories from the pool? Any secret kisses behind the guards tower? Who was brave enough to use those dark skanky showers? Who had a season pass?

Thanks for your posts, comments and emails – you guys rock!

Keep well

Sands x