Baths and gym made generation fit and strong
Pitt Street itself was farther north, as can be seen on the map and just below Mill Lane.
All of these roads are now under the M275.
Eddie Wallace tells me that back in 1939/40 all police cadets and probationary police officers attended that place for physical training under the Royal Navy.
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Hide AdEddie says: ‘The commanding officer at that time was Lt-Cdr Swailes. He took us personally and what he couldn’t do on the parallel bars, the horse box and wall bars was not worth knowing.
‘He was quite good on the trapeze bars over the pool and allowed us the use of them under the eye of a PTI.
‘After the war, when the City Police reformed its swimming section, we used to have our water polo matches there as well as our annual swimming gala.
‘I kept up a friendship with Cmdr Swailes after the war when he retired and we often went on coaches to Pompey’s away matches.’
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Hide AdAnd Edwin Amey sent me the photograph here of Factory Sports Swimming Club whose members were employees of the dockyard.
I asked Eddy who they were and he told me they were members of the MED, a department of the dockyard called the Manager Engineering Department.