It was the end of an era for many Abergavenny families when Bailey Park open-air swimming pool was demolished. The decision to raze the 67-year-old pool site was taken by Monmouthshire County Council after fears were expressed by Abergavenny town councillors over the danger to youngsters breaking in. The three pools lay idle, but not empty, since the town council reluctantly decided to close it amid health and safety fears in the early 1990s. Free Press reporter Lesley Flynn spoke to four Abergavenny people whose lives are irrevocably linked with the pool.

JANE and Bill Foulser paid a nostalgic visit to the site in Bailey Park where the open-air swimming pools once stood.

Both are saddened by its demise, but Jane is glad that the county council, of which she is a member, has finally listened to the fears of local residents about "an accident waiting to happen."

Bill recalled working at the pool from 1964 - 74 with the late, great Joe Dyer who is credited with teaching thousands, not hundreds, of local youngsters to swim while he was in charge.

Bill then worked at the local leisure centre from the time it opened until 1978 when he was seconded to run Bailey Park when Joe Dyer retired, until another manager was appointed.

He resuscitated a little boy who had stopped breathing after he was rescued from the bottom of the pool. He remembered the hue and cry when the public realised there was no telephone at the pool because someone had to run and ring for an ambulance.

But his association did not end there because he and his wife Jane helped at the pool and Bill is a very good artist who painted cartoon characters freehand on the white perimeter walls which local families sponsored.

The pool was built from public subscriptions, with fundraising events and weekly collections among local families, and it opened in 1939.

Jane's father, the late Bill Edwards was the first swimming teacher employed on the River Usk at Llanfoist by the old Monmouthshire county council and he later became park keeper in Bailey Park. She and Bill are well known for running the Porpoise swimming club for more than 20 years and they still run the Musketeers swimming club for the disabled.

Joining them on their nostalgic visit was Teresa Richards, the last chairman of the Friends of Bailey Park Pool - a willing band of volunteers whose hard work kept the pool open for the last few decades.

She said: "I took over as chairman from Kath Nicholls after being persuaded to join the group by the late Rosa Norris, who was mayor of this town.

"We held raffles, dances, discos and duck races to raise thousands of pounds each year which paid for essential repairs and equipment such as slides and spring boards. Our volunteers, who also ran the cafeteria, were second to none.

"We had some very hard working members including Drusilla Gibbons, Andrew Mead, Vic Barrett, Michael Norris, Betty Hinksman, Barbara Francis, Ronnie Lewis, Christine Llewellyn, Richard and Margaret Dodd and Mary Morris, to name just a few.

"I find it so sad to see another part of Abergavenny gone for ever. It was a marvellous place for families to meet and take their children.

"I worked with the last manager of the pool, Sandra Probert, and the work she and her husband put into keeping open the pool was outstanding." Drusilla Gibbons lives immediately behind the pool in Park Avenue. She and her parents moved into the house the same year the pool opened. She and her two children Darren and Hayley learned to swim there and she remembers belonging to the synchronised swimming club when the pool was run by Joe Dyer.

She was also a hard-working volunteer with Friends of the Pool from the time it was formed until just before the pool closed. She said: "It is sad to see the pool go, but we have been promised the wall between the site and our gardens will stay."

She praised the demolition team which took only three weeks to complete the task of clearing the site and said they kept noise and disruption to a minimum.