I WAS a bit puzzled by the picture of the old Grange swimming pool in last week's Gazette.

I distinctly remember that one of the main reasons South Lakeland District Council gave for closing it down 10 years ago was that the pool leaked so badly that they could not keep it filled up.

Yet, a decade later the pool is clearly not bone dry (pictured right) as I would have thought, but full to the brim.

Not that it makes a great deal of

difference, for I am sure that the new indoor pool at Berners Close will be far better used by the soft modern

generation than the old pool was.

By the time of its closure the only regular users were the hardy members of Grange Swimming Club, mostly

youngsters, who would plough up and down its 50-yard length when it felt as if the surface would ice over at any time.

Those were the days when the ASA personal survival tests really meant something.

Today's youngsters take the tests in the comfort of heated indoor pools.

Yet it seems to me that Grange Promenade pool was a better place for the examination - after all, if personal survival skills are ever needed in earnest the chances are that the plunge will be into an icy lake rather than a warm bath.

The days when whole families would climb over the wall for an evening dip when the pool was officially shut and when youngsters used to defy the threats of pool staff and jump over the rear wall into the tide are gone.

However, it is nice to see that the Grange 3PS Working Party, which one of my colleagues unkindly suggested meant the 'Pootling, Pithering and Piffling Working Party', is looking at new ideas for the site.

My favourite was the idea of turning it into some sort of open-air entertainment area and, as the pool seems determined to stay full of water, I would suggest that a water-theatre would be appropriate.

The concept would let Grange stage the Busby Berkeley spectaculars which were made in those far-off days when Grange was also popular.

Audiences could drift around on hundreds of inflatable chairs, creating a novel new form of promenade theatre and allowing a one-price-for-all-seats promotion at the booking office.

Floating scenery could be revolved or restructured with the minimum of effort allowing stage-crew costs to be considerably reduced, while the water would afford opportunities for a whole range of new dramatic entrances and exits, giving the floating audience the chance to exercise criticism by refusing to allow poor performers to surface.

Imagine Henry V appearing to declaim: "Once more unto the waterchute dear friends." Or a non-swimmer cast in the part of Hamlet tottering on the edge of the high board saying: "To dive or not to dive, that is the question."

And what a joy to hear the Westmorland Orchestra gurgling Handel's Water Music from the bottom of the deep end, with the frantic sawing of the strings doubling as a wave machine and the woodwinds bubbling up an instant Jacuzzi.