Dorothy C. Maguire (nee Coles) writes of Childhood Memories of Grange-over-Sands.

I HAVE many happy memories of Grange-over-Sands.

Perhaps the best time, was when attending Arnside National School on Friday afternoons, from May to July in the late 1930s.

The juniors spent the whole afternoon with a trip to Grange Open Air Swimming Pool.

We caught the train from Arnside and then had a long walk along the promenade to the pool.

We went rain or sunshine and the water could be so cold.

A treat was, that on the promenade near the station, there was a chocolate machine where we could treat ourselves for a few pence, on our return.

As a teenager we had a craze for roller skating. A group of us would go over on the train and skate up and down the promenade for the whole afternoon.

We once went to an indoor roller-skating rink in Morecambe, but we didn't have much fun there.

But a timeless enjoyment in Grange was the duck-pond.

The ducks were endlessly greedy and from being a child myself, to taking my daughter Lydia and then my two grand-children, Tom and Sarah, much fun was had in feeding these colourful ducks with bread.

On one memorable occasion Tom, when a toddler, fell in the pond to join the ducks, so we had rather a wet journey home in our car.

Another treat was the little boating pool on the promenade. We bought Tom a little yacht and he loved to sail it, helped by his grandad Peter.

Sadly the pool is no longer there, probably for 'health and safety' reasons.

It seems a shame now that the Grange Lido has become such an empty shell. I think of the pleasure it has given to so many of us during the summer months.