10 minute read
Wits swimming pool
POOL CHEMISTRY
A DROPLET OF WITS
You can learn a lot in the Wits swimming pool. Ornithology. Covalent bonds. The strength of your ambitions, convictions, friendships, shoulders and cozzie elastic. It depends on how close you get to the Egyptian geese, on your self-discipline, and on the confidences you blurt out to your pool pals between lengths. You don’t even have to be sporty – but you might well be.
In the 1920s, Architecture Professor GE Pearse was asked to plan the campus layout with provision for a pool. The students wanted it near the main buildings rather than at the sports grounds. “After the plan had been approved by the University Council, work was commenced on the layout, levelling the terraces and building retaining walls and steps,” he wrote.
“The amphitheatre-like swimming bath was constructed by two Basutos using the stone removed from the excavations. The towers and dressing rooms were designed by the architects in collaboration with myself.”
The pool was officially opened by the Governor- General on 16 October 1930. Vice-Chancellor Professor Humphrey Raikes ordered all lectures and laboratory work to be cancelled for the occasion.
This was during the Great Depression, at a time when the government cut the University’s subsidy by a quarter. Soon, more funds would also be needed to rebuild the library after a disastrous fire in 1931.
The pool cost £13 000 to construct and the SRC, which had raised much of the funding, was also responsible for maintenance.
Wits was the only university in South Africa with its own pool at that time, though Johannesburg already had its first public pool at Ellis Park (opened in 1909).
One of the women in the Wits team against Tuks at the opening gala was Transvaal champion diver Sue Womble, “an exceedingly popular and attractive person”, the Rand Daily Mail pointed out. She later became a teacher at Krugersdorp East School.
Events at the annual Wits gala in those early years included the Freshers Pyjama Race, which involved a change of wet nightwear halfway. The pool amphitheatre was also the scene of Rag events and general socialising.
From 1939 to 1959, the Wits Swimming Club was beaten only once at intervarsity. The Waterpolo Club won the first intervarsity contest in 1932 and produced two Olympians for the 1952 Helsinki Games: Gerald Goddard and Des Cohen.
Tom “Fergy” Ferguson was Swimming Bath Superintendent and a successful coach for 23 years from 1929 until his death in 1952.
His successor was the much-loved Victor “Mac” Macfarlane – “mentor, confidant and friend”, says one former club captain – who served for 32 years.
In 1969, Mac wrote to Vice-Chancellor GR Bozzoli to thank him for an exciting gadget he’d been allowed to buy to record various sports: a Tedelex Video Tape Recorder (VTR). It had a slow motion feature to assist in coaching. At the pool it was “an aid in water safety” and helped “to keep control and discipline around the bath”. He reportedly regarded the lawns around the pool as hallowed ground. (By the way, that same year, the pool rules stipulated that women could wear two-piece costumes but had to keep everything on when sunbathing. It was also the year that technology got humans onto the moon.)
“Operation has proved as simple and almost as trouble free as the makers claim,” Macfarlane enthused. “Only once did the VTR fault and that was after the return from Medical School after taping the liver transplant for Killarney Film Studios. … This could have been caused by the transportation we had in an old Volkswagen Kombi … I was a bit shook-up myself after the journey. … If you could see, Dr Bozzoli, the looks of amazement and wonder on the faces of less fortunate sportsmen when they visit and compete against our student teams, you would be thinking we had the ultimate in VTR. The only disadvantage of this unit is in its weight, 160lb. It takes two strong men to lift it…”
MIX WITH WATER - OR NOT
Less amusingly, the pool was a place where the policy of racial discrimination was laid bare.
For years, the SRC opposed the University’s approach of social segregation, but Wits remained under pressure from the apartheid state. In 1969, after an exchange with the Minister of Education, Bozzoli reluctantly cancelled the concession by which black students had been allowed to use the swimming pool. In his memoirs, Bozzoli wrote that he and Advocate Issy Maisels had argued that whatever happened on campus during the “academic day” could be considered an academic activity, where racial integration was permitted. The Minister disagreed and ordered an end to “mixed bathing”.
One swimmer who remembers those times is Emeritus Professor Marissa Rollnick (BSc 1972, PDipEd 1972, PhD 1988), former Director of the Marang Centre for Mathematics and Science Education. She broke three records at the 1969 intervarsity and is still a highly competitive Masters swimmer, in the 65-69 age group internationally. She swims the Midmar Mile and has swum from Robben Island to shore. She started swimming at Wits as a child, when her father, Dr Eugene Rollnick (MBBCh 1952), brought the family to campus.
“Wits in 1969 was polarised between ‘rugger buggers’ and politically orientated students,” Rollnick says. “As a swimmer, I was involved in both and had to keep my sports activities secret from the politicos! When the numbers of black students increased they refused to use Wits sport facilities, in line with the slogan of ‘No normal sport in an abnormal society’.”
Alumni and their families were allowed to use the pool for R3 per season ticket or ten cents for the day in 1969. Nowadays, alumni can pay R1000 a year for social membership of the Aquatics Club.
For years there has also been a Learn to Swim programme for Wits students and staff (tel. 011 717-9423). Instructor Yolande Springer says learning how to swim as an adult can be a frightening experience, but with the basic skills come confidence and the ability to join in all kinds of fun. School of Mining Engineering lecturer Daisy Matlou (MEd 2002) grew up in Meadowlands, where there were no pools, and tried to learn to swim at the Orlando East pool back in 1980. But it was only in the 2000s at Wits that she really took the plunge and learnt properly, along with a group of staff and students, at lunchtimes and Saturdays. Some staff, she points out, had bought properties with pools and needed to learn for safety reasons. “I discovered it’s a myth that only black people can’t swim!” she says. Though “a little bit scared” at first, she loved feeling refreshed, de-stressed and well stretched after a training session.
Staff member and alumnus Jonathan Padavatan (BSc 2009, BSc Hons 2010) swims regularly in season and goes to the pool to meditate. He appreciates the pool’s potential to bring people together from different backgrounds and, like Matlou, feels it’s a resource that more people should be using.
In 1974, the go-ahead was given to extend the pool to meet Olympic standards, from 50 yards to 50 metres. Upgrades, heating and safety features seem to have faced budgetary resistance for many years and funding is still a challenge, says Wits Sport Director Adrian Carter.
The pool wasn’t fenced until the 1990s, despite then Sports Administration Head John Baxter’s pleas. He recalls a crowd of visiting schoolchildren rushing to the pool, leaping in and having to be fished out. But Vice-Chancellor Prof DJ du Plessis was reluctant to allow the view to be spoilt by a barrier of any kind.
It certainly is a central feature of the Wits landscape and the setting for many kinds of student activity. In the 1980s, Men’s Res Freshers had to brush their teeth in the pool water as part of their initiation, while Sunnyside Freshettes used their bras as fishing nets. The first day of September was as good a reason as any to start a skinnydipping tradition.
Aside from the fun, swimming is a good way to unwind, wake up before an exam or relieve the academic pressure. “I credit swimming for helping me pass my second year of engineering. It served to clear my head each morning and start the day out right,” says Tiisetso Murray (BSc Eng 2012, HDipCompSci 2014).
That’s if you can handle the temperature. The pool is notoriously cold, possibly because of its shale base and exposure to wind. In her book From Whiskey to Water, Sam Cowen (BA 1994) describes icy training sessions: “I don’t remember the last time I felt this sorry for myself. … The cold hits me like a fist to my stomach.” Baxter says that when heat pumps were installed in the early 2000s, it was possible for more Wits students, staff and alumni to enjoy the facility, for recreation as well as competitive sport. But the cost of heating is now a problem.
MEET THE SPORTY TYPES
So the members of the Wits Underwater Club, which has been going since 1945, must be tough. The club is renowned for quality scuba diving and underwater hockey and is open to the public.
“The Wits main campus pool is at the heart of our club’s activities as we have underwater hockey practice there along with scuba diving training courses,” says Underwater Club chairman Izak Minnie. “Countless hours have been spent in and around its waters. Our clubhouse is situated in one of the ivy-covered towers next to the pool – I believe we have the most beautiful venue at Wits.”
Many of the club members are beginners to aquatic sports. Alumni make up a fairly large proportion of membership, because scuba diving is a sport that can be practised at almost any age. The introductory course takes about four weekends of lectures and diving.
Diving from a board is another matter. Wits once led the way in this sport. According to information found by Caprice Philippopoulos (HDipEd 1987, MA 2004), former head coach of SA Diving, the swimming club made a film of South African champion Willem Bohlander (BArch 1942) demonstrating diving techniques, and this was used in coaching at Wits and throughout South Africa.
Sports writer Jonty Winch remembers taking photographs of Springbok diver (and gymnast) Linda von Broembsen (BPharm 1989) at the pool in 1989. “After her first dive she didn’t come up. I dashed across, somewhat terrified, as I am a hopeless swimmer. She eventually emerged amidst blood, having cut her chin open on the bottom of the pool.”
A more recent diving star was Aquatics Club chair and Wits Sportsperson of the Year Tandi Gerrard (BPhysEd 2000). She moved to the UK in 2001, competed in the Olympic Games for Britain and now works for Diving Australia.
Tony Garstang (BCom 2000, BCom Hons 2001) remembers the revival of the Aquatics Club in the late 1990s. Members kitted out their home in the west pool tower – known as The Wet Spot – with leftovers from the maintenance department. “We designed, built and paid for the bar ourselves by making 30c per beer we sold for R2.50.”
“There was a guy who worked in the geology department, whom we called Mitch the Magnificent,” recalls Garstang. “He used to come down to the pool every day to tan in his Speedo, slops and lab coat. He was truly a sight to behold! Definitely should be made an honorary member of the Aquatics Club.”
Water polo player Jim Ashley’s favourite memory: “a wayward bounce shot that defied physics, left the surface of the water, hit the light post, rattled off of the post and railings about five times, then landed comically in Mitch’s navel. Luckily for the students in the amphitheatre, when Mitch stood up his old, ill-fitting Charles Atlases stood firm.”
Water polo teams compete in the annual inter-varsity tournament and the Gauteng league. Because of the fearsome reputation of the pool’s temperature, “all the other water polo clubs dreaded playing us at home,” says Dave Baxter (BCom 2006, BA Hons 2007, PDM 2009). “Once the pool was heated it became a firm favourite in Johannesburg. In December 2003, we hosted the South African University Games at the Wits pool – all the major South African universities came to Wits to compete in water polo, swimming, diving and synchronised swimming. The amphitheatre had stands placed all along the fence and these were filled for most games as well as the evening galas. On the last day we had the mandatory freshman ‘maximum pain, maximum points’ belly flop competition and inter-university fun swims to round out the competitive events.”
Baxter raised funds for a team trip to Australia by hosting parties with live student bands, quiz evenings and braais at The Wet Spot. “We had to really hustle to find the funding ourselves. Our men’s polo team trained throughout winter.”
“I remember the pool always being in immaculate condition,” he continues. “The pool staff worked really hard and had huge pride in ensuring that it always sparkled blue. In my opinion they were the friendliest, most helpful staff on campus. They used to stick around late into evenings and weekends watching us practise and play games. I think some of the longer-standing staff members knew the game better than those playing and used to really cheer if we won or get sad if we lost.”
Sports supervisor Godfrey Shivhambu started working at Wits in 2004 as a pool attendant and is now responsible for making sure the pool is maintained. In 2018 it was closed for retiling and to service the starting blocks. The budget is tight, but he assures us that “the pool is not going anywhere; it belongs to the University”.
Sources for this feature included books by Bruce K Murray, Jonty Winch, Mervyn Shear and GR Bozzoli
AQUACADE
“For two consecutive years our team had travelled to Lourenço Marques (LM), now called Maputo, in Mozambique, to swim against the local LM team, Groupo di Sportivo. These tours were a blast and great fun. Life in LM was much more permissive than in South Africa, and we took full advantage of the exciting night life.
“For the next year I got the idea of putting on an Aquacade (pool show) in LM so that our whole club could enjoy LM. One of our swimmers was Teresa Ferreira, who came from LM. She and I drove to LM to negotiate everything that was necessary to produce the Aquacade. She was supposed to be my interpreter but was a very powerful personality and very often she just took over the negotiations. [Teresa Heinz Kerry, BA 1960, LLD honoris causa 2007, worked as a UN interpreter and later became a philanthropist and almost the First Lady of the USA, as the wife of presidential candidate Senator John Kerry.]
“The Aquacade was a huge undertaking. We planned for two complete swimming teams, two water polo teams, divers, clown divers, synchronized swimmers, drum majorettes and a university rock band. Managing this project was a great lesson for me in planning, organisation and management.
“Finally the day came and 60 Witsies descended on LM. I was particularly worried about the young freshmen on our team, who I feared would run amok at night, so I divided the whole touring group into small teams and put a reliable senior in charge of each team.
“The Aquacade was performed for two nights in front of capacity crowds who loved the Varsity spirit and joined in the fun. One of our swimmers, Jimmy Sofianos, was an amazing clown diver. He was extremely courageous and very funny on the board. He really was the star of the show.
“After the Aquacade, with the help of Teresa’s father, we were given tents on a beautiful beach in São Martinho di Bilene. We had a wonderful three days there. A small group went off to scuba dive at Inhaca. A unique and unforgettable experience.”
– Colin Benjamin (BSc 1960), Wits swimming captain 1957/8 and recently retired Macsteel USA director
