Robert Mennell (B. 1897-1900) looks back to the opening of the swimming pool in June 1914.
“As we contrast the atmosphere we breathed at Whitsuntide [Old Scholars Reunion Weekend] with that which now envelops the world, what ages seem to separate that day from this! Looking back to our school days, we shall gratefully acknowledge that the patriotism inculcated at Bootham was in no sense aggressive, nor of the sort that can be held guilty of inflaming any spirit of jealousy or distrust between men of different nations. Many of us will blame ourselves, however, for having too easily acquiesced in the general reliance upon force, which—pursuing in a vicious circle, armaments, suspicion, and fear—is beyond all question the first and real cause of the gigantic tragedy that has darkened the world. It is not easy now to write of the happy days of Old Scholars. The new swimming bath, which was opened and paid for amid expressions of such enthusiastic delight, and loomed then so large on our mental horizon, seems now with all the events of those crowded days ‘swept into the limbo of forgotten things.'”
From ‘Bootham’ magazine, December 1914