Description:This article is from the first issue of the Ladywood Brew 'Us Bugle)
This was the Birmingham All the Year Round Swimming Club pictured at Edgbaston Reservoir on Christmas morning 1909. The weather that day was said to be more spring like than winter. The local press reported, `Instead of frost and snow Birmingham people enjoyed bright sunshine and a pleasant southwesterly breeze. Under foot, however, the conditions were most unpleasant, but the state of affairs did not prevent many people from taking a walk in the country’, or it seems a dip in the rezza.
Len Thornton (born 1919) recalls: `We used to go the Reservoir on Christmas morning where the Ladywood Police `B’ Division would assemble and do their annual swim in the very cold water. When they came out I would generally help around. I used to give them their towels, then would wash up the mugs they had had with coffee or tea laced with rum. I used to get 10 shillings for this, it was the first time I had been given paper money. A boy who had a ten-shilling note or a £1.00 note on him had a lot of explaining to do to his parents! They would have a court of inquiry, asking where he got it from!’
In December 1859 the police records show that a number of police officers were put on special duty at Edgbaston Reservoir to prevent people from skating on thin ice. It is recorded: `The surgeon having advised that the Men on duty in the streets this frosty weather should frequently rub there ears, if impossible to wear any covering, until warm, to prevent them from being frostbitten’.