Although the crowds flocked in great numbers to Cardiff Arms Park to watch the athletics, the star attraction of the Sixth Empire and Commonwealth Games held in July 1958 was the newly opened Wales Empire Pool. Built at a cost of over £650,000 the Wales Empire Pool had been constructed specifically for the Games. There are photographs in Glamorgan Archives of Princess Margaret visiting the Wales Empire Pool while still under construction on 2 February 1958.
It must have been a worrying time with a building timescale that was incredibly tight. There would, therefore, have much relief when the new pool, with its distinctive ‘modernist’ brick façade and barrel roof, was opened, on schedule, on 18th April 1958 by the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Alderman J H Morgan JP – just 12 weeks before the first day of the Games. Material held at Glamorgan Archives, including the programme for the opening event, provide details of a building that went far beyond the popular image of a swimming pool.
As might be expected, centre stage was given to the international size swimming pool 55 metres in length, with six lanes and up to 16 foot in depth to accommodate the highest of the three diving boards that towered over the pool some 10 metres above the water level. It would have been an extraordinary experience for those who used the pool in its early days in terms of both the scale of the building and also the use of ‘new technology’, including an ‘infra-red ray’ system to control the overhead showers that bathers had to pass through to enter the pool.
From the outset there were ambitions to use the new pool to its full capacity and the programme announced that it was equipped with glass panels that could be lit with different colours for ‘aqua shows’. However, it was the additional amenities that caught the eye. They included a Jewish ‘Mikvah’ bath on the ground floor, therapeutic baths and a suite of stainless steel aeratone baths for hydraulic massage. There was also a Turkish bath complete with hot room, massage slabs and a plunge pool. To complete the experience a small kitchen provided light meals to those using the Turkish and the Aeratone baths. To cater for international events there was seating for 1700 spectators with access to a restaurant that could hold up to 150 diners at one time. Finally, the whole arena was air conditioned with the promise that the air was ‘completely changed four times every hour’.
The opening was marked by an international swimming competition with Great Britain competing against Germany over two days.
Although the outcome was a crushing win for the British team, the newspapers the following day were highly critical of the organisation of the event with one national paper calling it ‘A Shambles’. It is difficult to determine whether this was a fair assessment. However, it is clear that, by the time the Empire and Commonwealth Games opened on 19 July, lessons had been learnt.
The battle for medals during the 6 days of swimming and diving hosted at the pool from 19th to 25th July 1958 can be followed through materials held at Glamorgan Archives, including details of the swimming and diving finals held on 25 July. Hopes were high that the 24 strong Welsh team of 16 men and 8 women could win a clutch a medals.
In particular, many had high expectations of the team captain, John Brockway, who had competed for Great Britain in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics. John had also represented Wales at the last two Empire Games, winning a silver in the 110 yds backstroke in Auckland in 1950 and a gold medal at Vancouver in 1954. In the programme held at the Archives for the finals at the Empire Pool on the evening of 25 July 1958 John’s name figures in both the backstroke final and the four man medley relay team. In all, 6 Welsh swimmers and divers competed for medals that night at an event watched by the Duke of Edinburgh alongside a capacity crowd. The results have been pencilled into the programme and they confirm that, sadly, it was not a successful night for the Welsh swimmers and divers.
Yet again the honours in the Wales Empire Pool went, primarily, to the all-conquering Australian team.
The stars of the night and the week were two swimmers referred to in the press as the ‘Konrad Kids’. Sixteen year old John Konrad and his 14 year old sister, Ilsa, had been born in Latvia during the Second World War. They had emigrated with their parents to Australia after the war and were taught to swim by their father while living at a camp for migrants in New South Wales. It was a rags to riches story that captured the imagination, with the Konrads winning four gold medals in the Wales Empire Pool. Only the heroics of the Scots swimmer Ian Black in winning a gold and 2 silver medals and the world record breaking performance by the English women’s medley relay team, including Anita Lonsbrough, briefly snatched the headlines from the Konrads.
Yet the Welsh public was to have its day during the course of the Games when Howard Winstone won a Gold medal in the boxing held at the Sophia Gardens Pavilion, in the bantamweight competition. It may not have been much by way of consolation after the events in the Wales Empire Pool, but his opponent in the final on that memorable night was Oliver ‘Frankie’ Taylor – an Australian.
If this article has whetted your interest a copy of the official programme for the diving and swimming finals held on 25 July 1958 in the Wales Empire Pool is held at Glamorgan Archives (ref.: D209/4), along with the programme referred to above for the opening ceremony in April 1958 (ref.: D45/3/5). In addition, we also hold a range of material and photographs associated with the construction of the Wales Empire Pool that can be accessed at Glamorgan Archives.
Incidentally, although the Wales Empire pool was demolished in 1998 to make way for the Millennium Stadium, the plaque unveiled by J H Morgan on 18 April 1958 can still be seen as part of the structure of the Cardiff International Pool at Cardiff Bay.
Tony Peters, Glamorgan Archives Volunteer
Glamorgan Archives 