The Memory Pool Australian stories of summer, sun and swimming

Swimming is a central part of most Australian childhoods. We idealise beaches and surf, but for many kids the local pool—whether it’s an ocean, tidal, or a chlorinated pool—is where they pass summer days. Pools are places of imagination, daring, belonging, freedom, friendship and romance. For some they are places of hard-core training. This delightful, nostalgic anthology brings together reflections and recollections about the swimming pools of childhood from a range of Australians of diverse ages and backgrounds, well-known and not-so-famous, including Trent Dalton, Leah Purcell, Shane Gould, Bryan Brown, and Merrick Watts. Evocative, funny, and sometimes bittersweet, almost 30 people remember the pools that shaped their childhoods. Everyone who has ever dived into their local Olympic pool, bush waterhole, or saltwater baths will want to submerge themselves in this beautiful book.

Therese Spruhan is a Sydney-based photographer, journalist, freelance writer, and swimmer who blogs about pools and swimming.