Tooting Bec Lido - SW16

Even though I have lived in sarf London for 9 years I had never made it to Tooting Bec Lido until a few weeks ago.  Then the next thing I hear is that Ian "Thorpedo" Thorpe, my fellow countrymen, is giving people free swimming lessons there - I imagine the regulars at the lido were more excited by the second Aussie visit than the first.  The other half and I thought we would celebrate the arrival of summer (which has taken its bloody time this year) by visiting one of London's oldest open air pools.  Opening to the public in 1906, the lido is enormous - almost 100m long and 30m wide, this pool is as wide as most are long and as such there is plenty of room for the great and the good of SW London to get their swim on.  I felt like I had stepped back in time to the 60s - the brightly painted changing sheds and the old-school cafeteria were right out of my childhood (which just to be clear, was the 70s not the 60s).  Firmly un-pretentious this is not a place to see and be seen but more a place to suck on a popsicle and then splash around in the clear blue water surrounded by rowdy teenagers and swimming senior-citizens.  I loved it and will definitely be back.