The Women's Pool
Lynne Spender (ed)
These heart-warming tales of trials tribulations and trysts at Australia’s only ocean pool just for women – will make you want to dive in, naked at midnight, to revel in all that joyous aquatic camaraderie.
—Kathy Lette, Writer, ocean swimmer and shameless sea pool skinny dipper.
The history of Coogee’s McIver’s Ladies Baths – Australia’s only ocean pool reserved for women – is eloquently told in these stories from women who have found friendship, sanctuary and sheer pleasure as they have gathered and swum at ‘the Women’s Pool’.
Humorously told tales of encounters at the pool sit together with stories of sorrow and regret. Older women tell of the history of the pool and the famed ‘Thursday Married Ladies Club’; younger women detail their delight at the natural beauty, the safety and the sense of freedom that the pool offers. No aquatic manspreading here.
In this book, women from a diverse range of cultures reveal the role that the women’s pool has played in their lives. From the ‘365ers’ who brave the elements all year round to the younger women who seek summer sun on the rocks, a picture emerges of a place of natural beauty and a space for women to simply be themselves.
The ancient seasonal cycles find their own rhythm at our pool, at our place of ‘women’s business’. In the vastness of the largest Continent on Earth, it is a tiny space of companionship if wanted, or solitude if needed.
—Mary Goslett
The Baths welcomes us to its shelves of stone and grass for drying off, to doze, to talk, to preen, to gaze into the aqua green, ivory and midnight blue pool, to the rocks and outcrops either side, and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
—Jane Messer
NOVEMBER 2021 | ISBN 9781925950458 | Paperback | 140 x 210 mm | 160 pp
Lynne Spender (ed)
These heart-warming tales of trials tribulations and trysts at Australia’s only ocean pool just for women – will make you want to dive in, naked at midnight, to revel in all that joyous aquatic camaraderie.
—Kathy Lette, Writer, ocean swimmer and shameless sea pool skinny dipper.
The history of Coogee’s McIver’s Ladies Baths – Australia’s only ocean pool reserved for women – is eloquently told in these stories from women who have found friendship, sanctuary and sheer pleasure as they have gathered and swum at ‘the Women’s Pool’.
Humorously told tales of encounters at the pool sit together with stories of sorrow and regret. Older women tell of the history of the pool and the famed ‘Thursday Married Ladies Club’; younger women detail their delight at the natural beauty, the safety and the sense of freedom that the pool offers. No aquatic manspreading here.
In this book, women from a diverse range of cultures reveal the role that the women’s pool has played in their lives. From the ‘365ers’ who brave the elements all year round to the younger women who seek summer sun on the rocks, a picture emerges of a place of natural beauty and a space for women to simply be themselves.
The ancient seasonal cycles find their own rhythm at our pool, at our place of ‘women’s business’. In the vastness of the largest Continent on Earth, it is a tiny space of companionship if wanted, or solitude if needed.
—Mary Goslett
The Baths welcomes us to its shelves of stone and grass for drying off, to doze, to talk, to preen, to gaze into the aqua green, ivory and midnight blue pool, to the rocks and outcrops either side, and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
—Jane Messer
NOVEMBER 2021 | ISBN 9781925950458 | Paperback | 140 x 210 mm | 160 pp
Lynne Spender (ed)
These heart-warming tales of trials tribulations and trysts at Australia’s only ocean pool just for women – will make you want to dive in, naked at midnight, to revel in all that joyous aquatic camaraderie.
—Kathy Lette, Writer, ocean swimmer and shameless sea pool skinny dipper.
The history of Coogee’s McIver’s Ladies Baths – Australia’s only ocean pool reserved for women – is eloquently told in these stories from women who have found friendship, sanctuary and sheer pleasure as they have gathered and swum at ‘the Women’s Pool’.
Humorously told tales of encounters at the pool sit together with stories of sorrow and regret. Older women tell of the history of the pool and the famed ‘Thursday Married Ladies Club’; younger women detail their delight at the natural beauty, the safety and the sense of freedom that the pool offers. No aquatic manspreading here.
In this book, women from a diverse range of cultures reveal the role that the women’s pool has played in their lives. From the ‘365ers’ who brave the elements all year round to the younger women who seek summer sun on the rocks, a picture emerges of a place of natural beauty and a space for women to simply be themselves.
The ancient seasonal cycles find their own rhythm at our pool, at our place of ‘women’s business’. In the vastness of the largest Continent on Earth, it is a tiny space of companionship if wanted, or solitude if needed.
—Mary Goslett
The Baths welcomes us to its shelves of stone and grass for drying off, to doze, to talk, to preen, to gaze into the aqua green, ivory and midnight blue pool, to the rocks and outcrops either side, and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
—Jane Messer
NOVEMBER 2021 | ISBN 9781925950458 | Paperback | 140 x 210 mm | 160 pp
Reviews
The Nine Media selected The Women’s Pool as Pick of the week in Spectrum.
Listen to Geraldine Doogue talk with Lynne Spender about The Women’s Pool.
Great coverage of The Women’s Pool in The Australian.
Read one of the contributions from The Women’s Pool in The Conversation.
Wonderful post from Therese Spruhan, one of the contributors to The Women’s Pool
Lynne Spender is a feminist, a writer and editor who has lived in and around Coogee since 1982. She has swum at the women’s pool for years and values it enough to have undertaken the task of compiling this collection of stories.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Women’s Pool by Lynne Spender
Cocooned by Therese Spruhan
The Joys of the Women’s Baths by Tess Durack
Morning Thalassa by Jane Messer
Tides and Toms by Susan Banki
The Fabulous Ladies’ Pool: Notes from a Non-Aussie by Judy Banki
‘Women’s Business’ by Mary Goslett
Lai Learns to Swim by Lai Nguyen
Shifting Sands by Grace Barnes
Signs of the Times by Josi Crow
My Swimming Journey by Yusra Metwally
Fake by Stephanie Wood
Leave These Women Alone … by Helen Pringle
Second Skin by Dominique Pile
Mrs Sprinkle’s Moonlight Madness by Louise P. Sprinkle
Recovery by Maddy Proud
Trouble in Paradise by Deborah Kneeshaw
A Small Sense of Freedom by Rhonda Fadden
They Start Them Young at the Women’s Pool by Belinda Buchan
Safety: Where the Outside Meets the Inside by Joanne Fedler
Swimming, Cigarettes and Sex by Wendy Assinder
The Thursday Married Ladies’ Club by Mary Goslett
Mrs C and the Thursday Married Ladies’ Club by Colleen Kelly
Scenes from the Women’s Pool by Lynne Spender
Biographies
Acknowledgements
Listen to Susan Hawthorne introduce The Women’s Pool, edited by Lynne Spender.