Chris Enoch

DURING the 1960s, health and safety legislation was so weak, even the public swimming baths are dangerous places.

It’s a Friday in June 1964 and stiflingly hot in our classroom of nine and ten year-old boys at Agnes Road Junior School. Four mates approach me at the beginning of afternoon playtime.

“Eh up, Ronnie,” says Harry. “Me and the lads are thinking about giving the pictures a miss tomorrow morning and going to Race Street Baths, instead.”

“Yeah, I’m up for that. The ABC Cinema will be like an oven.”

Next morning, on entering the pool area with Harry, Rob, Pete, Steve and Chris Enoch, we immediately realise that many others have had the same idea. It’s deafeningly noisy, and the pool is over-crowded with bathers, like fish caught in a net – especially in the shallow end.

I change quickly and carry my wire basket of clothes to the cloakroom. All my mates are already in the water, pushing and thrashing, bumping and splashing. It’s no fun. After ten minutes, Harry and the others approach me.

“Shall we go into the deep end where there’s space to swim?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “Let’s do it.”

Pete says, “Problem is, Chris only passed his ten-metre swimming certificate last week.”

“So what? Chris doesn’t have to come in the deep end.”

Ten minutes later, I hear three loud blasts of a whistle and everyone’s sternly ordered to evacuate the pool and collect their basket of clothes.

On the side of the pool is a half-circle of people surrounding a lifeless body.

As I enter one of the cubicles, which are raised well above the level of the pool, I see Harry looking down. He says, “Pete thinks that lad lying on the pool-side is wearing the same trunks as Chris.” I freeze with horror, drop my basket and go to have a closer look, and I’m so relieved when I see the victim’s face. Phew! It isn’t Chris! This lad’s face is pale and chubby.

Over the tannoy it’s announced that the only basket left in the cloakroom contains a coat with the name ‘Michael Enoch’ stitched inside.

Strange. Isn’t Chris’s older brother called Michael?

I approach a police officer, who’s standing near the showers, with a glazed look on his face. I try to get his attention but with the noise levels high again, he takes no notice. I walk away thinking, maybe I’m fretting about nothing.

When I reach my Harvey Street home I try to tell my dad about it but he’s something else on his mind.

“Fetch a loaf from the paper shop and tell me all about it when you return.”

On my way back I’m horror-struck for the second time when I see a police car parked outside my house and our front door ajar.

“This policeman’s here about Christopher Enoch,” says my dad. Then turning to the officer he says, “Is it fatal?”

“I’m afraid it is, Mr Steele.”

“That night my mam tucks me up in bed and kisses me on the forehead for the first time since I left infant school, and says: “Today’s been a tough one for you, love. Night, night, sleep tight.” And because I still don’t quite understand the finality of death I have difficulty fully appreciating my mother’s concern.

I know we all feel a responsibility to say nice things about those who’ve died but Christopher Enoch was, indeed, a very special friend. He came from a fairly well-off middle-class family but all his best mates were raggy-arsed lads. None of us had birthday parties but Chris invited us to his, every year, and the take-home goody-bags contained an expensive fountain pen and propelling pencil, not just a balloon and Swizzles.

Chris was always in the top four of the ‘A’ stream at school and was a certainty to pass for the grammar school. Moreover, he was a star sportsman, representing Agnes Road at football, cricket and athletics.

Three years ago, I was in touch with his brother, Michael, and his sisters. Michael told me that after Chris’s death his mother would frequently say: “I wonder what’s become of those poor boys that were with our Christopher that day. I do hope they’re okay.”

The tragedy heralded new and radical health and safety legislation so that such terrible incidents would become an extreme rarity.

None of my mates, who were present that day, ever uttered a single word to each other about this shattering event.