Indefatiguable

During WWII, the public baths that were then Bourneville Lane Swimming Baths, Birmingham, were boarded over from time to time and used for dances. That raises all sorts of questions in my mind. How strong must the timbers have been to span a public pool? How heavy must they have been? How many people did it take to manoeuvre them on and off? Where did they put them between dances?! I suppose this is the 'blitz spirit' the Prime Minister is trying to provoke with sermons about "the tepid bath of managed decline". One of us is mixing our metaphors

The baths are also proud of only having closed on one day during wartime. A day on which the canals that criss-cross this part of Birmingham were targetted by the Luftwaffe. Breaches led to floods over a metre deep. Only closed for a day, Prime Minister, that's the ticket

The canals were a military target because they were carrying the production of the Bournville Cadbury factory out of the city. Not Dairy Milk and Flake bars to boost troop morale, but "gun doors for Spitfires, cases for aeroplane flares, aircraft parts, gas masks and jerrycans", says the website. Not quite ploughshares into swords but certainly adhering to the PM's adopted maxim that "you choose change, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard"

Ignoring warnings of all colours - no stay-at-home tepid baths for us - we drove to Birmingham in the teeth of wind and rain to smile with a grandson and exchange hugs and excitement with co-grandparents. We all met at the grade II Edwardian baths, that had their own managed decline into dereliction and then a renaissance engineered by the local authority and community, in the teeth of the Tory civil war on regional governments - not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard. It is now a much-loved community hub and today hosted an Xmas market and cheerful choir-led singing. Perhaps think about some devolved power, Mr Starmer?

Our journeys involved some driving around fallen trees and through some standing water - doing our best to find the shallow end