The Lido: The most uplifting, feel-good summer read of the year

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The famous trumpeter, Harry Mortimer, described Hyde Park's bandstand as "uncomfortable, unsanitary, but much loved". He did a week's engagement on the bandstand during World War II in 1944 with the Fodens Motor Works Band. He wrote in his autobiography: Stand for a moment, feast your eyes. Then close them – and breathe. Gardens are definitely good for our wellbeing. The story is about change and losing places that matter in people's lives so some corporation can get richer. It's hard to let go of our history. It's also about people coming together to make a difference and, most importantly, about hope. This is a book that will make you feel better after you've read. I definitely recommend it. A joyous feel-good debut novel about community, friendship and outdoor swimming. Perfect for fans of Joanna Cannon’s The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Feel free to bring your own food and drink to enjoy in the park but barbecues and any sort of fire lighting is absolutely forbidden.

Our cafés – the Serpentine Bar & Kitchen, the Serpentine Lido Café, the Park Sports Café, and The Lodge Café at Hyde Park Corner – all serve delicious and sustainably prepared hot and cold food with vegan, vegetarian, and other dietary options. Every venue has outdoor and indoor seating, so no matter the weather, you can eat and drink in comfort. Kate smells a story, and she wants to interview Rosemary. Rosemary makes a counteroffer: she’ll do the interview only after Kate has swum at the Lido.

Enjoy the warmer weather with your little ones at a number of splash pads around London and the home counties. From fountains and sprinklers to water features, let your kids cool down when it heats up at a GLL-run splash pad. With a rich ensemble of secondary characters, The Lido serves as a timely reminder of all that we stand to lose through the destruction of our local services, and a joyful celebration of community and friendship. Rosemary is 86 and is a widow. She has been swimming at the Lido almost eighty years. It is filled with memories. And then the dreadful news comes that the Lido will be shut down. The property under off from a company that plans to demolish it and build luxury apartments on the land. She puts out some fliers trying to stop the council selling and the pool being demolished. Rosemary is 86 yrs old and five years ago lost her husband George. They have always lived in a flat within sight of the The Lido (city pool). The Lido had actually been part of their lives since their youth. The Norwegian Navy and Merchant Fleet presented this large granite boulder in 1978 as thanks for British support during World War 2.

There is a real warmth, gentleness, kindness and sensitivity to the novel, and it has a cast of well-drawn characters. As Kate dives deeper into the lido’s history—with the help of a charming photographer—she pieces together a portrait of the pool, and a portrait of a singular woman, Rosemary. What begins as a simple local interest story for Kate soon blossoms into a beautiful friendship that provides sustenance to both women as they galvanize the community to fight the lido’s closure. Meanwhile, Rosemary slowly, finally, begins to open up to Kate, transforming them both in ways they never knew possible. Libby has been a leading campaigner for fairer internships and has spoken on TV and in parliament in support of fair pay for interns. Libby has been writing from an early age and when she was 16 she wrote an illustrated book called Love Pink to raise money for Breast Cancer Care. The majority of The Serpentine is reserved for boating and the local wildlife, and is strictly no swimming. However, there is a marked 100m open-water lido at the south-west corner of the lake which is open for public swimming during summer. Opening hours are 10am - 6pm on weekends from mid-May, and every day between June and mid-September. The Lido” is a sweet tale of two women joining forces and rallying the community to save a local swimming pool. This is an adorable, uplifting story of an unlikely friendship of a young girl who is struggling to fit in a suburb of London called Brixton. She works at a local paper and she has the assignment to write about the local swimming pool. She meets an elderly woman who has enjoyed the pool since the 1920’s. When a development company buys the land and pool to build an upscale apartment building, the swimmers are aghast.A compelling and uplifting read from the get go, The Lido is a charming tale of hope, of finding your feet in a big city and of learning to dive in at the deep end.