Lillian Bates attended the Pump Rooms for six months in 1968-69 for treament on a shoulder problem.

I know I had wonderful treatment at the Pump Rooms. I went in a pool in my swimsuit and it was warm water, just up to my shoulders and we all stood round and did exercises in the water and it had spa water and it sort of raised you, a little bit like salt water. ‘Cos it is salty, if ever you tasted it. And then we came out through a ramp, walked up through the ramp and they put a nice hot towel all round you and you dropped your swimsuit and they escorted you to a little cubicle with a camp bed in it and lay you down in the camp bed and put a hot water bottle on your shoulder for twenty minutes. And they took your swimsuit and dried it off in a dryer for you, washed it and dried it and gave it you back again afterwards. And then after you’d been for twenty minutes in this, they helped you to get dressed and we went to see some nurses then... and you could have heat treatment or ultrasound and they also gave me ultrasound on my back as well because I started having trouble with my back.

...we just did it in exercises in the water. The water sort of holds you up you see. That’s why they do physiotherapy in water. They encourage it because the water holds your limbs.

What did I like best about it? Oh, the comfort. [laughs] The pool, the warm pool. It wasn’t big enough to have much of a swim, you could just swim across. Only about as wide as a road.