BBCi Website – Sunday 19th October, 2003

Actor Richard E Grant has thrown his support behind Victoria Bath’s Restoration campaign. Here he talks passionately about why it’s important for the Baths to be saved.

“What I love about the Victoria Baths in Manchester is that, unlike a lot of historical buildings where you can’t touch things the Victoria Baths is a place that is, in the true sense of democracy, is somewhere everybody can use.

It has now been closed for 10 years and as people are becoming more interested or concerned about health and fitness and all of those kind of things, it seems like a perfect marriage of the two. If it is restored, it’s a place where you can swim in history.

I just wish it was in the middle of London rather than Manchester, because then I could be on the doorstep with a pamphlet or a banner saying ‘Re-open! Restore the Victoria Baths!’

The municipal baths are worth restoring. Believe me, they’re not like any other historical monument or castle or some big fancy country house that’s full of treasures that, you know, somebody’s looted from the peasantry and countryside of the last 400 years.

This is something that you can use and it belongs to Manchester. It’ll make your house prices go up. You can snog people. You can flirt with them. You can take all your clothes off in front of them. You can get in the water, and if you’re having a bad day, you can go and have a swim.”

Richard E. Grant