For years an old (and sadly late) friend used to fantasize about opening an Enid Blyton Theme Park, with islands, rock pools, a ruined castle, a lighthouse and secret tunnels. There’d be Noddy’s Toyland for the little ones, and a massive Faraway Tree (based on Disney Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life) in the centre with a helter skelter inside. I persuaded him that serving plates with potted meat, brawn and tongue with lashings of ginger beer in the café would not be to modern tastes, and he’d need a vegetarian option (cold hard boiled eggs), and a vegan pink tongue-shaped Quorn dish, though he could eschew serving ten types of coffee.
He thought bottled Camp coffee would suffice but the No Smoking rule necessary today might impact on the authenticity of the occasion. In Blyton’s era children in cafés would be screwing up their eyes to peer through the thick yellow haze of pipe smoke. The Robert Opie Collection of Scrapbooks is the perfect source material with pages of packaged foods, cigarettes, toys, clothes.
We remembered this just yesterday, and started discussing what the 1950s themed children’s public playground would look like. Obviously there’d be a parkie (park keeper) in navy blue uniform, white shirt and corporation tie with a peaked cap shouting at kids. At our local playground he was called Arthur and sported a Hitler moustache. One would have thought it a poor choice in 1955, but perhaps he thought it made him look intimidating. It led to kids doing Nazi salutes and running away. Arthur didn’t run.
The parkie would be stationed by the shelter with its slatted wooden seat and smell of dog pee, allegedly frequented by courting couples able to climb over the gate at night. Rumours were that a condom (then called a Johnny Bag) had once been seen under the seat there. There’d be a brick public toilet at one dark and shaded end, labelled BOYS and GIRLS (we didn’t do symbols back then) but the presence of the parkie saw off any blokes in dirty macs who wanted to hang around, which is why parents approved of him. We were warned constantly about men in macs handing out sweets. The parkie’s other task was stopping the twelve year olds smoking behind the shelter. In those days some shops conveniently sold loose cigarettes so the younger buyer could afford them. If a kid was wealthy enough to have procured ten Woodbines, he would confiscate them.
The ground would be rough concrete with sharp stones sticking out. If you didn’t get a bad cut or abrasion there you hadn’t lived. The slide was way above modern height, probably 20 feet high, with a dangerously low hand-rail on the steep steps. There’d be a dozen kids queuing and jostling on the steps, so if fear overtook you near the top, there was no way they were all going to descend backwards to let you off. Going down in pairs or backwards was encouraged. In summer the aluminium surface of the slide would be hot enough to fry an egg on in 30 seconds, so it was fortunate that it was steep enough to propel you at high speed. The slide ended by tipping you on the rough concrete. Boys wore shorts and girls tucked skirts into navy knickers because scarred knees were a cheaper option than darning clothes. Tarmac? Luxury! A rubberised surface or soft wood chips? Thirty years in the future.
The swings were unprotected with hard wooden seats and rusty chains, and kids swung as high as they could, and we were warned by Arthur that only last week a boy had had his head split wide open wandering into a fast moving swing. ‘What happened to him?’ we’d ask tremulously. ‘Brain damage, permanent and he’s a vegetable for life, but the girl the week before was lucky. She was killed instantly.’ I still worry about my grandkids in modern play parks.
The see-saw only worked if six or eight kids piled on and tried to see how hard they could smash the end into the ground. Sometimes at a pre-arranged signal, all the kids at one end would leap off propelling the other end into the ground, or leap on making it shoot skywards. You’d hit the ground hard and limp away with severe backache at the tail of your spine that would last weeks. The aim was to have someone fall off. A broken arm a week in the area would be normal. The parkie would ignore the howling child, but fortunately there’d be a couple of mothers with prams who would stub out their cigarettes and attend to the injured.
The roundabout was wooden with a platform to add height, badly splintered and you leapt on and leapt off while it was rotating at high speed. The metal bars divided it into segments but there were no bars on the outside because they’d stop you leaping on and off. By the time you leapt off you would be so dizzy that you’d fall to the stony ground, though vomiting would see you expelled from the company of your peers forever. By the time you’d got the wood splinter out of your calf you’d forgotten about the abrasion from the concrete.
Then there was the ‘witch’s hat’ roundabout (aka the Ocean Wave). That was metal and swung alarmingly from side to side while circling. Older kids would encourage you to stand on the seats, clutching the vertical bars. The aim was to get it to sway so much that the circular base crashed into the central pole, perhaps trapping someone’s leg. The parkie might shout, ‘Yere! You nippers! No buggering about on the roundabout!’
The sandpit had damp builders’ sand, so your clothing would be stained deep yellow after a session there. It would also be full of dog shit as people took dogs into the park, no one had heard of picking up after a dog, and dogs were attracted to crap where other dogs had crapped.
Metal surfaces in the park were painted Bournemouth corporation green. Several houses in my street were painted the same colour because there was a minor black market in Bournemouth corporation green paint. Neighbouring Poole had light blue so you could tell by the lamp post colour when you crossed the boundary. Tins of paint used to fall off the back of corporation lorries everywhere. The paint was lead based (it lasted longer) and was generally flaking and peeling off. It tasted interesting. We didn’t worry about that or the asbestos roof on the shelter, because as we were next to a main road we were used to lead from car exhaust and our mums’ ironing boards had asbestos pads at the end.
Elf and Safe Tea? We’d never heard of it.
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