There’s Something About a Park

Broomfield Park circa 1988

There’s something about a park.

When I was very little, the local park captured a tiny corner of my heart without me even knowing.  Now I realise the love of parks has been there ever since. 

In the suburban area of London where I was born there were several memorable parks, all quite different in their appearance and function. I have a rather fuzzy memory of a small triangle of flowerbeds and concrete paths on my way to primary school - and was there some sort of shelter or pavilion? I can’t remember.  This wasn’t really a park to play in, just a means to an end: to school; back home. The only reason we ran zig zag around the flower beds was if our mum stopped to chat to someone.  Then it could be a pretty long game of tig. 

Now, the Rec was a different matter, quite the opposite of the neat little flower bedded triangle.  The Rec was the place to play.  After all, this was the ‘50s where kids went out after breakfast and came home at teatime.  No computers, Nintendo’s, Switches or mobiles. Playing out was what we did. My elder brother and I used to cycle to the Rec, meet the gang and amuse ourselves all day: floating lollysticks in the filthy pond; watching the model boats; hide and seek; races; climbing the mounds of foul smelling soil (I never did find out what was in them or why they were there - the smell was awful, and I’m sure they were crawling with something disgusting).  

There are two incidents I remember vividly: one was when a man called me into the bushes and my friend and I ran home giggling, leaving my newly knitted cardigan on a bench. My mum, the knitter, marched me straight back to get the cardigan.  The man was nowhere to be seen. The other incident was when a young boy cut himself on a piece of glass as he cockily rolled up his trousers and waded across the pond. An ambulance appeared, we all watched, open mouthed, then got back on our bikes and cycled home for tea.  Things seemed so simple then, certainly for us kids. 

But the best park of all was the one that had a whole traffic system set up, complete with roads, roundabouts, traffic lights and zebra crossings.  Lordship Lane park was too far away for us to go on our own but our excitement knew no bounds when our mum told us to get out our bikes and we’d set off on the twenty minute journey.  That same park was the source of even more thrills due to its long, stepped paddling pool. If we were really lucky, on a hot sunny day we’d take not only our bikes but a picnic, towels and a change of clothes.  Those days were sixty years ago now but I can remember that simple happiness as if it were yesterday. 

We moved a little further into suburban London when I was eleven, and were spoilt for choice. Our new house was positioned between two beautiful areas of green.  Arnos Park has everything: a stream, wooden bridges, children’s play grounds, a vast amount of grass, huge old trees and the London Underground line (which isn’t underground at all at this point) running across its horizon. The path through the park is a short cut to the tube station, which is a lovely walk on a sunny day, but slightly daunting on a dark winter’s evening. We kids were always told not to walk across the park if it was going dark, a warning we generally heeded unless we were in a tearing hurry.  Good advice, but probably unnecessary for my mum to warn my husband and his three burly police mates not to take that short cut when they were on their way to stay a few years ago. 

Broomfield Park in the opposite direction, was and is, equally appealing. It’s the place I first collected conkers, fed the ducks, slid down the giant slide, watched the tennis, and visited the strange little museum to stare at the small stuffed animals behind the glass with a mixture of horror and fascination. The museum burnt down a good twenty years ago. Each time I visit I hope to see the charred remains and scaffolding gone and something beautiful in its place.  Now I go to take photographs, and check out the tree and the bench dedicated to both sets of grandparents. My mum, now ninety, has just stopped driving but has got a new lease of life walking to the park most days with my dad’s unused walking frame.  She tells me she sits on a bench and makes conversation with anyone who sits next to her.  

Stanley Park in Blackpool holds so many memories for me: Sundays when the children were little, bundled up in warm clothes, braving the cold and spending hours on the children’s playground, my fingers like ice. Pushing swings, running with the roundabout until I felt dizzy, counterbalancing the seesaw and catching slithering toddlers as they shot off the bottom of freezing slides. The days seemed interminable. Now I’m doing it all again with the grandchildren. 

Yes, there’s something about a park. 

Stanley Park

There’s Something About A Park by Jill Reidy

I’ve toddled along a concrete path

Avoiding cracks and stones and dogs

I’ve raced at speed past flowers and shrubs

Hidden in bushes and climbed the trees

I’ve cycled round and stopped at lights 

Paddled in pools and splashed and laughed  

I’ve strolled with friends, our arms tight linked

Summer nights with boys I liked 

I’ve smoked that one and only time  

Cried at the bench and my grandma’s tree 

I’ve pushed a buggy, held chubby hands

Carried dolls and cars and dripping lollies

I’ve swung the swings and climbed the slide 

Rescued cryers and soothed cut knees

I’ve taken a moment, sat and thought 

Of all the parks along the way - the people, the colours, the smells, the sounds

The energy and the peace......

There's something about a park

Thanks for reading    Jill

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Message in a Bottle

Everything seemed simpler in the 1950s when I was growing up. 

In the summer holidays (which, incidentally, consisted of endless days of constant blue skies and sun) we went to the local recreation ground - or 'rec' as we called it - most days. Sometimes our mum came with us and we took a cobbled together picnic - sandwiches, crisps, an apple and, if we were lucky, a Penguin biscuit. If mum was busy we went on our own. It was about a fifteen minute walk or a ten minute bike ride away.  My elder brother had a second hand bike - his pride and joy - from a jumble sale. Mum had paid seven shillings and sixpence for it - a lot of money at the time - but it turned out to be a sound investment.  So, sometimes we walked, sometimes we biked it, but either way we used to go and spend most of the day there, playing in the bushes and round by the pond. These days it would be unheard of for three children, between the ages of eight and fourteen to spend a whole day playing out, fifteen minutes from home, but in the fifties this was the norm. Men were at work, their wives were busy at home and so the kids entertained themselves.  

I only remember two incidents connected with the rec. One was when a man appeared from behind a tree and asked me to come and see what he'd got in his hand. I hadn't got a clue what he was talking about and took a step towards him, smiling politely.  Luckily my much more streetwise friend pushed me back and told him in no uncertain terms where to go  He turned tail and legged it across the rec, while we continued to play quite happily. I don't think I even bothered to mention it to my mum when I got home.  The other incident was far more worrying to me.  After a few hours at the rec I returned home, only to discover I'd left my brand new cardigan (hot off my mum's knitting needles) on a bench. Mum was fuming, promptly donned coat and shoes and raced up to the rec. Needless to say, in those days of common poverty, somebody had taken a fancy to my cardigan and it was no longer abandoned on the bench. My mum wasn't happy and my main worry was not that I'd lost my cardigan but that I might be banned from ever returning to the rec. 

We played out after tea - cricket, the stumps chalked on to our front wall, the bat another jumble sale find; 'keep uppies' - until Gilly's mum came out and shouted at us for constantly banging on her wall; 'Keep the Sunny Side Up' with Iris Whitewell and Christine Archer - two big girls who, in all honesty, struggled to keep anything up, least of all their beefy thighs. I was self appointed choreographer and star dancer, with absolutely no ability in either field. We practised for hours for the show in my dad's garage, stopping abruptly if my dad or brothers dared to come in; we played Mothers and Fathers where my poor younger brother was always the baby; we held sales in the front garden, goods set out on kitchen stools, signs made from cardboard boxes. Our mums took pity on us and came and bought our old rubbish back. 

Back then, everyone had a local milkman, complete with super slow milk float, delivering to every doorstep. We had a baker, too, who left us our daily bread. He still had a horse and cart, which was a great novelty to us kids.  Most days we had a couple of pints of milk delivered. Sometimes my mum would leave a note in the empty bottle. What I really wanted was the half size bottle of orange juice that teased me from a crate on the back of the milk float. My mum said it was a waste of money - and at that time money was tight and certainly not to be wasted on such frivolities. The more I was told I couldn't have the orange juice, the more I wanted it. I devised plans of how to get hold of a bottle. I worked out how long I would have to save to buy one, but on 1d every other day for pocket money I soon gave up on that idea. Christine Archer had the bottles of orange regularly, but then she was allowed most things, including staying off school if she so much as murmured that she felt a little poorly.  In contrast, I had to be at death's door before missing a day's schooling. 

My lucky break came the day I was offered sixpence to go off with a man lurking at the bottom of our street.  I was highly temped to take the sixpence and leg it, but after the rec incident I was a bit more wary of strange men asking me to accompany them, and raced home to tell my mum.  The police were called, a description given and a police officer led me by the hand around the local streets, looking for the culprit.  I decided that any man who was willing to throw away sixpence on the off chance of getting a young girl to go off with him wouldn't be hanging around after his offer had been rejected, and sure enough, he was nowhere to be seen.  I actually felt it was all quite exciting being the centre of attention but my mum obviously thought I'd been scarred for life and was desperate to minimise the trauma.  She came out of the kitchen and handed me a scribbled note.  

"Just stick this in the milk bottle outside, love," she said, handing me the note.  I was about to complain when I glanced down at the piece of paper.  I grinned, went to the front door and poked the rolled note into the empty milk bottle.

The next day, my bottle of orange juice stood next to the milk on the step.  My brothers looked on enviously as I peeled off the foil top, raised the bottle to my lips and took a large mouthful. I never admitted to anyone, least of all my brothers or my mum, that the orange juice wasn't actually all that it was cracked up to be.

An Early Lesson in Disappointment by Jill Reidy

Eyeing up the bottles

On the milkman’s float

It wasn’t the white stuff that drew me

It was that amber nectar

Highly coloured

Reflecting the light

So many times

I’d imagined

The sweet, smooth orange

Sitting on the doorstep

In its half sized bottle

Next to the milk

It took a minor drama

To produce results

A simple message in a bottle

Foil cap peeled off slowly

Bottle to lips, head tipped back

Large swig...

An early lesson in disappointment

Thanks for reading     Jill

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