Things you used to play on at the park

[smiles7964]

Sorry if this has already been talked about. Did anyone have any particularly good or unique things at their local park that they used to play on? Before health and safety really kicked in, my playground at the park was built on concrete and the 'big' slide wasn't caged. All things that used to be there were taken away long ago and a new one built with less exciting things. I'm not sure if caged big slides even exist anymore?! Apart from that we had the old wooden roundabout and rocking horse. There was also a rocking boat that I loved and I think was pretty unique (I never saw one at any other park I went to anyway). It was basically a rocking horse but you sat in it facing opposite ways holding bars. : )

[Heather74]

Yeah we had the big chute but ours was caged we pretended it was a tree house/den.
There was also a spinning thing we called the witches hat, sort of a roundabout that had a cone climbing frame attached hence the name witches hat lol. which were everybody's two favorites items.
We also had the usual- swings,slides,see-saw and roundabout.
The witches hat and slide were taken away after rumoured accidents to be replace with baby items, small slide house and a blue whale climbing frame :(
The see-saw was also ripped out but not replaced!

[darren]

hi smiles everything was unique before H and S kicked it.

we had a slide but it was huge very tall and steep must have been at least 6 metres long just a guess of course.

we had monkey bars and lots of swings.
in a place i worked they had great things.


like a long wooden beam no more wide that say 4 inches.

a set of five long ropes with rings on them which u had to swing to one to the next.

we had one of those high and wide rope thingies you had to climb.

we also had a bridge made of rope on the sides the bit u walked on was wooden panels which moved all over the place as did the rope sides.idea was to get across without touching the ground.

there was also a very big slide.

kids plAyed there regular but when they did not the BIG KIDS CAME OUT TO PLAY.

me and the other fellas did it when raining.

[smiles7964]

I vaugely remember a witches hat at the big town park, think it was taken away when I was quite small. The big slide was good fun to try and climb up. At my nans local park there used to be a roundabout that you sat in and turned the disk in the middle to make it spin really fast, we used to make ourselves feel so dizzy and sick! : )

[victorbrunswick]

I think I found the reason why they did away with the roundabout. :rolleyes:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miSvx9012Lk

[Pinney68]

You guys had wonderful things. In my local park, we had 3 swings - the kind with rusty chains to hold on to.
A climbing frame that was dome-shaped. You'd climb up to the top and there was a circular hole in the top to drop through and graze your knees at get concussion as you hit the concrete floor.
We also had a roundabout that had flaking lead paint on it.
Oh happy days!

[HG]

My park had probably the most unique play equipment of any park, a genuine steel boat, complete with mast and it's still there today. There was also some sewer pipes joined together to make a tunnel, swings and a set of monkey bars.

The park also doubled as a football pitch, bmx track or athletics track depending upon what we were playing. There was also a wooded hill next to it we played in too. It was only a small park but it provided years of fun :)

[Trickyvee]

My park had probably the most unique play equipment of any park, a genuine steel boat, complete with mast and it's still there today. There was also some sewer pipes joined together to make a tunnel, swings and a set of monkey bars.


Down on a promenade near Whitley Bay there was a boat climbing frame shaped like a galleon with masts etc. There were also a couple of banana slides built into the cliffs, with concrete at the end for you to land on of course!

I always wonder exactly when Witches hats were taken away. I'm sure they were the subject of a H&S national ban after too many people came a cropper on them. I never went on one because I was too small but remember watching older kids on them.

[Trickyvee]

3346

Random pic of the day. Showaddywaddy on a Witches hat!

[Heather74]

Wow great to see a witches hat again.

Another local park had the big plastic pipe tunnels and one that run through a hill, no one would go in though as rumor had it kids pee'd in there :eek:

[HG]

Another local park had the big plastic pipe tunnels and one that run through a hill, no one would go in though as rumor had it kids pee'd in there :eek:

Kids (including yours truly) did pee in ours, it didn't stop us going in (after it'd dried up obviously), never did us any harm :)

[HG]

I always wonder exactly when Witches hats were taken away. I'm sure they were the subject of a H&S national ban after too many people came a cropper on them. I never went on one because I was too small but remember watching older kids on them.

I'm sure it was sometime in the 90's, another local park had one and i think I recall it being there until the 90's, it was definitely still there n the late 80's as I remember drunkenly swinging on it as a teen.

[shilton dipper]

As a child my dad was serving the the raf ......we lived in a married quarter and used many of the facilities provided by the mod.......every estate had playing greens and huge play parks with swings, climbing frames, slides, bars, hopscotches, roundabouts, benches.......we didn't know how lucky we were

[Jacqueline]

Our park had swings (with chains that regularly used to be thrown over the top rail to make the swing higher) two see-saws, a spiders web roundabout (that went very fast) and another (slower) roundabout that was very solid looking. Aneka Rice came and "improved" it in the 90s. The concrete paddling pool was made into a skateboard arena and rubbery stuff was put under far safer (and far more boring) play equipment. It all needed repairing after a few months had passed.

[old git]

Back in the 70's our park would of been a h&s nightmare.Big concrete tunnels,a slide made of metal and in the shape of an elephant.One kid got his head stuck in the top bars and had to be cut out by the fire brigade.Did they take it away after that? did they hell they just welded on some more bars to make the gaps smaller lol.And ofcourse there was none of that padded floor rubbish.Concrete covered in tarmac for us lol

[Heather74]

Our playground was covered in that awful red ash/gravel/dirt/grit stuff. When you feel other it dyed your hands and knees red and stuck to all your grazes :(
Foul stuff it was.

Oh and there was always a ditch/stroke hole under the swings and bottom of the slide where it had worn away, these always ended up filling with rain water.
Your feet or even worse your bum would end up getting wet :eek:

[Trickyvee]

Our playground was covered in that awful red ash/gravel/dirt/grit stuff. When you feel other it dyed your hands and knees red and stuck to all your grazes :(
Foul stuff it was.

Oh and there was always a ditch/stroke hole under the swings and bottom of the slide where it had worn away, these always ended up filling with rain water.
Your feet or even worse your bum would end up getting wet :eek:

We had lots of concrete play structures on our concrete playground. Health and safety issues never came into it! Also remember the worn bits of grass with puddles - really bad at the end of a slide! Why were the end bits of slides never long enough? I always went booling off the end.

[darren]

one of my parls had a circular cycle track it was sloped at an angle all the way round.

its identical to the indoor track cycling tracks u see only the one i mean was a tarmac one.


it had swings,monkeybars slides as well..

[Trickyvee]

One park I used to visit had a helicopter climbing frame that was quite good. It had ladders forming the blades which went down to the ground. That park also had a slide that I was too scared to go down because it looked huge. At least the height of a house I thought. Went back as an adult and it was tiny.

i also remember a few parks having a climbing frame that looked like a giant shuttlecock. Think of the net bits and a hole where the ball bit would be with ladders going up to the hole. Can anybody remember these?

Quick edit because I've found a photo! Apparently it was meant to be a space capsule!
3508

[safclass]

Loved the long rocking horse - many a banged head when you were going too fast!! The witches hat we used to stand up on - and some of the older kids used to run around chasing each other as it spun! We also had running barrels - a barrel with a metal frame, you stood on top of the barrel holding onto the frame and ran as fast as you could, sometimes having to lift your legs higher to stop yourself from being injured! was great fun !!

[victorbrunswick]

The park next to my old Middle School had a two or three storey slide that looked like a rocketship which is long gone and another park in my area has an old jet fighter plane covered in concrete.

[themilkman]

Loved 'The Witches Hat'.........banned now I think.
3511

[Austin Maxi]

Not so much a park, but when I was at primary school, we had a 1950s tractor (Ferguson TE20-style) next to the playground to play on. It had been painted a bright colour to attract us kids to it, not that we needed any encouragement as it was something of a novelty at the time. It probably wouldn't be allowed now on Health & Safety grounds.

[Beach Life]

Enjoyed the sandpit, see saws, swings and that spinning roundabout thing but I felt a bit dizzy afterwards and the slide and rocking horse. Also there was a park which I liked to call a secret park which you had to cross the railway line (it did have traffic lights) and it was hidden behind greenery).

[havasack]

In the 70's we had a proper park, with a concrete floor, metal bars etc and a roundabout with a footwell. We created a game, collect as many ice lolly sticks and spread them around the base of the roundabout, lie on the footwell, get some big kid to spin it as fast as possible then shout go and while holding on with one hand you had to pick up as many ice lolly sticks as possible. The winner naturally got the most and there were loads of occasions of kids losing there grip and being spilled out across the park.

I am now a burglar thanks to having no fingerprints on my left hand due to this game.

[darren]

Ah yes the sandpit forgot about that mate.
and yes that rounabout thingy was great stuff.

i could play for hrs swinging on the swings i can just picture it now.
the park nearest me was right beside the river.

many sunny summer days i spent going down a big slide monkey bars where superb.

sadly its long gone.:(






sounds like great memories beach.



Enjoyed the sandpit, see saws, swings and that spinning roundabout thing but I felt a bit dizzy afterwards and the slide and rocking horse. Also there was a park which I liked to call a secret park which you had to cross the railway line (it did have traffic lights) and it was hidden behind greenery).

[Paulos]

These pics are not my park but similar to what we use to have.
All the classic park equipment has gone now but we use to play on.

A classic style roundabout
3519

Those of you that had one like this, did you ever lie down on the lower part and play a game where you dropped and picked up sticks?

We also had one of those five person rocking horses
3520

We also had:
A large paddling pool, which in winter we would see if we could walk across the ice on top of it!
An old tractor
A very high slide, of course set in concrete (none of this H&S nonsense) of which I can remember ambulances coming out to pick up kids who had fallen off it!
Of course swings
A fort made which concrete blocks
Tunnels made with large concrete tubes.

It was a great park (and still is).

[xmark1234]

I loved the round about see how fast we could go and try walk after lol great fun

[Sly]

Paulos, we had that exact same roundabout, although ours was painted differently. It was always getting broken and graffitied on. The last time I was in that neck of the woods I went and looked at the park and the roundabout and swings were gone. We had a slide too, but that went sometime in the 80's as I believe kids were getting hurt too much on it.

I just had a look on google earth and it appears that the foundations for the swings are still there. The slide foundation looks visible from the aerial shots, I'm unable to tell if the grass just grew over that slab of tarmac. It was pretty broken up at the time, so this is plausible. The roundabout foundation looks like it's been reclaimed by nature too. It all looks a bit of a mess.

However, it does look like they've built something that looks like a basketball court just around the corner from it all. You know, because basketball was all the rage with the kids since never in the UK.

[Trickyvee]

At school we had various concrete things to play on, including a thing we called 'the saddle'. The closest picture I can find to it is below but ours was quite a bit taller and made of thicker concrete. It had holes like the one shown, but two on each side of the front instead of one and then two more smaller holes next to the large holes. I thought it looked like a ghost! Even in those days the saddle was a bridge too far in the safety stakes as we weren't allowed to climb on top of it.

3518

[darren]

hey paulos
yes i do remember one of our local parks having that classic style roundabout.
thats the one i was thinking of mate.

and yes i sure did play that game lying down picking up sticks.

can you remember mate the last time you saw his equipment in your park mate?

thanx for the pics mate.

[themilkman]

At school we had various concrete things to play on, including a thing we called 'the saddle'. The closest picture I can find to it is below but ours was quite a bit taller and made of thicker concrete. It had holes like the one shown, but two on each side of the front instead of one and then two more smaller holes next to the large holes. I thought it looked like a ghost! Even in those days the saddle was a bridge too far in the safety stakes as we weren't allowed to climb on top of it.

3518

Ha!, I remember one of those at a school I went to.....I couldn't see the point in it personally.

[maxmix]

I remember in the local "half way house" they had concrete rings embedded in the ground, and they could be any thing, Tanks, Bunkers, Houses, Ships, You Name it!!! Somehow, I don't think kids nowadays would have the imagination, sad, but I think, true........

[havasack]

The classic style roundabout pic as posted by Paulos was exactly as I described earlier.

[hazel]

Sorry if this has already been talked about. Did anyone have any particularly good or unique things at their local park that they used to play on? Before health and safety really kicked in, my playground at the park was built on concrete and the 'big' slide wasn't caged. All things that used to be there were taken away long ago and a new one built with less exciting things. I'm not sure if caged big slides even exist anymore?! Apart from that we had the old wooden roundabout and rocking horse. There was also a rocking boat that I loved and I think was pretty unique (I never saw one at any other park I went to anyway). It was basically a rocking horse but you sat in it facing opposite ways holding bars. : )
My local park had one of these boats!! You could either sit inside it or on one of the ends, which had strange little periscope type things on them (painted red/blue) to hold on to. I used to love it, but I think they took it away eventually.

[retromad]

3641 Happy days playing in the park on these!:) you should all check out this page on fb http://www.facebook.com/70s80sKidsThatsHowWeRolled lots of memories on there too!

[battyrat]

There used to be several climbing frames in our town park.One of which was made in the shape of a tank to replace a real one they had removed years earlier.The original tank was given to the town just after the first war.Both of the climbing frames,especially the very big one which was castle shaped with turrets was removed years ago.Then there was the wooden fort which was fairly big.Long gone.It was made out of old telegraph poles driven into the ground just like those model forts we had as a kid.I can remember running about in this thing with my old cap guns.It even had a look out that you could climb up into which was usually where the big kids used to hang out.It was situated in isolation away from everything else in the park.That went in the 70's due to mis use by glue sniffers.
I never played on it but used to watch other people sail boats there was the old concrete boating lake/pond.It was always there as a kid but it was eventually left to rot end eventually drained.The site later became a large enclosed duck pond with fountains.Looks a right mess now.

On the estate I grew up was a small park with big metal roundabout,slide,swings,bars,etc.All gone now and replaced with safety play things.I fell off of the old slide as a kid and done my ankle in.It only had very narrow railings at the top and it was very high or seemed that way.In the summer the metal slide itself used to burn as you slid down it.Happy days:).

[Paulos]

These pics are not my park but similar to what we use to have.
All the classic park equipment has gone now but we use to play on.

A classic style roundabout
3519

Those of you that had one like this, did you ever lie down on the lower part and play a game where you dropped and picked up sticks?

We also had one of those five person rocking horses
3520

We also had:
A large paddling pool, which in winter we would see if we could walk across the ice on top of it!
An old tractor
A very high slide, of course set in concrete (none of this H&S nonsense) of which I can remember ambulances coming out to pick up kids who had fallen off it!
Of course swings
A fort made which concrete blocks
Tunnels made with large concrete tubes.

It was a great park (and still is).

Just gone through my photo archive
Here is a long range shot of the park where I live in the 70's you can just make out just how high the slide we had was!
The wooden fence is the old outdoor swimming pool.

3647

Heres also a great pic of me from 1974 showing our old classic style roundabout

3648

And another of me 1975 I think at the top of the tall slide

3649

[HG]

Great pics Paulos