The good old days

I was walking home with my dog this afternoon, through Woody Park. And I was looking at the play area there and thinking how sad it was that kids nowadays just get the crappy “safe” slides and chutes. We used to have such amazing fun on the HUUGE slide and the big climbing frame that used to be there. As well as on the swings that you could actually move because they weren’t massive chunks of rubber that weigh about a tonne each and are calculated to go no higher than a few feet from the ground. The roundabout was the one that was most disappointing. It had been changed for a rubbishy little one that unless you were under 3ft in height it would be impossible to play droppies from (you remember that game. The one where you put a shoe or a twig down and some-one else picked it up on their way past… always good for a few scraped knuckles, but hey. That’s what being a kid’s all about.) and that probably needs three adults to push hard to get any kind of decent speed up on.

Not only are the amusements in this park no longer up to scratch, the park itself is in a bit of a shambles. The grass is more overgrown in places than I ever remember it being as a kid and there is graffitti everywhere. I don’t remember as a kid ever wanting to go and write my name all over things in big bold silver letters (the underneath of swings, in pen, yes, because that meant that that was MY swing and I’d claimed ownership and got to swing on it, but who really wants to claim the park bench by writing “Joe” all over it???) but that’s apparently what kids want to do now. And that’s really sad. Even the trees have graffitti all over them.

I don’t know what the answer to any of this is. I’m merely musing, but I’d really hate to think that when (if?) I ever have kids, that the most fun they’ll have in their local park is spray painting trees. Hopefully all these safety regulations will have been looked at by then…