# Britain's brutalist playgrounds – in pictures



## Northerner (Jun 10, 2015)

Good grief!  Our playground equipment in our local park was largely metal and wood, but the 'landing' surface was sharp gravel  Can you imagine councils' compensation costs if they built things like this now?

http://www.theguardian.com/artandde...09/britains-brutalist-playgrounds-in-pictures


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## Robin (Jun 10, 2015)

Northerner said:


> Good grief!  Our playground equipment in our local park was largely metal and wood, but the 'landing' surface was sharp gravel  Can you imagine councils' compensation costs if they built things like this now?
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/artandde...09/britains-brutalist-playgrounds-in-pictures


Was this in Brighouse? I used to stay with an aunt there, and I remember playing in the park, and some local children showing me with great glee the bloodstains on the ground where some child had just been scraped up and taken to hospital after falling from the top of the big slide. Didn't stop me climbing up the slide, You just took it for granted in those days that you would be more careful and not fall off! There used to be a big slide where I live now, and my elder child remembers it, but it was removed 20 years ago for safety reasons and replaced with a small one that has a bank of earth to climb up, not a ladder at all.


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## Northerner (Jun 10, 2015)

Robin said:


> Was this in Brighouse? I used to stay with an aunt there, and I remember playing in the park, and some local children showing me with great glee the bloodstains on the ground where some child had just been scraped up and taken to hospital after falling from the top of the big slide. Didn't stop me climbing up the slide, You just took it for granted in those days that you would be more careful and not fall off! There used to be a big slide where I live now, and my elder child remembers it, but it was removed 20 years ago for safety reasons and replaced with a small one that has a bank of earth to climb up, not a ladder at all.



Yes, in Brighouse at Lane Head park (also known as 'The Rec')  Small world! Looks very different now. Picking stones out of your knees was anmost daily occurrence


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## Robin (Jun 10, 2015)

Northerner said:


> Yes, in Brighouse at Lane Head park (also known as 'The Rec')  Small world! Looks very different now. Picking stones out of your knees was anmost daily occurrence


Just Google mapped it. yes it has changed a tad! But I've just worked out it was 50 years at least since I was there!


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## Northerner (Jun 10, 2015)

Robin said:


> Just Google mapped it. yes it has changed a tad! But I've just worked out it was 50 years at least since I was there!



Interesting  I would have been there 50 years ago, most days after school or weekends as we just lived round the corner  Perhaps I showed you the blood!


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## robert@fm (Jun 10, 2015)

Interesting that one of the playgrounds was designed by Ernö Goldinger, after whom Ian Fleming named one of his villains, Auric Goldfinger. (Goldinger threatened to sue for defamation.)

I remember that in my local playground (Kennington Park, south London), about 50 years ago, the central attraction was a huge slide, which to my small eyes looked about 20-25 feet tall (though it may not have been quite that tall). There's nothing like that there today.


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## Copepod (Jun 10, 2015)

Churchill Gardens, Pimlico looks like a mini Giant's Causeway leading up to flying saucer. 

By chance I visited Brimham Rocks a couple of weeks ago, with 2 adult friends, and their daughters aged 14 and 11 years. The girls were embarrased by their parents walking along holding hands, so we hung back and took different routes, so we could go bouldering [climbing on rocks, but going sideways, so feet are never more than about 1 metre above ground]. The girls also crawled through a mini cave, too small for me. The girls are good climbers, because their parents, particularly father, have taught them about safe climbing eg three points on the rock at all times [one hand and two feet or two hands and on foot], always face the rock etc. 

When I worked at a country park, with Iron Age ring ditch, particularly when leading activity birthday parties, usually for children aged 5 - 8 years, with a few younger siblings, I always encouraged children to use those techniques, holding onto exposed tree roots, face slope if it's too steep for comfort etc. 

Best to learn those skills young and enjoy climbing - I still do


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## Annette (Jun 10, 2015)

Ooh, Brimham Rocks - used to go there as a kid. Would scare my Mum witless with our climbing around, but we never once fell off. Like you say Copepod, learn how to do it young, you never forget.
My cousin (who never really went outside as a kid) went there a couple of years ago, thought he would show off by climbing one of the rocks, got stuck up there, then fell off onto my uncle who was going up to help him. Broke both my uncle's wrists...


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## Copepod (Jun 10, 2015)

Oops - really bad to break someone else's wrists when getting off a rock! There's nearly always a safe way down, not necessarily the same way as you went up. 

Did cousin try a climbing course after that experience? Was it his Dad's wrists, or another relative? If it was his Dad, perhaps Dad regretted not taking his son outdoors more often when younger.


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## Annette (Jun 10, 2015)

Nope, cousin didn't do a climbing course, but his new wife is very outdoorsy and is pushing him to new experiences, so there's hope yet!
It was his Dad's wrists. I think he was more regretting agreeing to take them to Brimham than anything  (He is now fully recovered, and is up for anything his grandkids (several of whom love being outside) throw at him, including building them playhouses in the woods, so maybe again there's hope for the future of the next generation.)


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## Annette (Jun 10, 2015)

This thread reminded me of several times when I have been called upon to rescue various of my nieces from trees/climbing frames - sometimes with the knowledge of their parents ('H is stuck at the top of the climbing frame and I can't reach her. I don't know what to do!' 'Umm, I climb up and get her, maybe?'), sometimes without ('Auntie Annette, M's stuck up the tree but she said I hadn't to tell Auntie L (M's Mum) cos she'd get cross with her for climbing the tree') I dunno, maybe I have a reputation for being a bit of a monkey


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## Northerner (Jun 10, 2015)

I'll never forget a school trip I went on when I was about 10 to Malham Cove - they actually let the kids walk along the narrow path about halfway up (as I remember it) - very narrow and a very long way down!  A couple of the kids became immobilised with fright and it took quite a while to help them down.

I have no head for heights - I even get dizzy seeing someone else sitting at the edge of a cliff, for example. I went out with a girl and we used to go on holidays in The Lakes - it was funny because she was scared of coming down steep slopes, because she thought she might fall forward, and I was more scared of going up for fear of falling backwards! I think my fear was more justified, as going up meant you had further to fall


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## HOBIE (Jun 20, 2015)

A head cracking good time.  Comes to mind


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## Mark T (Jun 21, 2015)

My primary school had a giant concrete saddle and some concrete half tubes for the children to play on.  I recall the concrete saddle was higher then me and it took a big jump to get up to the top of it.

It's not there anymore!

I've been down Malham Cove.  It was when I was on a weekend walk with some friends of mine.  We walked from Grassington to Kettlewell then across the moor to Malham via the Tarn and the Cove.  I was helping a friend down from the top who had hurt an ankle so I unfortunately didn't get much chance to enjoy the view.

For something I'm fairly sure that I would not try, I've been up the Langdale Pikes in the Lake District a few times.  But I've always taken the long route to get to the top of Pavey Ark, rather then taking the direct route up Jack's Rake  (google it, I dare you)


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## KookyCat (Jun 21, 2015)

How times have changed!  I was never away from A&E, constantly falling off things, my best was falling off squirrel's leap at primary school, I'd already fallen down the gravel path and clinked my chin on a log, then we had to climb up the leap.  I lost my footing and fell down it, took the skin off my knees, fractured my wrist, and needed stitches in my scalp.  The best bit was they sat me on the coach for two hours in blistering heat whilst they carried on, and then made me walk home from school, I was a trooper, no tears no none at all.  I was a hardy soul though and only got carted off to hospital by my Dad when I started vomiting from heat stroke   could you imagine the fuss now.  That said probably not the best idea to take 30 9 year olds out in blistering heat, with no water and let them scale a rock face without safety harnesses....probably 

I also stabbed myself with scissors whilst trying to scratch inside the cast, so I may have been a special case!


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## Northerner (Jun 21, 2015)

KookyCat said:


> ...probably not the best idea to take 30 9 year olds out in blistering heat, with no water and let them scale a rock face without safety harnesses....probably



No rock faces to scale, but when I was 12 the school decided that all the first years would do a sponsored walk along Hadrian's Wall to raise money for a minibus. Turned out to be a route march of near-SAS Brecon Beacons proportions  Also in sweltering heat, supposedly 9 miles (already quite a distance for small kids) but of course if you've been to HW then you'll know that it's not exactly flat, but perpetually up and down. I think 5 kids gave up through heat exhaustion and the rest of us failed to appreciate any of the history due to the relentless pace being driven by the teachers.


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