I recently visited a couple of public parks for the first time many a year. It was heartening to see both Victoria Park in Glasgow and Saltwell Park in Newcastle remain popular for family days out. Yet it struck me how much was missing by way of park life from back in the late ‘60s and ‘70s.

I loved going to ‘the park’ as a youngster. My grandparents lived opposite Knightswood Park in Glasgow, and I’d spend hours over there, jumping the burn or crossing it on the shoogly stepping stones – though not so often if I was wearing plastic sandals. Wet plastic doesn’t afford much traction on slimy, weed-covered, rocks.

There was the children’s playpark that boasted not only the usual swings, slides and roundabouts, but a ‘witches’ hat’ and a muti-person rocking horse thing.

I don’t remember there being any boats to hire on the large pond, but there were plenty ducks and geese to feed and keep us entertained. And for the older kids and grown-ups, there was a nine-hole pitch and putt course.

There was also the good old ‘parkie’.  The Park Keeper would look all so official in his uniform suit and peaked flat hat. When not patrolling his territory to make sure nothing untoward was going on, he could be found in his ‘office’ – a small wooden hut which he’d heat with a small calor gas stove. Health and safety, anyone?

However, as much as I enjoyed Knightswood and other parks around my city, there was no beating those we’d visit on our summer holidays. Nowadays, of course, many kids are excited and lucky enough to visit some distant ‘theme park,’ with all its hair-raising and vertigo -inducing rides.

We went to Littlehampton. In Sussex. England. A lo-o-o-ong car journey away back in the day, but still on this fair island of ours.

“Are we there, yet?”

“No – be quiet and eat your Heinz Sandwich Spread sandwich!”

Though there were some fairground rides to be found seven miles along the coast, west Sussex could not possibly compete with the thrilling rides of Florida, even in the early ’70s. Neither could it come anywhere close to matching the glorious weather across the Atlantic.

And yet, Littlehampton public park often provided the highlights of our holiday. (We travelled down four years in a row, I think it was.)

There was plenty open space for my dad and I to kick a football around. There was sufficient area to secure a picnic spot distant enough from the next family so’s not to be put off our chicken paste sandwiches  by the smell of their boiled eggs and jar of pickled herrings.

There were trampolines which could be hired for pennies; an open air aviary, populated by wide range of (to us) exotic birds; a  purpose-built pond hosted ducks, swans, water fowl and an array of toy yachts that bobbed around aimlessly while frustrated kids tried in vain to drag them back in to the side with their long, cane boating hooks.

Best of all though, were the boats for hire on the large lake. There were all sorts to lark around in; two-man, ‘Indian’ canoes; pedaloes; solid old rowing boats … and beautifully varnished and shiny motorboats that emitted a wonderful, oily / petrol /diesel smell . The local ‘parkie’ had his work cut out watching that lot, I can tell you.

There would always be an ice-cream van on site, and in the early evening of summer, the owners of the local fish ‘n’ chip van would do a roaring trade.

What a treat to round off the perfect day.

Yeah – parks of the ‘60s and ‘70s  gave me  ‘a sense of enormous wellbeing and then I was happy for the rest of the day, safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it.’

Park life.

(And just for good measure … this. Re-released in 1975. 😉 )

(Post by Colin ‘Jackie’ Jackson from Glasgow, September 2025)