Memories of a Brummie girl from the fifties to date. These are my gift to the generations that come after me.
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
More tales from Manor Road Park - Sandpits
At the bottom of the hill in the park were two sandpits, we used to have to run down to these or come in along the bottom of the hill from Manor Road bottom gate. Coming in from Manor Road bottom gate, a hill had to be climbed in order to get to my Dad’s hut. This hill was based on sand and the path up the hill consisted of rain gulleys in this first part, producing very uneven ground through the sand. Further along the hill there were two more places where the rain had washed away the vegetation, but this time the sand at the bottom of these hills had been turned into sandpits for the children to play in. There were two of these gulleys/paths so there were two sandpits, one larger than the other. ‘Me and my friends’ hated it when children from other ‘gangs’ came to play in these pits, they were ours and if there was trouble then the cry rang out ‘she’ll tell her Dad, he’s the parkie!’ so we always won the right to play. One day we built this superb castle, really large, took up the whole sandpit with a moat round it as well, fetching water in buckets from Dad’s tap (outside I might add). It took most of the day and, as my Dad was parkie and I could be there all day, I was security!! Well, we played until it was time to close the park, they went home and I stayed with the castle until Dad left and we walked home. Next morning I was up ready to go back to the castle, so there I was with Dad opening up but me going across to the sandpit. Some of the gang drifted in during the day and we continued to decorate, searching out all sorts of décor from our surroundings. I stayed till close of park again that day, leaving someone to watch while I went and had lunch with Dad – the jam sandwiches! Next day I opened up with Dad and rushed over to the Castle but ….. somehow ….. someone ….. or something …… had trampled our wonderful creation, not totally destroyed it but caused a lot of heartbreak. I ran to find my Dad, where ever he was, and told him about what I had found, I was distraught – crying and sobbing. He came down straight after he had finished opening up the park and was as amazed as me. He did not see how anyone could have entered the park during the night so put it down to animals, either foxes or a badger. Being such a large park, animals had the run of the place at night and I know that there were several badger sets around the bank under the allotments. So that was that ……… when the others came they half heartedly tried to rebuild but the magic had gone out of it. They drifted off after a while and a couple of us stayed to restore it but eventually we had to admit defeat so ……… we kicked it all about and levelled it out, no-one would ever know it was there. I only wish that there had been more cameras in use in those days so I could’ve taken a photo as I have never seen another sandcastle like that one, turrets and moat and all, even the man on Weymouth beach could not make one like that!!!
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