THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PLAYGROUND  
By Peter Lyneham

Not sure of the year – my guess, about 1949 or 50.

The dozer was from the Army Engineers as I remember Dad was still in the service at the time. I remember two operators arrived on a Friday night with a low loader and the machine. They stayed at our place on the weekend, and started work on the Saturday morning by cutting the access roads up to the school and then cutting a level area out of the hill to make the playground.
 

On the Sunday when there was something significant to see, a lot of the community turned up to watch and assist where they could. In the afternoon a number of the ladies turned up with the usual cakes and tea and the working bee continued. There were a number of other working bees later when the men used explosives to extend and finish off the playground back wall. All very exciting stuff – lots of action and noise for us little kids to get involved in.

The cost of the army dozer was only a token payment to satisfy procedural accounting. The minutes of the official record would have been suitably vague so as not to set a precedent for using the army resources in this way. Nonsense in reality, because I remember Dad talking about it being done on more than one occasion. You probably still cannot say much about that directly now – though on the other hand it was fifty years ago, so what the hell.

Another activity at the School that sticks in my mind was the Sunday school. As usual, it was something one loathed going to, but enjoyed once you got there. Mainly I think because the Paulls, and later the Doubikins, who ran it, were never really on tome. This left all the kids who turned up with adequate time for playing amongst ourselves. This was a lot of fun as it involved the much older (!) ones who weren’t at school during the week – or perhaps they were, can’t remember exactly. I am thinking of Margaret Fortescue and Audrey Palmer here. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

Article:           By Peter Lyneham

Copyright : Gordon Freegard  2008 - 2023