I was talking to someone about 'What Katy Did at School', which I read and re-read as a child, and which has been continuously in print ever since it was written in 1873. My own copy had a plain cover, but out of curiosity, I had a nose around on google images.
Oh. My. God. 1/8
A short thread on 1960s/70s playgrounds:
As there really was nothing to do during these decades, most children spent up to six hours a day at the local playground, returning home either to eat or to have their injuries tended. 1/7
Occasionally - if, say, they got one leg stuck in the chimney of the decommissioned traction engine cemented into Lichfield’s Beacon Park as an imaginative-play item – they might even have to stay overnight, or until extracted by the fire-brigade. 2/7
Here are a few of the top attractions of that era. I couldn’t, unfortunately, find a picture of one of the large, unsupervised cement paddling pools in which, in hot weather, might be found 300 children and multiple bacteria previously unknown to science. 3/7