Emma Brennan is an award-winning journalist and former newspaper editor with a fondness for yesteryear.

As the school summer holidays progressed and mum started to run out of creative ways to entertain us, we would pay a visit to my great aunt in the neighbouring village.

I enjoyed these excursions immensely for two reasons: firstly, Aunt Ivy was a cook and made the most excellent scones. Secondly, she lived opposite a children’s public playground, so my sister and I were able to escape when the adult chitchat and village gossip all got a bit too dull for us.

These days, when you say ‘kids’ play area’, you envisage exciting apparatus such as overhead climbing rails and even zip wires, all suspended over padded ‘soft-fall’ surfaces to cushion any potential tumbles.

Emma on a swing in the 1970s, which was about as exciting as playground equipment got in that decade (Image: Emma Brennan)

Around most play areas today, there are secure railings to keep the children safely ensconced. But go back to the 1970s, and public playgrounds were a very different place, jam-packed with potential hazards. 

There was literally no such thing as ‘soft play’, ball pools or bouncy castles – just the opposite in fact. 

The 1970s children's playgrounds defined by a lack of health and safety

For a start, today’s play equipment is often made from brightly coloured, flexible plastic-type materials to make it more comfortable to play on. In the 70s, most of the items were made from metal or wood.

Not only was this extremely dangerous if you came to grief whilst navigating your way around a monster-sized slide or climbing frame, but the metal also became searingly hot in the summer sunshine.

And as the wooden elements of the play equipment degraded, there was always the danger of acquiring a splinter in your hand, or worse. 

Children were often queued up on the ladder waiting for their turn to go down the slide (Image: Newsquest)

The thing that strikes me most when I look back at pictures of the playgrounds in our day, is the sheer scale of everything – plus the complete lack of any attempt at health and safety.

The slides were literally huge, so even standing at the top of the ladder took a very good head for heights. And it was not for the fainthearted to take the plunge down the slippery metal, sharply-angled slope to the bottom, with the almost certain drop off the end onto concrete.

I remember how my sister would try to coax me into going down headfirst. I was quite often up for a challenge so would oblige, but would usually suffer a few ‘burns’ or grazes as my legs stuck to the hot metal, or I bumped from side to side into the raised metal edges during my descent.

Apparatus is children’s playgrounds in the early part of the last century was pretty basic, consisting of a swing, seesaw and climbing frame if you were lucky! (Image: Newsquest)

The danger of roundabouts

The roundabouts were probably the biggest hazard, and were essentially a revolving wooden platform secured into the ground with a single metal post and a succession of curved bars that you had to cling on to for grim death.

Many a child lost teeth, or even worse, were knocked clean out when the roundabouts were spun to terrifyingly fast speeds.

This forced the very ‘giddy’ passengers who had failed to secure a firm grip to fly off in all directions.

Even the seesaws were possible death traps, with the potential to trap your fingers under the board as ‘your end’ hit the ground.

The roundabouts were particularly hazardous and you had to cling on for dear life to the metal bars to avoid flying off (Image: Newsquest)

At worst, you could be flung off with great force as the seesaw bumped into the concrete at the other end.

The swings were not much better. Even the ones with metal ‘safety’ bars for infants and small children were suspended over rock-hard surfaces.

If you were pushed too hard on the swing, which invariably happened as children aimed to get higher and higher, there was a danger of you soaring off into the ether and landing on hardened earth.

The dangers outside of the equipment

Far from being securely fenced in, the playgrounds were open to the elements – and Joe Public – including a lot of the older children who seemed to use the play areas as a place to meet up for a sly cigarette.

They very often took the micky out of us youngsters and sometimes even sent us flying off various pieces of apparatus with hard shoves or over-exuberant spinning. 

Even the swings were set into concrete, so if you fell off, there was nothing soft to break your fall (Image: Newsquest)

I can remember my arms aching from clinging on whilst trying to negotiate the dizzying heights of the huge metal climbing frames, again, all built over concrete with absolutely no provision for fallers-off.

But having said all that, we were blissfully unaware that there were no health and safety measures – it was simply how it was.

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The worst I acquired was a few cuts and bruises, simply administered to with a dab of Germolene (in a tin, not a tube) and a sticky plaster. We were used to it. 

I still look back very fondly on my playground memories. The scrapes and bumps we endured, plus learning to fend off the local hoodlums, were all part of life’s learning curve. 

None of us has fared too badly - even without the aid of play bark or rubber mulch.

© Oxford Mail