Dear LPG,  

Most of us still live near a park and they are among the few community places that the government have not started morphing into new housing complexes, but how often do you take a look in the one near you these days? 

I did one of my mini surveys during my weekly visit to my local lunch club and, though there were no men included it made for an interesting topic of conversation on the day.   I worked out that some 60% of the people involved live in their own homes and moved there more than 30 years ago.  In all fairness, my sample only consisted of the five of us that shared dinner round the particular table I chose that day, but we were all in our mid to late 60s, and got talking about the significance of the park around our particular corner.   

Twenty percent of my sample group own a dog and has been taking her pet to the park to meet up with the other dogs and their walkers every morning since she can remember.  She told us that, while different participants would come and go, the habit had got owners and dogs forming different friendships.  And she also reminisced about the time when doggy poop bags were not an obligatory part of the exercise, although she observed that dealing with such eventualities presented an opportunity to exercise those ageing knees.   

Sixty percent of the people included, got reminiscing about the era of their lives when they used to visit their local park on a very regular basis.  I include myself when I remember being a young mum some 35 years ago. The school run was more of a literal event because we depended less on cars and more on our feet, with an element of hurry often being needed.  That daily chore gave us the choice of either walking through or round that green bit of the route, and the former afforded the children a bit of freedom to let off a little of that pre-school energy on the way, if there was enough time to walk through the swing park.  The usual groups of parents would meet there and spend a few minutes continuing yesterday’s brief conversation, which they would have time to do, because they could let their worry about not concentrating on the proximity between the children and the ever increasing traffic interrupt, although an older adult without a child would get us raising the odd eyebrow.  It was a ritual that I spent 7 years of my life participating in and it would often have happened each morning before we entered the school gates and in the evenings on the way home.  

That primary school is now what the average satnav refers to as a "Waypoint," "Stop," or "Via Point" whenever I need to get to my most local bus stop and, now that I don’t drive any more, I find myself still opting for the greener experience.  I am often ‘en route’ at typical school-run time and can’t help but take a walk through the enclosed swing park area.  The park playground toys have changed over the years and the pond is no more.  It is also a fact that the volume of mums with their prams and young children has diminished somewhat since I was part of that group.     

I think that they must see me as really odd when a childless old woman opens the enclosure gate and walks past any children that may be there, offering a smile or two on the way.  Even though it makes my journey longer and is a little out of my way, I appreciate the memories and looking at the modern mums making their memories for a few years’ time…  

SG, Lewisham