Nuneaton

On the road between Stuart Plumbing and the block of garages, children once played football and various other ball games. This was back in the late eighties to mid nineties. The laughter of jovial children is long gone but the memory remains in the minds of those who still recall the innocence of years gone by

The rectangular block you see on the map, once housed the whale paddling pool. The pool was shallow and shaped like a kidney, but the main attraction was the whale in the centre constructed out of bricks. The pool as well as the greenhouse, aviary and the old concrete play area is confined to the annals of nostalgic history. I have heard tales of boating on the river, but this was before my time in the eighties.

This ground will forever be synonymous with funfairs in the late seventies till the mid-nineties. My mother bought me and my brothers here through the park, via the tunnels under the banks of the elevated train tracks. We would shout in the claustrophobic tunnels eager to hear the echoes of our awestruck voices. Back then the attractions of the funfair were simple: a train with carts that ran in a loop, a traditional carousel, a futuristic vehicle carousel, arcade machines, the big wheel and cups and saucers. No doubt I am leaving other attractions out but I remember chomping on either a chocolate or toffee apple, or the wisps of candy floss on a stick. The memories are etched in the confines of my nostalgic brain like cobweb-ridden books in a library, but I do cherish them.

'BB2' was the name of a hangout in this wildspace for our fledgling gang. We would bring our bikes here where there was a solitary fence like structure. The name was a tribute to our first hangout by Templar Court on Princes Street. The origins of the name were derived from racist graffiti aimed at folk like us, but we took the slander and made it our own. We would come here often and spot sticklebacks that swam in the stream to the right of the banks of this wildspace. This was circa 1987-1993; the gang is all grown up with adventurous children of their own, but I will always remember the places that are intertwined with my childhood