• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Dangerous Play (Playgrounds; Carnivals; Amusement Parks; Etc.)

Our park had a swing called 'The American' which was a huge wooden beam, about 20' long, suspended on metal rods, that moved like a battering ram. You need ten or more kids to get it going. Everyone knew stories about the kid who walked into it head-on...
 
The hangings are when a kid gets the hood of their jacket or so stuck on something, and then gets asphyxiated.
 
I remember my Mum often picking bits of gravel out of my knees and then splashing TCP all over them :) .. some stand up comedian was talking about this a few years back "What's all this now with kids wearing elbow and knee pads of their bikes? .. when I was a kid, your scabs were your pads."

TCP? We used to dream of TCP my mother would cauterize our cuts with a hot poker left in the fire for just that purpose.
 
Some of the old playground equipment was really dangerous this picture is of a device common when I was young -we called it a Geegaw (no idea why or if spelling correct!) which seriously damaged me as a nine year old - I was doing the same thing as the girl in picture hanging off back but swung forward and got my leg sandwiched between the 'swing' and the tarmac-it literally exploded at the ankle with bits of bone sticking out! I was on crutches for a year!
Geegaw.jpg
 
Some of the old playground equipment was really dangerous this picture is of a device common when I was young -we called it a Geegaw (no idea why or if spelling correct!) which seriously damaged me as a nine year old - I was doing the same thing as the girl in picture hanging off back but swung forward and got my leg sandwiched between the 'swing' and the tarmac-it literally exploded at the ankle with bits of bone sticking out! I was on crutches for a year!View attachment 28028

There’s not enough broken glass on the ground in that pic. Old playgrounds had a lot of broken glass to add to the sense of danger.
 
I was often called to rescue large kids whos mums had managed to
cram into the kiddy seats on the swings then could not extract them,
I would extract them and hand the screaming sod to a often screaming
mother, such fun.
 
British playground equipment looks like it's from a parallel universe --but playgrounds generally seem to be full of ways for kids to maim each other in the name of fun; my ex-stepdaughter fell on some piece of jungle gym equipment and broke both bones in her lower arm. It really is a miracle kids survive with all of the crazy things they do; we could have a fat thread on personal near-death experiences or childhood Darwin Award attempts, I'm sure. Apparently I used to like to stick bobby pins into electrical outlets when I was a kid, it took me a long time to stop doing stupid things, too, I'll admit. Youth tries to lay waste to the young, and it's lost on them.
 
Some of the old playground equipment was really dangerous this picture is of a device common when I was young -we called it a Geegaw (no idea why or if spelling correct!) which seriously damaged me as a nine year old - I was doing the same thing as the girl in picture hanging off back but swung forward and got my leg sandwiched between the 'swing' and the tarmac-it literally exploded at the ankle with bits of bone sticking out! I was on crutches for a year!View attachment 28028
Holy crap! What kinda sicko would design such a monstrosity? Some of these things are like siege engines.
 
Does anyone remember the indoor play area in Brent Cross shopping centre (in North West London) in the 1970's?

They had a wooden crawl tunnel...supposed to resemble a caterpillar.
Basically a very narrow tube which meandered - the idea was a kid would crawl in one end, along the winding tube which was about 10 metres long, then emerge from the other end.

Except they sometimes did not, because it was narrow an claustrophobic, and they would get physcially stuck or be terrified somewhere in the middle of the tunnel.
Cue emergency services called to rescue them.

After about 18 months the caterpillar was blocked up at both ends, and left as something you could climb on the outside of only.

The horse was also hollow, I went inside once but it really stunk!

Brent Cross.jpg
 
Our park had a swing called 'The American' which was a huge wooden beam, about 20' long, suspended on metal rods, that moved like a battering ram. You need ten or more kids to get it going. Everyone knew stories about the kid who walked into it head-on...
We had those only we called them the cheesecutter. I remember a class mate on one end slipped on the down stroke and was near horizontal and holding on for dear life when his end went back into up mode. Hit him in the chest like, as you say, a battering ram.
Ambulance called. Off to Guys Hospital and was AWOL for a few days.
 
British playground equipment looks like it's from a parallel universe --but playgrounds generally seem to be full of ways for kids to maim each other in the name of fun; my ex-stepdaughter fell on some piece of jungle gym equipment and broke both bones in her lower arm. It really is a miracle kids survive with all of the crazy things they do; we could have a fat thread on personal near-death experiences or childhood Darwin Award attempts, I'm sure. Apparently I used to like to stick bobby pins into electrical outlets when I was a kid, it took me a long time to stop doing stupid things, too, I'll admit. Youth tries to lay waste to the young, and it's lost on them.
If we weren’t in the Playground on the “torture equipment” we were generally running amok on the old WW2 bomb sites that littered our part of London in the sixties.
 
If we weren’t in the Playground on the “torture equipment” we were generally running amok on the old WW2 bomb sites that littered our part of London in the sixties.
Gads, I've heard about stuff like that! Kids finding unexploded ordnance and very bad things happening. At least there weren't a lot of land mines or cluster bomb packets like in some countries
 
Gads, I've heard about stuff like that! Kids finding unexploded ordnance and very bad things happening. At least there weren't a lot of land mines or cluster bomb packets like in some countries
Working in construction in London we are still finding a few large UXO’s each year.
Apparently what we experience though is very minor compared to what the Germans are still finding. I think we ( the Allies) out bombed them by about 10 to 1.
 
Working in construction in London we are still finding a few large UXO’s each year.
Apparently what we experience though is very minor compared to what the Germans are still finding. I think we ( the Allies) out bombed them by about 10 to 1.
Yeah they got worked over pretty well, the German cities just looked like piles of rubble in those photos with folks milling about in the midst.
 
Working in construction in London we are still finding a few large UXO’s each year.
Apparently what we experience though is very minor compared to what the Germans are still finding. I think we ( the Allies) out bombed them by about 10 to 1.
Be safe in your work! Don't get blown to bits.
 
Working in construction in London we are still finding a few large UXO’s each year.
Apparently what we experience though is very minor compared to what the Germans are still finding. I think we ( the Allies) out bombed them by about 10 to 1.

Or just had more duds.
 
I remember coming off the slide in our local playground when I was about 10. There wasn't anybody else there, so I was obviously having to amuse myself, and for some reason as I went down the slide, I had my arm hooked into the handle at the top. Managed to jerk myself over the edge, and there I was, dangling about 4-5 feet above the ground, convinced that my arm was going to snap any second and nobody about to help. After what felt like an eternity I got myself free and fell onto the concrete underneath. I was okay, just rather sick and shaky. I think I made my way back home; I don't recall telling my mother about my mishap as all I would have got is, "Be more careful next time!"
 
I remember coming off the slide in our local playground when I was about 10. There wasn't anybody else there, so I was obviously having to amuse myself, and for some reason as I went down the slide, I had my arm hooked into the handle at the top. Managed to jerk myself over the edge, and there I was, dangling about 4-5 feet above the ground, convinced that my arm was going to snap any second and nobody about to help. After what felt like an eternity I got myself free and fell onto the concrete underneath. I was okay, just rather sick and shaky. I think I made my way back home; I don't recall telling my mother about my mishap as all I would have got is, "Be more careful next time!"
The playground exert a selective pressure; only the strong wil survive! If the play equipment doesn't get ya, there is the bullies and social hierarchy, too
 
The playground exert a selective pressure; only the strong wil survive! If the play equipment doesn't get ya, there is the bullies and social hierarchy, too
And the jumping off the shed roofs as a dare. Times my knees hit the underside of my chin on impact...
 
And the jumping off the shed roofs as a dare.

Never jumped off one, but I did get caught crawling on the corrugated roof of a friend's garage by their neighbour. I was trying to retrieve some stale bread slices that had been thrown out for the birds so that we could use them in whatever game we were playing. The neighbour bawled me out good and proper, obviously concerned that the roof would give way and I would fall through, and finished up by yelling he'd tell my mum if I didn't get down or he caught me up there again. That was one way to guarantee I'd never do it again!
 
Our playground was full of sharp metal equipment; we had a horsey, a witch's hat, several rocky swings and a six foot brick wall that just sat there being all bricky and high, that the big boys used to scramble up and sit on top of.

Never hurt myself on any of it. Broke both my arms falling out of a tree though.

When are trees going to be banned or only allowed to grow to three feet? Won't someone think of the children!
 
Then there was the weird kid of my acquaintance who went down the fireman's pole upside down. Ouch. I mean, some of these constructions were seemingly made to be mishandled.
 
If we weren’t in the Playground on the “torture equipment” we were generally running amok on the old WW2 bomb sites that littered our part of London in the sixties.
I would image the play grounds were safe in comparison.

Look the push kids had a rocking horse (Hampstead Heath).
 

Attachments

  • D4AF94E8-6514-40A8-A254-E874B11B9723.jpeg
    D4AF94E8-6514-40A8-A254-E874B11B9723.jpeg
    426.4 KB · Views: 17
Working in construction in London we are still finding a few large UXO’s each year.
Apparently what we experience though is very minor compared to what the Germans are still finding. I think we ( the Allies) out bombed them by about 10 to 1.
I always wonder when the last WWII bomb will be found but we’ll never know which is the last one.
 
Back
Top