A walk in the park with Kate’s dad

A Walk in the Park

By Kate Greenhalgh

If I’m honest, I’ve got quite a snotty attitude about local parks. Growing up in the ‘70’s, if you didn’t get concussion falling off the slide onto concrete or lose a finger in the hinges of the Witch’s Hat, you would definitely step in a dog poo. Then young motherhood - cramming screaming toddlers into swings, pulling screaming toddlers out of swings, lobbing bread at listless ducks. No wonder we all saved up for Disneyland.

My great-uncle, Idris Brain, was a Head Park Keeper in Wales. His chrysanthemums grew in military rows. He was the No Loitering, No Ball Games kind of park keeper, whom naughty boys ran away from in fear. He was also lay minister at the Chapel, breaking out of Welsh to draw the congregation’s attention to ‘the little girls from Oxford who are here today’ - an experience my sister and I agree was traumatic, as dozens of Welsh Methodists swivelled in their pews to inspect us. And apart from chrysanthemums, Idris’s other contribution to horticulture was his famous red daffodil. ‘I planted the bulb set within a beetroot’ he recounted. ‘And when it flowered, it was the most magnificent yellow.’ this, your memories of dark skies and endless lockdown are receding, along with Donald Trump. Spring is bursting out again in yellow daffodils and - no greater symbol of optimism - Easyjet might soon be airborne once more. (If none of this has come to pass, apologies. What am I? A fortune-teller?) But before you head off into the sunset, with me right behind you, we should take a moment - Tooting Bec, Brockwell, Richmond, Greenwich. Primrose Hill, Telegraph Hill, Putney, Cannizaro.....thank you, thank you. The parks and playgrounds of our purdah. In the absence of a fortnight in Vale do Lobo, these were our paradise, rekindling our appreciation of the humbly local. Shame upon our greed for the exotic and far-flung. (Ahem, yes I was hoping to get off to Mallorca soon, since you ask.)

My daughter was sad to miss out on a milestone birthday. Five mates on a muddy walk round Peckham Rye wasn’t quite how you’d plan it. But imagine the tales for the grandchildren: ‘In 2020 we had to drink tinnies on a bench. Holidays? A bike ride through Walworth, if you were lucky. Waitrose vans were rationed, and we only had Netflix to pass the long evenings... but, you see kids, we were HAPPY.’ Uncle Idris would approve. n

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