The Fantastical Kingswood Park: Then and Now

I cannot say that a visit to Kingswood Park is my first memory, but one Sunday, 9 May 1943 would easily make the top five.  I was just over a month short of my sixth birthday. Our household, at 33 Victoria Park was unusually abuzz. For reasons not shared with me, the night before, Mum & Dad’s double bed had been lugged downstairs and that morning, Mum was lying in it. Dad had got on his bike to go “down Two-Mile-‘ill” to get my cousin Joyce who lived at Burchell’s Green Road. Agnes and Ellen, our two lodgers, who were billeted with us, (“there was a war on”) had left for Mass as usual at ‘the Catholic’ in Hanham Road, though ‘Elsie from across the road’ was there with occasional other women who fussed about, which was not Mum’s style. In due course my cousin arrived “to mind” me and they told me to “go out and play nicely with Joycie.”

We took scrimmets of cheese (rationed) in bread and a bottle of water, which ominously suggested the long haul. Our destination, as you will have guessed, was Kingswood Park. There were no other kids about; outdoor play would have raised eyebrows on the Sabbath. The Park was open. I assume that as at everywhere else the gates had been taken away as part of the war effort. The play area where we plonked down, was basic, with a slider, a roundabout, and a row of swings, four little box-types (so that babies could not escape or fall out) and the same number with a plank for a seat for “big” children. Joyce sat on one of these swings even though I pointed out the notice saying that “over fourteens” were not allowed. I was proud I could read. Mum had taught me. Joyce, aged 16, who was very grand, an attendant to the Temperance Queen, ignored the censure.

The immediate entertainment soon palled. We inspected the Park from top to bottom, arbour, fishpond, flower borders, the empty bandstand and the netless tennis courts (where years later, my friend Nesta Jefferis would always beat my teenage self, however hard I tried.)  Back at the playground I would climb the steep steps of the slider, and hurtle down, with Joyce occasionally looking up to say “Mind you don’t fall off” whilst languidly swinging back and forth. We ate our sandwiches, drank the water. Hours passed which seemed like days. She said moodily, “At least it’s not raining.”  As the sage would say, “There’s no answer to that.” From time to time, I begged, “Purleeese Joycie, can we go home now?” And she would reply, no doubt bored as I was, “When I say so.”

DP Lindegaard (aged nearly 6) with her baby brother Colin Pillinger in 1943

At last, she relented, and we went home. And do you know what? When we got back to Victoria Park, Mum was sitting up in the bed in the front room, and in a cot by the window was a very angry bundle with a bright red face, and an open mouth, “making enough noise for fifty”. Mum said, “Aren’t you going kiss your little brother?” To which I replied, rudely, “I really wanted a sister.” I pecked his cheek dutifully. He always hated being kissed.

This furious baby would become one of Kingswood’s most notable sons, and dare I say it, especially during a period, ca 2000-2004, mega-famous? Go on, Google “Beagle 2” for details. Who else would manage to send a tiny round device the size of an ash-bin lid and get it to land on a pinpoint 140 million miles away on Mars? I’m surprised you don’t remember. So, when a friend sent me a photo of his memorial in Kingswood Park and simultaneously, I received a notice saying the Park was holding a series of free Sunday afternoon concerts, it was made in heaven. With my son, a young relative and two of her friends, I sallied forth.

There was a time when a mobile was something to hang over a cot and hope the baby didn’t go cross-eyed; an era before old-hat TV, when people lived outdoors, knew all their neighbours, even the crabby ones, actually went out of the house and walked about.

Quite often people strolled up to Kingswood Park, which was established in 1934 and recently restored. Nowadays it “is the only significant green space in Kingswood”. T’was ever thus.

In my young life we played on bits of industrial waste, like our dens on “The Patch” just below Alsop Road at the back of our house or slid down “The Tump” on the other side of Downend Road, below Worcester & Kimberley Roads. Please tell me if you remember these haunts, or better still played on them. We were often filthy and there were no bathrooms then.

Kingswood Park was for entertainment, good behaviour, and mingling. Let’s go forward to the 1950s, the Park’s hey-day, post war.   The bandstand with the Evangel Mission Silver Band, Poet & Peasant and John Philip Sousa; political meetings on a Saturday evening (!) with Anthony Wedgwood Benn, who ridded himself of a Lordship and a posh-sounding double barrel to become Tony Benn MP; “Dancing in the Park” either “Ballroom” courtesy of the renowned dancing master, Hubert Bright, or “kiddies” tap dancing for “Variety”. performances. Every year on Whit Monday the Park hosted the finale to the Procession of Witness. We marched from Bell Hill to the Park, Colin with the Cubs, both of us behind the banners of the Congregational, Hanham Road, with decorated floats trundling along in between. We longed for the bugles and drums of the Boys Brigade, or the Salvation Army to strike up so we could get in step.  The Park was a welcome climax, as long as the sermon didn’t go on too long. Then everybody dispersed to their own homes for dinner (midday) and reassembled at their particular chapels for “the tea”, a bun and a cup of, poured from an enormous brown teapot, (everybody took sugar to keep our strength up) and then “sports”.

Now, I can’t guarantee the truth of the next memory which in my mind took place in the arena at Kingswood Park when a young man dived into a square tank of water from a diving board yards up into the sky. We called him “Stan, Stan, the muscle-man” and one of my acquaintances, nameless to save blushes if she’s still alive, alleged she “went out with him”.  Great kudos for the rest of us.  Not unlike “the girl who knew a man, who danced with a girl, who danced with the Prince of Wales.” I know I never dreamt the dive, but was it in Kingswood Park? I can’t find anything to confirm it.[1]

Undoubtedly, though running a close thing with “The Flower & Vegetable Show” (even the boys from the Reformatory School exhibited), the most popular event was the Beauty Queen Contest. This was a huge draw and between three and five thousand people craned their necks to watch any girl brave enough or sufficiently ambitious to parade in a fairly modest bathing costume and be gawped at.  The girls would be judged by “glamourous starlets” from the J. Arthur Rank Charm School, never heard of before and rarely after, or established “stars” you’d never heard of either.  “Mischa Who?” we said of the tall, moustachioed Mischa Auer who played “Comedy Russians” (all foreign people were naturally funny of course.) One of us, Vera Garland, who took ‘Photoplay’ and went to “the pictures” twice a week, was able to tell us he had an Oscar nomination, so pretty big then.  One star who was definitely “on the up” and stayed there in a very long and distinguished theatrical life, was Donald Sinden (1952), “Lockhart” in “The Cruel Sea”, was his “big break”, but overall, he was the exception. Never mind, we cheered them all, anybody who played even a bit part in “a picture” touched us with stardust for a little while.

The winner received £10, that’s two of the old white Fivers, works of art in themselves. (“That’s fine-looking money, Ma’am”, an American said to me c1957, when I showed him the one I kept in my purse for ‘emergencies’.  I almost burst with pride.) Plus, a Trophy. What became of the Trophy, I wonder? Or the Fiver for that matter?

I don’t know when all this fol de rol ceased.  I cannot believe it survived the advent of the ‘60’s. In any case, by then, I had grown up and left for the big wide world.

It is many years since I last stepped inside Kingswood Park though I received updates from “the Friends” when they began their vital work which brought about the refurbishment.

Now in 2024, the arena, and the semi-circle of stone steps which imitated a Greek theatre are there as usual. We arranged our seats, ate our refreshments. The Concorde wind band took their places, and tuned up, though at ground level, not on the circular mound which once housed the regular bandstand.

I enjoyed the Concorde wind band’s set, and I wish I could play a musical instrument so I could join a group like this. For my personal taste however, the number of film themes chosen were a few too much of a good thing. To my ears, the more recent James Bonds are a bit samey. What about “Diamonds are Forever” next time? I prefer a good rollick myself, and loved singing along to the G & S, “Come Friends and Plough the Sea”. We did the “Pirates of Penzance” when I was at KGS pre-1953, so a bit more nostalgia. Come again soon please. What about “Carols in the Park”?

At one point my son shushed me when I was talking whilst the band played. He said

Mother, I am fifty three. I do not expect you to show me up at my age.

What was really missing were the crowds. Clearly those days have passed. Not that the past was honey either; I would hate anybody to think that it was.  We inhabit the space and time we are allocated, but it was a little bit sad to see so few people there in 2024. Maybe they’ll be more for the Brass Band, next week. I hope so.

Our young relative, a natural performer, who is also pleasingly photogenic, gave an animated interview for the on-site cameraman when asked which tunes she enjoyed most. She said, “The Pink Panther Theme” and the 2017 hit “Havana”.

Before we left, we paid homage beside the Memorial Post to our brother, uncle and great uncle, Professor Colin Pillinger, FRS, CBE, who died on 7 May 2014, two days short of his 70^th birthday. With other family members I was with him on his last moments just as I was on his day of birth.  Ironically, a few months after his death, “the dog” (Beagle 2) was located on Mars, at least via pixel, very near the position where it had been scheduled to land. A stray Martian boulder may have got in the way and caused the mechanical glitch which prevented one of the flaps from opening and so no one on Earth would ever hear “the dog” bark.

Acknowledgment:

With many thanks to Bernie Price and Pam Marshall, who we met on the day, and who provided genial company. Bernie was resplendent in a Scottish kilt complete with a skean dhu in his sock.  He complained of cold knees for which he blamed the British Army Command. The Brits, certainly the English, are always to blame. Bernie provided me with a new “Fact for the Day”, which I always try to collect. No kidding. Knowledge is never wasted. See

See the website of Highland Titles which agrees with Bernie’s account with a few minor differences.

Caveat:

There may be a few people still alive who will dispute some of the above memories of Kingswood Park. I make no apologies. I know that Memory plays tricks. I can recall being two years old but have no idea where I put my glasses a minute ago.

[1] This feat enjoyed a vogue in the 1950s, and several young men who performed the stunt are reported locally. At Goram Fair in Bristol, for instance.