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All the 'Recs' around Nottingham had slides etc., bearing the name Wicksteed. The manufacturers were near Kettering where the Granddady of all Recs was situated. We used to go on day trips to Wicksteed Park probably the equivalent of going to Alton Towers these days. I remember the huge slides and how high it looked from the top.

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I remember trips there too! Especially remember the water slide and the miniature railway. Alton Towers was just a house and fancy gardens. The other place I remember day trips to (courtesy of Bartons) was a place near Tamworth, but I forget the name.

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In the 1970s. We used to take our children to...Drayton Manor Park at Tamworth and also Trentham Gardens near Stoke-on-Trent. Both of them were great places to spend a day out. They were free entry to the gardens in those days. We haven't been to either since the late 70s. I think there are a lot more attractions at both now, There is also a charge for entry now. I don't know how much though!

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Drayton Manor Park! That's the place - I remember the "snake train"! Looks like it (and Wicksteed Park) has changed a LOT since then - probably a much shorter trip these days too!

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The closest recs to Peveril St were the one by the Leen on St Peters St., or the one on the Forest. The one on the Forest had a keeper who locked it up every night. That keeper seemed to 'have it in' for me and was always keeping an eye out when I was climbing trees. I still don't understand why I was not allowed to climb HIS trees? Forest rec had quite a high Wicksteed slide, bigger than the Leenside one. The Leenside rec was railed off from the Leen that ran alongside. To get into the Leen I had to climb over the boundary fence which was topped with barbed wire. One day I slit my right wrist open on that barbed wire. I'm sat here now looking at the 4" scar and amazed that I missed a large vein or artery. The rec had a dirty paddling pool full of leeches. I also used to catch the trolleybus to Bulwell rec , also by the Leen.

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The first time I went to Wicksteed Park was on a pub outing from The New Inn on Union Road and would have been around 1953. I remember that it was fantastic that there were no so many swings, slides, roundabouts etc that you didn't have to wait or queue up to get on, and yes, for a little lad the height of those slides was pretty daunting!

On the way there on the coach we learned The New Inn Kids song and sang it all the way home. Simple pleasures then eh?

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  • 2 years later...

Wickstead park............never forget it........first time i nearly snuffed it'..............fell out the back of a rowing boat early 50s.......fished out by a man with a boat hook.......it was on a day trip from a pub in Old Basford (old English i think).........same day a girl called Lilly on same trip also fell in...........thereafter forever known as 'Lilly of the Lake''..............happy days........lol.

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Whilst trying to help my then 7 year old grandaughter with a school project on Wicksteed Park , after a school visit there , had to keep away the fact that the founder of the engineering business and park , Charles Wicksteed , stuck his head in the gas oven in 1931 aged 84 .

Read some of the comments here :

 

 https://m.facebook.com/oldkettering/photos/a.337162489695736.78282.111652805580040/737976802947634/?type=1

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Didn't realise the connection between Wicksteed Park and the engineering company.

 

When I was a kid, going up the steps on the playground slide on Viccy embankment, each step had 'Wicksteed' cast in. Funny what you remember.

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Wicksteed Park, now there is a memory, as a young'un I had heard that the local Sunday school yearly trip was to Wicksteed Park so I endured six weeks of Sunday school so I could go on the trip. The day dawned bright and sunny and we left our village on a blue Bedford OB bus operated by Butler Bros. of Kirkby in Ashfield and set off for Kettering. It seemed to be miles away in those days. My memories, like Benjamin are of the boating lake and the little steam train that went around the park. The mountain slides were the biggest I had seen, no elf and safety in those days, up the steps, down the slide or one of the supporting poles like a fireman. If you were really good shinning up the pole to get on the slide and often burning your a**e on the hot metal of the slide. Returned home around 8:00 pm exhausted but a very happy kid.

P.S. Never went to Sunday school again.

Does any one on here remember Drayton Manor Park in the late 50's very similar to Wicksteed?

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The Sunday School trips of my childhood were usually to Alton Towers but I think we once went to Drayton Manor Park. Neither appealed to me!

 

I very much resented being sent to Sunday school anyway. Being forced to attend Berridge 5 days per week was bad enough without being sent to a different sort of school on Sundays! I well recall arguing about it with my mother but my sister enjoyed it and dragged me along.

 

The problem with me was that I didn't relish the company of other children and didn't think of myself as a child! Much preferred the company of adults.

 

Being packed onto a coach with a horde of noisy children was the equivalent of Hell, so far as I was concerned!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 25/09/2014 at 2:18 PM, DaveN said:

Limey you mentioned Alton Towers from years ago. If I recall didn't they have a model railway exhibition inside the house?

Yes there was a model railway within the towers, way back in the mid seventies. There was also a children's roundabout in the courtyard area and chair lifts. My parents used to love going to the gardens. My sister was a baby so it was 1975 and I'd have been four. In the late 70's when advertising on TV, the advert was set to the music called 'EyeLevel'.

I distinctly remember the trainset as even though I was a girl, I've had a lifelong obsession with them. I'd spend ages outside Beatties when walking with my mother back to what used to be Mount Street bus station. She would be hopping mad but I'd just want to see 'one more' train appear from one of the tunnels. I'm 46 now, my 22 year old son is as train mad as I am. I still have never owned my own train set though :( 

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I've never been to Wicksteed Park as far as I recall, but I have vivid memories of Alton Towers.

My first visit would be around 1960 ish with the 96th Nottm. (Bendigo's Own) Cub Pack.

 

There was a Model Railway Exhibition which we were very impressed with.  Multiple tracks and lots of different models. ( I'm not sure they'd have liked you calling it a 'Train Set'  :) )

 

We spent time rowing about aimlessly on the lake until someone caught a Water Lily on an oar and launched it at someone else.  A water lily fight ensued briefly until we were severely admonished from the shore and sheepishly returned to our aimless rowing about.

 

For some unknown reasonn, there was a stuffed ape of some sort fixed to the ramparts of the main house.  Very weird.

 

I recall a Pagoda, which in my mind had a fountain squirting from the top of it.  I think it was in the lake.  I might be making that up... not sure.

 

Also, climbing various towers and follies.  They charged 2d or thereabouts to go up them.

 

Not a lot else there back then apart from gardens, which obviously were boring to us.  Certainly no big rides etc.

 

Next time I went ( and the last ) was around 1969-70 to a free concert by the Move.  I think it was a Sunday afternoon and we either went in Dave Cartwright's old A 55 Cambrige van, or had gone 'up market' to 75 quid's worth of clapped out Bedford Dormobile.

 

Remember The Move singing Roy Wood's composition 'Hello Susie', which was a bigger hit I think for Amen Corner, with Andy Fairweather Lowe on lead vocal.

 

Andy always looked quite surprised and happy at the reception he got.  Especially from the young ladies...

 

 

Col

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  • 5 years later...
On 9/25/2014 at 9:23 AM, PeverilPeril said:

All the 'Recs' around Nottingham had slides etc., bearing the name Wicksteed. The manufacturers were near Kettering where the Granddady of all Recs was situated. We used to go on day trips to Wicksteed Park probably the equivalent of going to Alton Towers these days. I remember the huge slides and how high it looked from the top.

It appears that wicksteed are still manufacturing playground equipment today, we took our grandkids to our local play park in hilton derbyshire earlier this week where they have just installed a lot of new stuff all bearing the wicksteed name, i did take a photo but have no idea how to post it.

And i also remember the large slide on radford rec at the corner of ilkeston rd & lenton boulevard had that name on each step.

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@RadFordee, if you look back a couple of pages ago you'll see where I led Mrs.B through the process of postimage to enable posting pictures. I'd be happy to find the page for you. Failing that, if you WhatsApp me the picture I'll put it on for you.  You're servant ma'am.

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