Paddy's Playground.

[charley chester]

Does anyone on this site remember a kids adventure park in the Great Homer Street area (round about the Friary way ) Around 1967. It was run by a bloke named, strangely enough, Paddy. He was'nt a scouser but I don't think he was Irish. It was'nt like the usual playgrounds of the time. He seemed to build it himself, it had lots of sand, weird wooden climbing frames and home made swings and stuff. As it was so unusual all the kids really loved it. I have asked round but no-one seems to remember it. In the same area there was a kids Youth Club. I remember it as the Rydal. I think it was actually on Greatie. It was a big old building with a proper gymnasium in the basement. You could do anything there, I remember one kid with tap shoes ! It had a great 5-a-side pitch on the top floor with the pitch sunk about two feet into the ground. I would love to know if anyone could back me up on any of this or add to my limited memory. Someone in their middle fifties would probably remember more than me.

[Ged]

I don't know of that playground but I went to the Rydal on Greaty in the mid 70s. During this time we used to hang around the old Paddys market (no relation to the playground maker ) - the shiny red brick walls all had shrapnel marks/war damage in them. We also hung around Lawrence Gardens, facing the Rydal. This is all on that Bestway site that the council proposed for EFC, the circle of land surrounded by the Kingsway tunnel approach road.

On part of that estate was an old disused bank. We got in there and pulled up all the wooeden floor blocks with a view to selling them around the houses as firewood (they had a sort of tar on them underneath). We heard police sirens nearby and thought they were coming for us cos we were in a bank (didn't seem to register with us that the money and custom had long gone)

I remember that Rydal having a sort of maze inside with those fairground mirrors that made you look a funny shape (no mirrors required these days)

[chippie]

Hello Charley, I seem to remember a bloke who I thought at the time was an eco warrior type person building an adventure playground around about there when I was a kid, I,m 55 now. It a brilliant place and had a freefall rope right across where you could hold onto a chain and glide right over the site. I wonder could this be the playground you are talking about. I not too sure where it was but it was west of where I used to live off Heyworth Street.

[Ged]

Sounds like it could be Chippie - was that you screaming Geronimmmmmmo?

[chippie]

It sure was Gedrick, yyyyyyyyyyyyyiiiiiiiippppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ee

[charley chester]

Thanks for the input, I remember the freefall rope which enabled you to swing across the whole site. Health and safety would shut the place down to-day, it would just be too dangerous. Anyway you would never get the kids of their PSP's long enough. Not too sure about the maze of mirrors in the Rydal though. There was one of those in New Brighton. Like a lot of the things round here the Rydal has long gone and the kids have nothing better than to hang around the street corners getting into trouble. Places like this and all the other youth clubs at least gave us a choice, and there never seemed to be as many kids on the streets. Funnilly enough in them days there were a lot more kids what with the old tennys and heights yet there did'nt seem, to me anyway, to be as much trouble.