A Special Place

It had been many years since I’d been in Bournebrook Park . . .

THE little brook still babbled through the middle of the park, leading to the huge pond with the central bandstand.

Paula, my daughter, said that, some Sundays in summer, bands play there.

It was too early in the season for that unfortunately.

Dozens of ducks clamoured for food in spite of the chill, and I was sorry I hadn’t brought any.

Little Alfie, my grandson, gurgled with joy and reached towards them with his fat little fingers.

“Next time, Alfie. Grandad will try to remember,” I cajoled.

I pushed his pushchair up the grassy bank.

My wife and daughter were shopping, and I was enjoying this little trip, just the two of us.

I hadn’t been back to Bournebrook Park for nearly 30 years.

My daughter’s husband had recently been transferred to my old home town with his job, and their house was near the park.

As we walked on, the memories flooded back from my childhood, when I used to play here with my cousins.

It was our special place.

I crossed the little bridge where some men were sawing away at the old timbers at one end.

“Are you cutting down the old bridge?” I asked, stating the obvious.

One of the workers paused.

“The old timbers aren’t safe. Don’t worry, though – we’ll be starting on the new one tomorrow.”

I looked towards the tennis courts, where the nets sagged and weeds sprouted.

“What’s happened to the old changing-rooms and shelter?” I asked.

“They went about fifteen years ago. There is talk of some new ones, though.”

I looked up past them to the sweeping laurel border where surely roses used to be? Something was missing at the top.

“What about the bench that used to be up there?”

“Eh? It’s probably piled up with the others over there.”

I reached a pile of old wooden benches in various states of decay in a heap.

Harry and John’s bench was on top of the pile.

It lay sadly on its back like an up-ended giant insect, but the tarnished old plaque was still visible.

In memory of Harry and John.

How sad that everyone gets forgotten in time, I reflected.

Alfie had fallen asleep, oblivious as we passed the beautiful old specimen trees.

The horse chestnut stood proudly in the centre, grander than ever.

We used to use its trunk as a back stop or wicket for our rounders and cricket games, and harvest its conkers later on.

I paused at the play area and watched as a mother eased her little girl between the protective bars of the swing.

I remembered the old ones and the splinters you could get from the ancient seats as we competed to see who could go highest.

There used to be a wooden roundabout, which my cousins would spin me round on until I felt sick.

There were a couple of rickety see-saws, an iron slide and a kind of maypole.

Many times I skinned my knees as I fell off the maypole with sore hands.

Old Harry, the park keeper, picked me up on one occasion and made a bandage from his hanky. All those things had gone. The slides and climbing frames looked ready to be replaced, and some of the tarmac had been removed.

I walked up the pathway to where the gardeners’ shed and greenhouses used to be.

Harry and John, the gardeners, worked tirelessly to create the colourful borders that used to grace so many areas of the park in those days.

But many beds had been grassed over. They were probably too expensive to maintain.

I had always loved flowers and was fascinated by growing things.

I used to spend many an hour chatting to Harry, and watching John, as they planted and tended.

Sometimes my cousins would come, but they usually wanted to be off playing.

It was from Harry that I learned basic gardening: the turn of the seasons, the importance of soil, and the difference between annuals and perennials.

His brother, John, was always there, pottering about in the background.

“He don’t talk much, our John, and don’t you get teasin’ him now.”

John was disabled and he found it difficult to speak, often stumbling over words.

But John would always grin and his eyes would light up whenever he saw us.

I loved watching John work. Though conversations were limited, he communicated through his love of gardening.

Whatever task he undertook it was like watching an artist at work, and he treated his plants with care and attention.

The following year, I started grammar school.

I remembered wandering round the park one afternoon, kicking up the autumn leaves and feeling a bit overwhelmed by my new educational regime.

I stood and watched John, who was working on the rose bed, and his methodical mulching of the soil seemed to calm me.

Then he smiled his crooked smile and

disappeared into the shed, reappearing with a bag of rock-hard conkers he had saved for me.

I thanked him, not having the heart to say I had outgrown conkers.

I stayed to watch him prune the roses, chatting inanely about my school.

As he moved along the border, he named each variety without a stutter or hesitation.

I watched him prune and it was a lesson I never forgot.

Every year when I prune my wonderful display at home, I think of John.

Harry and John; two dear people.

My mother lived to a grand age in our old house.

I returned regularly to visit her after I had left the area, but there never seemed time for the park.

My daughter was five when I did return one day.

Harry and John were long since retired. I remembered seeing them sitting on a new park bench where their shed used to be – council gardeners did their jobs then – watching over the roses, the children playing in the distance.

Thank goodness they never saw the roses replaced by laurel.

I sat beside them and showed them a photograph of my prize roses at home.

“I became a gardener because of you, you know.”

They both smiled and we regaled each other with stories about the old days.

The two brothers passed away within a few months of each other a couple of years later, and the bench became their memorial.

On my way back over the bridge, I glanced at the old bench again and felt so sad that the memorial had gone.

But they had passed on their skills and knowledge to me and probably many others.

Bournebrook Park was a very special place, where memories lived on forever.

And who knows, I thought, maybe one day a new bench or tree will be dedicated to them.