A sensible idea.

[excoriator]

This

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-55523137

- reminded me years ago visiting friends in a tiny village in the Netherlands. Walking around the village we passed the school which had the usual football pitch. What caught my attention, was teh fact that it was surrounded by a low bund about 9" and several yards wide. I asked about this and was told that in the winter if cold weather was forecast, they flooded it an let it freeze. This provided an impromptu ice rink for the villagers.

It struck me as such a good idea I wondered why it was not taken up in teh UK, but I guess global heating has put paid to that sort of fun for us all.

Pity.

[skylark]

Allowing the locals to use school grounds? Leaving aside the fact that few people have skates, it simply wouldn't happen here. Even if the school has the only playing field within miles, there seems no willingness to open it to the masses.

I stand to be corrected, as always, but schools seem to think that so long as they are doing their best for the pupils, the wider considerations of the public must give way. I am thinking in particular of one school that erected tall lights around their playing field and kept them on all night6, shining into the windows of nearby houses. When asked to remove them they were quite affronted.

[excoriator]

Well, your point is well taken, Skylark.

The little local primary school my children went to at the time described itself as a community school and encouraged parents to come in and take part in their various activities. They even incorporates a small local library into the buildings to encourage people to come in.

Things have changed dramatically these days. It now resembles a concentration camp with anti-personnel eight foot high fencing all around and an intercomm. with TV camera and a remotely controlled lock to gain access to the grounds. They have planted dense privet hedges, presumably to screen the children in the playground from passing paedophiles or kidnappers. I often walk past it en route to the station if I am going into town. One can hear the children sometimes but not see them. Indeed you can't even see the building which is a pleasant well-proportioned one.

In a similar vein I have a photo somewhere of me (looking much younger) with the children standing next to a grinning copper outside 10 Downing Street. At the time you were allowed to use it just like any other street. I think it was Thatcher who decided to fence it off.

I can't help feeling as a nation we have lost a lot in a general lack of trust. It is always possible to make a plausible case for improving security, but it always comes with a cost of less freedom too. I think we are steadily descending deeper and deeper into paranoia. Brexit, in its general distrust of 'foreigners' and 'immigrants' (always described as 'illegal') is probably a macroscopic manifestation of the same thing.

[jonjel]

Coming back to your original point with the bund around the football pitch, I have not skated on ponds and lakes since I was in my early 20's. Too old now, but apart from the vicious winter of '82 I don't think anywhere south of say Evesham has had the kind of weather for that for many years.

[excoriator]

There use to be an ice rink in Liverpool - the 'Silver Blades' that I went to once or twice. It's long gone now, being replaced by a branch of Iceland and a row of shops.

I used to take my kids to one in Queensferry, Deeside which I believe is still there, but they seem to have diminished in popularity over the years. I suppose playing your x-box doesn't leave much time for ice skating.

[jonjel]

Jan 4, 2021 13:12:23 GMT excoriator said:

There use to be an ice rink in Liverpool - the 'Silver Blades' that I went to once or twice. It's long gone now, being replaced by a branch of Iceland and a row of shops.

I used to take my kids to one in Queensferry, Deeside which I believe is still there, but they seem to have diminished in popularity over the years. I suppose playing your x-box doesn't leave much time for ice skating.

I used to take mine to the Bristol ice rink, but think that closed some while back. A couple of places have large areas they flood and freeze over Christmas. Not his year of course. Oddly I was talking to one of my girls yesterday about when we used to go skating. She told me I was good. I wasn't, but she was no judge! But I was better than she was.

[excoriator]

Good for you.

I saw the chap who used to do a wonderful job of tuning my old piano skating once. He used to spend about four hours getting the piano just right, and then present me with a bill for a fiver along with a collection of pennies, washers, counters, playing cards etc my kids had fed between the keys since his last visit. With difficulty I was sometimes able to persuade him to accept more, but it was a fight. Eventually I solved it by sealing the money in an envelope. The going rate was about £20 which I was happy to pay him. I suspect he was autistic. His arrival, by motor scooter was utterly unpredictable. He didn't like appointments. On one occasion I was awakened at 7.a.m. on a Sunday morning to find him standing speechless outside the front door with an enquiring look on his face.

On ice, however, he was a man transformed. He and a male friend performed leaps and pirouettes that put everyone else to shame. People cleared the ice to let them perform. I made the mistake on his next visit of saying I'd seen him on ice and complimenting him. He was deeply embarrassed. He prized obscurity I think.