I Grew Up With Broomfield House

Author: Jane Salkeld
Date: 04 Sep 2005

From the age of one to eleven from 1965-1976 I lived in Broomfield Avenue, so as you can imagine I grew up with Broomfield Park just across the road.

Like many others I was taken to the clinic as a baby and toddler, and can still remember climbing those magnificent stairs, staring up at the enormous pictures on the wall and ceiling. It was the most amazing house I had ever seen.

As I got older I was allowed to go to the park on my own. I bought monkeynuts from the local greengrocer and fed the squirrels. They used to climb up my body and along my arm to take the nuts from my hand.

I talked to an old man (something no child would dare do now) who also fed the squirrels every day, and he told me stories of grand people in their best dresses walking round the park, and men on pennyfarthing bikes, and him and his friends with hoops and sticks being chased by the parkkeeper - I lapped it all up!

I cycled my bike all over the park, I caught tiddlers from the ponds and took them home in a jamjar (only for them to be eaten by a cat) - but if you got caught with your fishing net you were severely told off by the autere looking park keeper and chased home - nothing changes!

I played on the swings and slides, sailed my toy boat in the boating pond, watched the bowlers on the bowling green, listened to the band in the bandstand in the summer and knocked conkers off the chestnut trees in the autumn.

Our school sports day was held on the running track, and I remember getting stung by a bee whilst leaning on the track fence.

On special days, when no one else was in there, I wandered round the mysterious wooden greenhouse, with it's intoxicating wet/green smell, looking at the exotic birds of paridise and staghead ferns. It was a magical place.

I stared at the budgies in the avery, wandered round the scented garden and the walled war memorial garden. I sat on the lion statue and bought icecream from the cafe.

Then on wet days there was the museum. I never remember having to pay. I loved the indoor beehive, which I watched for hours, sitting on the railings with my legs dangling. The model boats, and most importantly the stuffed birds and animals, and the eggs and butterfly collections. I'd never seen a fox or a pheasant - so these animals came alive again for a little girl with a vivid imagination. They were in my dreams most nights.

My dad even planted an old christmas tree in the grounds, I wonder if it ever grew...

I loved that house and that park. I always look back on those long hot summer days running wild without a care in the world - none of that would have been possible without Broomfield Park and House. and the people who looked after it.

If it can give someone else half as many special memories I believe it should be rebuilt - that house deserves a second chance!

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