The playground I’m drawing is the one I used to play on when I was a kid in the Grove in Tunbridge Wells. That even goes down to the equipment which I’m drawing from fourty year old memories. There was a climbing frame, a roundabout, a seesaw and two sets of swings – one for babies and another for older children – all set into a rectangle of the hardest tarmac that the council could find. They’ve all changed now, as the old playground was obviously a death trap, and I only survived to the age of nine by sheer luck. The new playground can be seen in the photo below – everything is padded, coned off and guarded to the point that there’s really no point in playing on it any more. They’ve even replaced the tarmac with bizarre rubber stuff.

The playground at The Grove, Tunbridge Wells (right of picture)