People's Park

It's taken me a while but I've finally managed to collect together some photos (and summon up the energy) to tell you about our party in the park.

When I first moved to Banbury twenty years or so ago, I thought the park at the end of my road must be quite a new one with its modern sounding name. In fact, the park - and its name - have been around for a very long time. 

It all started with a man called George Ball who owned a chemist's shop in Banbury in the late nineteenth century. When he died in 1892 he left £3,200 in his will to be used for ...

 '... a Park for the recreation of all classes during every day of the week from sunrise to sunset all the year round, to be ornamentally laid out, and called the People's Park.'

It took some time to come about but the park finally came into being just before the First World War. At that time the land was rented from a private syndicate; when it became the property of the Council  after the war, it was felt to be truly a People's Park at last. 

Which is where we get to the original opening ceremony in July 1919. In the pouring rain, the people of Banbury came out to watch a Fine Lady on a white horse process through the town to the park. It was a combination of celebration and commemoration; the horse had been to the war and back and wore his owner's medals on his bridle. To those watching on it must have been a poignant sight.

from the Banbury Advertiser

About a year ago, this old photograph was the starting point for a group of local residents who set out to help plan a party to celebrate the park's centenary. The Town Council are the experts at planning these sort of events; what we offered was raw enthusiasm, creative ideas ... and a lot of knitting.

One of my neighbours was in charge of assembling a huge amount of bunting made by local groups and schools, another put together a costume for our Fine Lady out of charity shop finds and Jane worked tirelessly all year to find local groups and encourage them to be part of the event. And me? I was responsible for the yarn bombing.

I wrote patterns for simple knitted and crocheted squares, advertised for volunteers ... and then got completely swamped by hundreds and hundreds of squares! In the end we used 1,000 squares in the park on the day, made up into 28 blankets and other decorations, but I've still got masses of squares left over.

We wrapped blankets round trees ...

... and pillars ...

This is the entrance from my road

... and we used them on benches and the ground too ...

The picture above was taken in the Rose Garden which looked particularly beautiful with all its blankets, bunting and deckchairs.

Local primary schools plant and decorate flowerbeds each year and these added to the gaiety of this special part of the park.

I thought these flags, from many countries, looked fantastic tied round the tennis courts too.

The bunting and loose blankets came down at the end of the day but I left the ten tree blankets up for another couple of weeks, during which there were two more events in the park. Every time I went to do running repairs, as well as when we put the blankets up and took them down, lots and lots of people stopped to say how much they loved them. I hadn't expected them to be so popular but they really were. When Jane and I finally took them down yesterday, people were sad to see them go.

So, what do you do with dozens of very large, quite dirty blankets? Well at the moment they're all piled up on my bedroom floor while I try to ignore them.

I'm going to wash them, find somewhere to store them and then ... we'll put it all up again next year. It was so popular it seems a shame not to use them in the park for future events. A local church has also expressed an interest in using them to yarn bomb their wonderful church so that would be exciting.

Then there are all those unused squares ... I'm thinking of turning them into some sort of woolly bunting. It would be longer lasting than the paper sort. 

So, that was the all-important yarn bombing but there was also the small matter of the party itself. Right from the start we knew we wanted a procession like that of 1919 and, if at all possible, we wanted a Fine Lady on a white horse too. Which is where Michelle and Foggy came in. Michelle is a very experienced rider and Foggy coped beautifully with all the noise and people in the procession - not to mention the brass band. And didn't they look the part?

This is them leading the procession round the Cross ...

'Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, to see a Fine Lady upon a white horse'

and yes, she had rings on her fingers and bells, if not on her toes, on her ankles. Even Foggy wore flowers for the occasion.

Here they are, with Sir Tony Baldry, the High Steward of Banbury and Surinder Dhesi, the Deputy Town Mayor.

These last two photos were taken by Puritans Radio, a local radio station who act as Master of Ceremonies for this and many other local events.

The day itself was like a great big village fete. There were stalls all over the park, representing local groups and businesses as well as charities. There was a dog show, crazy golf ( which looked fantastic, this would be a great permanent addition to the park), Punch & Judy, circus skills, face painting, go karts ... Local groups performed in the arena, ice creams were eaten and everybody had a lot of fun.

I spent the entire day running between the Labour Party stall - where we shared bubbles, chat and made friendship bracelets - and the History stall and, in between that, my daughter and I gave out hundreds of commemorative badges (which I made) to every child we could find! 

Jane had prepared a lovely display of old photographs of the park which attracted a lot interest throughout the day and we'd also put together a History Trail and a Memory Hedge. I didn't get any photos of the History Trail but here are some of people's memories of the park, hanging on the hedge.

It was all an awful lot of hard work but oh, so worth it. To see the Fine Lady appear at the entrance to the park reduced me to tears - suddenly, it was all really happening. It was a very happy day, bursting to the seams with a real old-fashioned sense of community that I hope the people of 1919 would have recognised. 

Here's a bit of a taster of the day, courtesy of the Town Council ...

Should you want to read more about the park's history, I stole the few facts I used here from Jane's two excellent blog posts on Municipal Dreams. I do urge you to take a look at these, they're full of interesting details and there are some great old photographs too.