Donne Buck about the founders of Bandley Hill adventure playground

...the local families in Bandley Hill decided that they needed a place for their children to play, which wasn’t just formal swings and roundabouts type of playground, but a place where the children could determine their own play ...

Stevenage Museum

Donne Buck Bandlay Hill adventure playground

Donne Buck about the founders of Bandley Hill adventure

Children playing on a wooden climbing structure at Bandley Hill Adventure Playground. Donne Buck (donor) was the first playworker at Bandley Hill Adventure Playground in Stevenage from 28th March 1967 - 6th June 1970.

Stevenage Museum/Donne Buck

Bandley Hill

Transcript:

So it wasn’t until 1967 that the idea of adventure playgrounds began to catch on having been tried out and developed in London for quite some time before that and the local families in Bandley Hill decided that they needed a place for their children to play, which wasn’t just formal swings and roundabouts type of playground, but a place where the children could determine their own play, build their own facilities to some extent, but where there would be skilled staff to keep an eye on things to help them and to maintain a certain level of order. And so Joan Herbert and her husband and a group of other local parents in Bandley Hill, set up a lottery, local lottery, where they collected a shilling a week from local families and gave a prize of course, or a series of prizes each week, and the profit was put into a fund to develop an adventure playground for local families.

Donne Buck 2006