Nostalgia: Sometimes you just need to put work to one side and have fun

Published on Saturday 16 May 2009 11:30

SAND, paint and a messy collection of toys – the essential ingredients of any good playgroup. But this particular playgroup in Gilmerton in 1975 was located inside a bus provided by Edinburgh Corporation's social work department.

It was the second such mobile unit set up in the city, designed to provide a place for fun for the under-fives where no permanent playgroup existed.

Children in Portobello, though, have never had such worries – at least not since 1929 when the Toddler Hut opened. As revealed in the Evening News this week, the Beach Lane playgroup, created by wealthy locals in the same year as the Wall Street crash, is now the oldest in Britain.

But playgroups aren't the only way to keep toddlers entertained – although the rather physical game of American football isn't the most alternative pastime for a two-year-old. However this toddler doesn't seem concerned as he makes off with the ball while the UK's Fighting Chicks and Germany's Ramsein Rams limbered up in Princes Street Gardens ahead of their game at Inverleith sports ground in 1964.

Animals are always a surefire hit, though, as this goat, at the children's farm at Edinburgh Zoo, proved in 1965 when youngsters from Clermiston Toddlers Play Centre visited. And while a protest might not sound like fun, these bandage-swathed children from the Dalmeny Street Playgroup were on a mission connected to playtime back in 1987 – the youngsters were wielding banners in a bid to clean up the city's playgrounds.

And while the idea of riding on a bus looks like it's tickled this little chap's fancy in St Andrew Square in 1970, the tricky task of just getting on board may just put the kibosh on his fun.