I was quite sad to visit Hermitage Park in Helensburgh today to see the old rocking horse fenced off and clearly out of commission. The running boards have been disintegrating for a long time, but now they’re gone and with the rust on the underside it looks more like this once proud feature of the local park will be removed.
Admittedly, it’s a trivial thing to be getting all nostalgic about, but somewhere in my Aunty Helen’s house there’s probably some Super 8 footage of my cousins and I playing on that horse, and I have footage filmed on my PSP of my daughter playing on it with Crazy Uncle John a couple of years back.
It just seems a shame that something that’s been around for a couple of generations will probably end up on the scrap heap. It’s better built than most of the modern items that have turned up in the park, that’s for sure, having outlasted a couple of different climbing frame installations. However unlikely, I hope someone at the council will be mindful that the horse just about belongs there in his corner of the park and plans to restore him to his former glory are in the works.