Playground at the Government quarters

Photo borrowed from my friend Sarawakiana,


I could never understand why the makers of playground equipment made these things that go round and round. When I was little, we lived near a playground provided by the Government.

Whenever I see equipment that go round and round, I think of this incident with my Cousin Catherine. 

I never liked the "Merry Go Round" aka roundabout, it was like a bird cage of 8 feet diameter. Otherwise, it was like a giant rattle, with the handle stuck in the ground. We could sit on wooden planks or stand. It was two feet from ground. The braver ones hold with one hand and stand on one leg with the body outside the cage. A person or two stand on the ground and spin the cage. Usually the bigger boys did that. I was prong to dizziness but it didn't deter me from joining the rest to be spun round and round.

In those days, our cousins always came in the holidays and they would go crazy in the playground as they didn't live near one.

My fondest memory or one that impacted all of us was we were all on it, and the boys, Charles and Henry spinning us. There were two little cousins Mary and Catherine. Cousin Helen who was my age was eating a preserved plum and carrying one of our other cousins.

I was screaming because I always getting dizzy. Helen dropped her sour plum and was bending down to pick it. She didn't know that when you are on it, you must hold on to the rails very tightly. The little cousin's head was almost touching to the ground as we spun round and round. Helen tried to grab hold of cousin Mary or Catherine. She was spun like rag doll or a head banger when an ice skater spins his partner holding her legs.

Initially the boys just spun faster and faster. It was terrifying, all the girls were screaming and our little cousins was crying. It was hullabaloo. Realizing what was happening, the boys pulled the Merry Go Round to make it go the reversed direction before it finally stopped.

Luckily our cousin was not hurt, and only shaken. In fact, we were all shaken. It was our secret. We never told anyone. Catherine & Mary, Helen & Henry and I belonged to different sets of family. We share the same Great grand parents. We bribed Catherine and her sister Mary to keep quiet, because we knew if we told, they would never come again.

I am reposting part of my blog http://annkschin.blogspot.co.nz/2011/12/happy-birthday-cousin-catherine.html, Now that she has retired, she will laugh again on our childhood shenanigans.