Child’s play for young at heart

9:43am Monday 31st March 2008

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YOU can glean a lot about people by the way they play with their kids at the park.

I took the kids to the Homestead at Clifton Green, York, last week (you know the one I mean; it's got a fab helter-skelter and a wheelchair swing that everyone ushers their kids away from like it's some sort of holy relic) and took the opportunity to indulge in a bit of people watching.

As a trained observer (i.e. a nosey parker with a notebook), I found a great deal to pique my interest.

First came the "not bovvered" brigade, armed with mobile phones, iPods and various other electronic doohickeys to keep them occupied while their children dangled precariously off high bits of playground kit and generally found ways to rip their flesh and break their bones.

One little chap enjoyed quite a spectacular nose bleed after taking a header off a rocking race horse. Thankfully, however, his mother was spared the trauma of seeing her child's brains running down his chin as she was otherwise engaged on the phone with her hairdresser (there was a big decision to be made in regard to highlights apparently).

Next to arrive were the "if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right" crowd, who had all brought picnics, tartan blankets and flasks, and were all wearing weatherproof anoraks, hats, gloves and fleece-lined hiking boots (it was cold, but we weren't actually having to fight off polar bears for a go on the slide).

They proceeded to set up base camp in various corners of the park and force their children to eat their corned beef rations before venturing forth into the uncharted territory of the Wendy house.

Then it was time for my all-time favourite playground parents to arrive: the "wey-hey, look at me Jemima, I'm on the army slide" gang.

These lot are priceless. I could watch them all day as they cavort about over-enthusiastically, organising games of rounders and having piggyback races as their bemused children look on in wide-eyed bafflement.

On this particular day, I enjoyed watching a real prize specimen. Not only did they insist on playing a quite astonishing game of tig, which involved lots of adult shrieking, but they also launched themselves into a game of hide-and-seek which saw a grown man squeezing himself into a metal tunnel aimed at svelte four-year-olds and a grown woman up a tree. And me? Well, I'm just a big kid when it comes to the playground. I can't resist wedging my bottom on to a swing and kicking my legs skywards.

The kids are reaching the stage where I am now becoming something of a mild embarrassment to them, which is an added bonus and makes my habit of singing the Laurel & Hardy theme song very loudly on the seesaw even more enjoyable.

Try it yourself; it really does make you boing higher.

I rashly promised to take the kids to see the theatre production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang during the school holidays.

It was a rash decision on two counts.

One, I didn't check the cast list beforehand and so didn't realise I would be paying for the privilege of watching an all-singing, all-dancing Curly Watts from Corrie.

And two, I didn't check the price list either. To say I wasn't best pleased on being asked to hand over £160 for four bog-standard midweek tickets near the back of the stalls would be a bit of an understatement.

To be honest, if I hadn't already promised the kids a night of Truly Scrumptious entertainment, I would have given the whole idea the Old Bamboo't.

How on earth can such extortionate prices be justified?

I realise productions of this calibre are not cheap to stage, but this was Kevin Kennedy in Bradford, not Kevin Spacey on Broadway.

Add in a pizza beforehand and an ice-cream in the interval and you're talking well over £200.

Chuck in a programme and you're getting perilously close to complete bankruptcy.

I love the theatre and I want my kids to love it too, but it will have to remain a once a year treat rather than a regular night-out unless the price comes down Toot Sweet.