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Souters must halt latest threat to park
I have long said, with a degree of justification, that what goes around comes around.
I would gratefully accept a quid for every time I have heard this wonderful old saying used in conjunction with a wide variety of circumstances – but if a condition of payment insisted I explain exactly what it means, I fear I would be working at a loss.
However, for the purposes of today's topic, I suggest there is relevance as it refers to something that makes a comet-like return to our attention on a regular basis.
Now that all sounded rather grand, I am quite pleased with it, but before everyone gets their hopes up, I am writing about an old friend who has fallen on hard times.
That old friend is the Pringle Park, a gently sloping expanse of ground that has served Selkirk, my family and me so well for the last three decades, plus a few more years. I can only suppose it was originally gifted to us by a bloke called Pringle (pretty sharp, eh?) and I regret to say I have no notion of whatever terms exist for its use, other than we should not allow our enjoyment of its charm to do any damage.
It was a place of happy recreation for my children when they were small and some years ago, when a cataract severely limited my vision, the Pringle Park allowed me to take unsupervised exercise without getting knocked up the air by a car. I felt safe there, and now the park itself is looking vulnerable to the covetous eyes of school builders and recreational planners, I would like to repay a little of what I owe to this green haven by calling for all Selkirk people to come its assistance.
For as long as I have been in Selkirk, Pringle Park has been the target of far too many ideas that range from sinister to patently barmy from people who should know better.
It has to serve as a caravan park during the Common Riding, thus highlighting a glaring defect in Selkirk's much-vaunted tourism ambitions in that the town does not have a dedicated caravan park. And before you tell me how wonderful the Viccie Park is as a caravan site, go to Melrose, or Moffat, or a dozen other places in southern Scotland and see what a real one looks like.
Looking further back over the years to the dawn of fitness fads and health nagging, some genius came up with the idea of a "trim track" – a series of workout stations made of wood and odds and ends, supposedly to help us stay healthy by exercise. Some of the timber apparatus had an unfortunate resemblance to gibbets, stocks, a pillory and other medieval items of social correction – but within a few months the craze wore off and the only exercise thereafter witnessed was the sport enjoyed by local vandals as they cheerfully trashed the lot.
In successive years we got rid of the smelly bogs, dangerous play equipment and paddling pool, and for a while it looked as if the park was on the up.
Now it seems the Pringle Park is under new threats.
They want a big lump of it to build a new primary school, and if that happens a serious crime will have been committed against the people of Selkirk. There are plenty of other places to build a new school, but I suspect the simplicity of building on a park has economic temptations, especially when linked to selling the site of the old one for big bucks – a sum unlikely to be returned to Selkirk by way of compensation for losing an amenity.
All this comes at a time when other planners are talking about installing this and that to make the park more amenable to users – in real speak, laying on a bit more sport for the vandals and dope smokers who will no doubt be attracted like flies round a cow pat.
Looking at the overall picture, I get the feeling that the Pringle Park is under serious threat from those who do not have the best interests of the Selkirk people as a priority – and if they get their way, it will anger me, a lot of other people and, most of all, the original Pringle who by now must be gently rotating in his grave.
Already we have seen that a fair amount of the discussion on this subject has been carried out in a secretive manner, suggesting we will be resented with a fait accompli and all the bleating, finger-poking and whining that inevitably follows will be of no use whatsoever.
So, in case there is any doubt as to the majority opinion in Selkirk, may I point out that most of us just want the park left alone.
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Weather for Selkirk
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 2 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: West
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Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
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