Playgrounds and parks around Wagga have been quiet lately as the COVID-19 restrictions bar community play.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But, play areas have had a long history in the city, dating back to 1914 with the construction of Newtown Park - now Collins Park.
"The main reason playgrounds exist at all is because cars exist," said Katrien Pickles.
"Depending on where they lived, if they were more working-class or upper class though, they would have different ways of playing. The working classes tended to play more in the streets."
Related:
Since 2016, Ms Pickles has been researching and documenting the historic and psychological uses of playgrounds around Wagga, and the world, for a PhD she is writing.
"When streets became unsafe for kids to play in, games moved from the streets to the back alleys and parents the world over decided play needed to be organised," Ms Pickles said.
The world's readiness for wartime at the turn of the century may have begun the emphasis for outdoor, active play.
"Germany started the physical activity movement, perhaps as a way of anticipating war and preparing generations for a specific body type," Ms Pickles said.
By 1913, a movement to develop public playgrounds had developed in Australia with the formation of what would eventually be known as 'Play Australia'.
A year later, when war broke out in Europe, Wagga City Council began construction on its first playground.
At that time, Newtown Park already boasted animal enclosures, a pond, tended gardens and a picnic area.
"The park movement and public gardens was a very British ideal," Ms Pickles said. "They were built for adults to contemplate in nature, children were unwelcome. Now they're all ages."
The early inception of Newtown Park playground was far from the organised playground there now. At the time, it was just a sand heap and a see-saw.
But, within months of its operation that rather primitive playground attracted its first scandal.
On December 7, 1914, a 16-year-old named Joseph Swansborough was found damaging the "property of the council, to wit, a see-saw in Newton Park". The park's caretaker caught him in the act of breaking the see-saw locks overnight.
The vandal was ordered by Wagga Court to pay a fine of 10 pounds, threepence for his actions.