Pleasure Park Bandstand

A Memory of Kettering.

The shown photo is how I remembered it circa 1955 when I was 10 years old. Very popular venue for Sunday brassbands and the occasional visiting magician/children's entertainers. When the bandstand was not in use during weekdays, folding chairs would often be stored within it. Prior to an event, council workers (possibly council park staff that lived in a house on the edge of the park) would empty the bandstand of perhaps 200 or so chairs and arrange them in rows in a semicircle around the stand.
One hot summer day my 9 year old cousin and I had finished our paddle in the park pool and approached the bandstand to go home. An event had just ended and all the chairs had to be stacked back into the bandstand. A park staff member called us over and said if we packed all the chairs away for him he would give us 6d. each. Of course we obliged and set to work folding the chairs and hauling them up the bandstand steps and stacking them. When we had them all put away we were by that time extremely hot and exhausted. We waited and waited for the park man to return and pay us. He didn't return. It was a very cruel trick to play upon young children. We learned from that experience that because one wears a uniform it does not mean they are honest.