Looking back: Summer at Ferry Meadows in the 1970s and '80s

The days are getting milder, the evenings are stretching longer and the ice cream vans are doing brisk trade – yes, we’re on the cusp of summer.

While the onset of warm weather and blue skies is likely to mean different things to different people, many of us innately connect the heady fun of summer with the accessible beauty of Ferry Meadows.

Without doubt, there is something about the place at this time of year: be it the kites or the trains; the picnics or the pedalos, that just has a way of making you feel like summer has well and truly arrived.

While many people assume it must have always been this way, the truth is Ferry Meadows is actually one of the city’s more recent large-scale leisure projects. Indeed, the park itself didn’t open until 1978.

Unsurprisingly, the three-and-a half-mile long expanse was an immediate hit with the public when the gates did finally open. Peterborians loved the fact that they had such a pleasant, attractive and ecological diverse green area to explore and enjoy, effectively right on their doorstep.

To many, those first few years the park was open – from the late 1970s to the mid-to-late 1980s – still seem like something of a golden age. Ask your parents or grandparents about the Ferry Meadows beach and chances are they’ll come over a little misty-eyed. If you were lucky enough to be one of those parents or grandparents then today’s Looking Back will almost certainly make your nostalgia goosebumps rise with a passion. If you weren’t, well –here’s your chance to see what you missed out on.