Southampton's parks and schoolyards in the 1970s and 1980s were a world of towering metal frames, hard concrete and fearless adventure. (Image: Echo)On hot 1970s days at Southampton Common and Mayflower Park, metal slides became frying pans – but children still queued to hurtle down the searing steel. Those who grew up in late-20th-century Southampton's metal playgrounds share an unspoken bond. A splash of TCP on a grazed knee was the cure-all, while the local park was an adventure that toughened a generation of survivors. Southampton's youth culture also embraced organised skateboarding competitions that drew hundreds of spectators at local leisure centres in 1977 and 1978.