How a 1970s amusement park taught this helicopter parent to relax

My husband, who grew up in the nearby seaside resort of Newquay, visited Lappa Valley as a child in the 1970s. It felt “hidden” back then, he tells me, even though it was only 10 kilometres away from the town. “I spent my teenage years wondering if it had been real, because I couldn’t figure out where exactly it was located, or how to get there.”Helen Earley/Handout

The final leg of the journey to the park is just over a mile through a light-dappled forest. As the train turns the corner, its coal-fired engine, Zebedee No. 1, lets out a steamy toot-toot and we are faced with a fairy-tale scene: a tall stone tower and building, abandoned like the ruins of some ancient castle, looming over a shallow pond where a flock of fiberglass pedal-boat swans bob serenely in the water.

Much of the play equipment is retired from school or neighbourhood playgrounds, some forged by Wicksteed, a manufacturer that has been around since 1918.But the origins of Lappa Valley would make any helicopter parent sweat. This surreal Cornish landscape was formed in part by the East Wheal Rose lead mine where, in 1846, 39 miners died after the ground collapsed in a flood.

His laid back approach is contagious – and why shouldn’t it be? With the absence of screaming roller coasters and bouncy mascots, Lappa Valley is the kind of place where a five year old can hop into an electric car and drive around the loop helmet-less, happily bashing into fellow motorists as he goes.

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