The pancake and the witches hat

I still have flashbacks of playing on the pancake (witches hat ?) and rolling down the grassy hill.Percy the park keeper was a force to be reckoned with! At Finchley Park there was a slide, swings,a ’roundabout’ that we called the pancake and that you literally powered yourself by holding on to a bar, running in a circle and then jumping on to a standing platform once you had reached the desired speed. The witches hat was also a roundabout but it had seats and was, again, powered by running while holding on and then jumping on.As well as going around it also went in and out. It was called the witches hat because the bars went from the seat up to the mechanism at the top and all of the bars meeting there gave the appearance or shape of a witches hat. The pond at Finchley park would be closed by the environmentalists today since the water was always dark and murky but it was a wonderful place for children to cool off in summer (and I suspect that none of us suffered from playing in it).