I lived more than a mile from the nearest park when I was six. One day I heard that there was a better playground a couple of miles in the other direction.

So off I trudged to find it and spotted the main attraction, an enormous and ancient slide tucked under a railway arch.

Just when I had climbed to the top and was about to swoosh down, my progress was halted by a stentorian bellow from a woman park attendant directing my eyes to a notice which said: Children Under Seven are Not Permitted on this Equipment.

There was no question of ignoring this edict or pretending I was seven, so the journey was wasted.

Many years later I recounted this story to my eldest daughter, also six at the time, as we were passing the same park and I determined to show her where the slide had been.

Much to my surprise, not only was the slide still there, complete with notice, but the self-same attendant - older but not diminished in power - prevented my daughter from using it too.

I was reminded of this when Brighton and Hove City Council suddenly removed all the play equipment from Victoria Recreation Ground in Portslade on the grounds that it was cracking up. Someone from the council said these days equipment lasts only ten or 15 years.

What a change from the Seventies when I remember play equipment being moved out of Queen's Park in Brighton, not because it had worn out but because trendies were saying it could be considered dangerous. It had been there, almost unaltered, for half a century.

Playgrounds nearly always contained the same equipment and you could see why the modern mothers thought it could cause accidents.

There was a large slide, its surface burnished to a fine sheen by years of flannelled bottoms speeding down it. A few metal swings on chains were nearby on which boys would vainly try to go over the top.

There was an ancient seesaw with no hydraulics on which kids crashed to the ground with considerable violence.

A wooden roundabout was there and children would dash on to it at terrifying speed. Youngsters also clambered on to a clanking mechanism, called a witch's hat, which oscillated alarmingly.

And there was a plank swing which had the potential of causing a nasty blow to the heads of passers-by.

Although all this equipment was primitive and was installed over hard surfaces, I never saw anyone seriously injured in any playground.

This was partly because most children's legs were a permanent mass of scar tissue from various knocks but more that they knew what dangers were involved and largely avoided them.

By contrast, a friend of my youngest daughter fell about four feet from a plastic slide in Hove on to bark chippings and broke her arm.

Playgrounds these days look much more attractive than they did in the past, when they were painted in regulation municipal green or gunmetal. Safety is designed into every piece of equipment. Each piece is replaced as soon as the slightest crack appears.

But they are deadly dull. While young children may be happy with a climbing frame no more than five feet tall, a short slide, and bouncy animals perched on springs, most children have had their fill of playgrounds by the time they are ten and there is nothing to tempt them after that.

There is no way in which any council is ever going to bring back great gaunt slides, witch's hats or plank swings (which were always my favourite) but at least there was a palpable air of excitement about them. They had a real element of danger which a lot of kids need in their play.

Councillors from Brighton and Hove, and a host of other Sussex councils, should be encouraged to have a day out in London, or some other city where there are proper adventure playgrounds.

They could take a selection of kids with them or, even better, cling on to the climbing towers themselves.

Then they could install at least one adventure playground in every town or city in Sussex.

This would be intended for older children and would be sensationally popular but I plead with the authorities not to appoint a modern version of that old playground dragon to avoid deep disappointment for under-aged chancers.