CHRIS Titley's feature on Rowntree Park or Rowntree's Park as we called it, stirred several memories (July 7). These included the swing park with its copious sand, the chute, tea pot lid and lemon squeezer, the open-air swimming pool, the red shale tennis courts near the riverside entrance, and finally, but importantly, the caf.

I lived in a 1930s house near Mount Vale and children went to Knavesmire Elementary School, crossing the 'Mire and walking unaccompanied to school, and also to Rowntree's Park during summer months of the war years.

I recall that an elderly aunt who lived in Clementhorpe firmly believed Rowntree's acquired this site for its war memorial gift to the city partly to stop Terry's expanding its Clementhorpe factory along the riverside. Up to the 1950s Terry's still had tennis courts for staff use near the river, close to Skeldergate Bridge. Terry's opened the present factory in 1930 on a greenfield site.

Eighty years on can anyone shed light on this old York rumour which has persisted so long - or was it just based on the circumstances at the time?

Vera McHugh (ne Smith),

Aspin Oval,

Knavesborough.

Updated: 10:45 Monday, July 14, 2003