RESIDENTS of a Launceston council estate over three decades reunited at a gathering in the town’s Kensey Vale Bowling Club.

The residents, who lived at Broad Park between 1952 and 1982, included those aged almost 90, who had moved onto the estate when it was first built.

Families were moved there in 1952 from the Tower Street and Northgate Street areas, where homes were demolished. At that time the new estates roads were not made up and were just mud tracks.

One of the former Broad Park residents, Tarry Barriball, recalled: “My parents, Tom and Vera Barriball, were moved there with my sister Moira and myself in November 1952. My mother was about six months pregnant with my brother, who was born in February 1953.

“There were other families that were moved from Tower Street to Broad Park Estate, including the Bridgmans, Maguires to name just two. There were, however, many other families who moved there from various parts of Launceston and the immediate area.”

The reunion came about as a result of Roger Pyke’s Facebook page ‘Launceston Then’. It was noticed that many of the names of the subscribers to it bore the names of families that used to live on Broad Park in its early years.

Someone suggested in a response to a comment that they should try to get a reunion of the early families together.

The essence of the evening was to try and get as many of the original family occupants together as was reasonably possible.

It was thanks to Nicola Gilbert (née Gabe) that the Kensey Vale venue was secured for the evening. It was decided there would be no form of music or other entertainment; the reason being that it would stint conversation. Anyone standing outside during the course of the evening could only hear the sound of ‘babbling voices’.

More than 80 people attended the event, their ages ranging from almost 90 down to the children of children of past residents of about 8 to 10 years.

People attending had travelled from Leicester, Dorset, Cambridge, Chesterfield, and many places around Devon and Cornwall.

Thanks were expressed to Nicola Gilbert, Angie Matthews, Drea Boxall and Margaret Young for providing the refreshments, and to the members of Kensey Bowling Club who looked after the bar for the evening and assisted in preparing refreshments.

Just over £200 profit was made on the evening and is being donated to St Stephen’s Church Roof Appeal as the majority of children who were resident at Broad Park attended St Stephen’s School, sang in St Stephen’s Church Choir and many married at St Stephen’s Church.