'Thank you to everybody': Emotional last day as East Links Family Park prepares to close for good
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Much loved family park owner ‘overwhelmed’ with support ahead of closure
The owner of a much loved activity park in East Lothian which will close its doors for the final time today has said he has been “overwhelmed” with support from the community.
Grant Bell, who has run East Links Family Park near Dunbar with his family for the past 25 years, announced its impending closure in July much to locals’ dismay.
Speaking on the park’s final day, Mr Bell said: “I think there is a melancholy around the camp this morning. I sat down to write out some cards for key members of staff, you know, and you start to think about the 25 years which has had a lot to celebrate.
“It's a business model that takes quite a bit of effort. You've got to look after the public, look after your equipment and machinery and get everything right. So, very nostalgic this morning.”
The park was started by Mr Bell in an effort to provide a fun park for his own children—but it has now blossomed into an attraction that has provided joy to many more families than just his own.
“I got into that profession because I wanted something close to home. That was going to be fun with my kids and I didn't plan for it to be as big as that at all. I planned for it to be this low-key thing,” he said.
From its humble beginnings, the park soon became a must-visit destination for families—and Mr Bell wasn’t averse to stocking the park with what was already at home.
He said: “Jenni [ Grant’s daughter] was talking this morning about when we first opened the East Links and it really was a wooden hut out there at the entrance. I sold eggs in it, and then it became the ticketing hut.
“We didn't really have that really any buildings as such out there, I just had the railway track and a single building, but Jenni says, ‘Do you remember dad? When you removed all our toys and put them in the park?’ Because we had this with this Little House on the Prairie seesaw that would go up-and-down and round in a circle.”
The park didn’t just attract families from all around Scotland, but also Hollywood A-listers.
Mr Bell said: “We had Nicole Kidman visit the park when she was filming at North Berwick. She came in and was sitting there with a nanny and a couple of kids, and I went over, I just said, ‘look anything we can do to help just ask, we'll look after you’, but she came in another three times because she was filming for a while.”
Mr Bell continued: “She got to know Tara, who's our longest serving member here of 23 years, so well that, on the fourth day she said to Tara, ‘I know what you got to say, you’re going to ask me, how many are we and you’re going to tell me the price of the ticket’, and Tara said, ‘are you after my job?’ and at which point Nicole Kidman went behind the till and served the next customers.
“The customers left and went through the door and said, ‘doesn't that look just like Nicole Kidman?’”
The visits formed a bond between the star and staff members at the park, something Mr Bell said was due to their ability to “make everybody relax and and enjoy themselves”.
And it’s that ability that he said has helped the park grow a loyal community base.
The news that the park would close for the final time on August 31 sparked an outpouring of love, with many having shared memories of their days spent there.
Mr Bell said: “It's been an overwhelming sort of support and gratitude. People telling us all about their memories. There's been a lot of people who are coming in with their teenage children as a nostalgia visit or 20-year-old children coming in, they don't have kids yet, but I remember coming here as a kid type of thing.
“A gentleman last night, he said, ‘I've been coming here for 20 years. Can I buy one of these Shields?’ The little shields the kids have for playing swordfighting.”
The park’s legacy will continue at the Clyde Valley Family Park near Lanark, but Mr Bell said he wanted to thank the community and staff who have made the East Links park what it was over the last 25 years.
He said: “Thank you to everybody. That would be my message from my family to everybody that knows us.”