FOR generations of children, the highlight of any trip to Poole’s Arndale Centre – now the Dolphin Centre – was playing on its wooden animals.

The four play sculptures were played on for almost three decades before disappearing from the shopping mall.

The astonishing response to a Facebook page dedicated to Hippo, Turtle, Whale and Snake not only showed how fondly people remembered the animals, but even succeeded in starting a debate about bringing them back.

The Facebook page, Reinstate the Dolphin Centre Wooden Play Sculptures, has amassed 2,300 ‘likes’. The Facebook statistics show the people most engaged with it are those aged 35-44.

Steve Baron of Poole Photography, who started the group, said: “I started this page and it just went crazy. It really captured people’s memories.”

The animals, made of mahogany by local artist Peter Hand, were installed in the Arndale Centre when it opened in 1969. Mr Baron said they took three months each to make and cost £500 a piece – the price of a new car at the time.

Children could not only climb over them but go through the mouth of the whale, hippo or turtle and come out at the tail.

Countless young people played on them while their parents were shopping in the centre’s stores. But the fun came to an end when the animals were removed from the mall in 1997.

The animals spent the next decade away from public view, and Snake was left outdoors, where its condition deteriorated and it was eventually thrown away. In 2008, the surviving sculptures were brought out of storage and put on display in the centre to help raise money for local charities. But they were behind ropes, with no opportunity for children to play on them.

When Steve Baron set up his Facebook group last November, he began an exchange of letters with the Dolphin Centre’s owners, Legal and General, about the possibility of bringing back the animals.

Mark Harvey, Legal and General’s senior asset manager, stressed the company valued feedback but had a responsibility “to create a safe and attractive environment”. He wrote to Mr Baron: “These wooden animals were removed from the mall over 20 years ago for health and safety reasons. The same reasons that they were removed as a children’s play structure stand today and relate, amongst other things, to the height from which children could fall and hurt themselves.” The health and safety objections cut little ice with the page’s contributors. Kirsty Meade wrote: “Played on these as a child and so did the rest of my siblings, cousins and the older generations of my family and we never came to any harm!”

Maxine Gibson said “Grew up with these wooden animals, always played on them when mum was shopping. Didn’t do me any harm – climbed all over them as I suspect thousands of others did.”

Kathryn Baker, who remembered visiting the town as a child, said: “The highlight of being dragged shopping with the adults was the promise of being allowed to play on the whale and the tortoise whilst they took it in turns to shop!”

Gail Fozard wrote: “I always used to bang my head on the whale’s tail getting out, but just rubbed it better and ran, yes, ran round for another go.”

Neal Alexander summed up the feelings of the group with his comment: “I hope they reinstate them. I want my boy to have as much fun as I did.”

Recently, Legal and General decided on a way to bring the animals back to public use – but not at the Dolphin Centre.

It decided to donate the animals for use at Poole Park, where they will have a permanent outdoor spot near the site of the park’s former zoo.

Hippo recently made a one-day appearance at the park for children to play on. Its appearance coincided with the submission of a £2.5million Heritage Lottery Fund bid to improve the park.

John Grinnell, centre manager of the Dolphin Shopping Centre said: “For a long time we have wanted to return the wooden animals to Poole and after reviewing the possibility of reinstating the wooden animals as play sculptures for the Poole Park Life bid, Legal and General made the decision to donate the animals.

“We know how much the people of Poole cherish the heritage of the wooden animals and understand that they hold great sentimental value. Their new permanent home will be a safer play environment and can be enjoyed by children to their full extent.”