Playground games

Anyone remember 'in and out the bonnie bluebells' where you wove in and out of a ring of kids who were holding hands as everyone sang the song and you tried not to get 'tagged' when the singing stopped? Can't recall exactly how it went but when I went to live in India for a while I found they had something similar called Kabadi - but over there it's their national sport!

Whitewaves - you've reminded me that we used to make a fire and cook potatoes too.
Not in the playground though!
At the side of fields there's usually a ditch, and hawthorn bushes grow over it. We had a den under the bush, made a fire and once set the bush alight
I suppose we must have put it out somehow - little devils!

That's interesting jimorourke, because when I was a child we used to play shove ha'penny, which was a board game. We had one similar to the one pictured.

In the 50's we played shove hupney,the Dundee word for a halfpenny which was like blow football but played with a ruler to shove a coin around an imaginary pitch and score a goal. Marbles were another favourite rolled along the playground. And because I remember my fingers getting clipped many times, that was when we played conkers.

whitewave We were also allowed to light campfires and used to enjoy cooking 'twists' which were made from flour and water dough twisted around bits of twig. The resulting semi-cooked dough had to be plastered with jam to make it edible. Delicious!

Oh sorry lizzypopbottle just spotted your post. I think health and safety would forbid British bulldog now. Quite rough!

Anyone remember British bulldog or red rover?

My grandfather, who was in WW1 would sing all the songs to me from that era - I can still remember all the words.
Marbles and swapping beads.
What's the time Mr Wolf?
All sorts of skipping games
Jacks
Each activity seemed to have a season too.
We lived near a golf course and the children from the road would spend summer evenings playing rounders using the teeing off square for the 4 corners.
My best friend and I would take matches a frying pan and eggs and bacon and light a camp fire and eat the result of egg bacon and bits of twig and charcoal. I would imagine that today our parents would be frowned on as neglectful but they were glorious happy happy times.

If anyone's interested, there's a fascinating social history book written by Iona and Peter Opie - the "Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes". It lists all the regional variations of traditional children's rhymes- nursery, Skipping, ball, etc...

I was the child who was useless at hopscotch, ball games, skipping games etc and spent many break times lurking on the margins of the yard. I preferred to spend my time out of school reading and never put in the hours of practice needed to be competent at any of these games. Lived on a long street of Victorian terraces with no other children living there - which may not have helped. I had a much better social life in school when i went to grammar school and we just sat around talking in the lunch hours.

I tried to show the DGD how to juggle with two balls the other week, but I dropped them! Must have a practice in secret

Just remembered a ball game with 2 balls at a time, thrown against a wall. The song was

Plainy marmalade, Plainy marmalade.
Many a nurse has lost her purse
Plainy marmalade.

With each verse the throwing needed more skill and the first word of the song reflected that..e.g. Over marmalade, dropsy marmalade, spin roundy marmalade.

Have no idea what marmalade glad to do with anything! Nor nurses.

When I was about 10 / 11 the girls used to make two long lines facing each other in the playground, arms linked and we used to sing 'Hey big spender!' - a lot of hip wiggling and high kicks thrown in. I bet our mums would have hated it!

When my children were growing up, on nanny visiting days I would sing 'She'll be coming round the mountains when she comes!' They always joined in the chorus ' Singing aye, aye, yippee, my granny is a hippy!' with gusto.

My GS is only 6 weeks old, but my daughter told me she has started to sing it to him now and he is beginning to smile back! Loving it!!!

I agree nonnanna,

My grandchildren like me singing the old songs with them eg. "how much is that doggy in the window" the more I sing the more I remember so it's good for the old brain.

I also sing along with new songs they learn at school.

We used to do a lot of singing at school mostly Folk Songs. We also learnt folk dances such as "The Dashing White Sergeant." I remember my friend and I dancing a folk dance with lots of clapping and twirling. I could still do it today but would need to sit down afterwards.

This is a lovely thread. No moans, groans or digs at other Gransnetters. Bliss! What's even better is that whilst I remember playing many of these games my 8 year old GD is now playing some of them on her school playground and the 4 year old is learning some of them at pre-school. Farmers in his den is her favourite but she's 'fed up with always being the wife I want to be the dog'. Hopefully the traditional games will continue to be played for many years to come.

We used to play In and Out the Dusty Windows and a ball game against a wall which went like this,

Plainsie, clapsie,
around the world to backsie.
First your heel and then your toe,
Bounce the ball and through you go.

Bluebells in Ayrshire were also 'dusky'.

They were dusky in Brighton too.

Maybe not as much pollution where you were Maggie?

In Aberdeen, Hopscotch was called 'Beddies'.

How odd, Tricia! I was a bit further South, in County Durham.

grannyqueenie, up in North East England our bluebells were dusky, not dusty. Much more acceptable!

ps "Dusty" bluebells in Northumberland too.

Skipping games:
In a group - someone is in the rope jumping and sings "I call in my very best friend and her name is - - ". Then you run out and the new person joins.
There seems to have been a lot of group games then. I remember "stuck in the mud " too.

Ah, grannyqueenie for us down south (well, in the middle of England) Scotland was all lochs, mountains, heather, bluebells and fresh air.
And, of course, the Skye Boat Song and the Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond sung lustily by English primary school children