What did you play? OS games.

milasavesmoney

Card games with my family. They started me quite young. Checkers with my grandfather. Again, very young.
With other children it was tag, freeze tag, capture the flag, hide and seek, hoolahoops, string games, yo yo, three legged races, red light green light, Simon says, jump rope, jacks, marbles, red rover, I spy, so many games.
We had fun didn't we?

TiredTrophy

We had extensive pretend games in junior school which lasted weeks and included everyone...the two most popular were manning a battleship..sometimes a girl was the admiral..we had everything covered including the laundry! And being horses...which was mostly girls.

And we did lots of damming of streams and gutters....and joining up puddles to make streams....

I don't see well enough for skipping...i always felt so left out being a rope turner when the other end got a turn to skip.

[Deleted User]

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

monnagran wrote: »

Thanks Si Clist. Have you met Hester?

[Deleted User]

We played a game calle 40-40 (no idea why it was called that) it was a bit like hide and seek, and you covered your eyes and counted to 20 then searched for the others who had to get back to your base where you started from without you seeing them, if they did, then they shouted out '40-40 I'm home' and if you spotted them before that, you yelled out '40-40 ???' whoever it was I spotted you' and the first person spotted was the next one to seek.

There was also Knock Down Ginger when you banged on the door and legged it before it was answered, and a swinging on the rope game where the rope was tied to a lampost strut, and you swung out and round it (could be a bit dangerous at times My brother lost a front tooth doing that ) Five stones were also played and things went in 'seasons' .
Conkers on a bit of string in the autumn.Skipping games in the summer with two ropes opposing each other in 'French skipping 'Cricket with a bat made out of old orange box wood and taped up.

As a 9 year old wth 2 older brothers who were fanatical about cricket I was a good slow spin bowler who could put a turn on a ball. When my grandsons came along I found I could still do it after 45 years and they were suitably impressed with Grannie's slow spin bowling :)

monnagran

Jackie: I'm impressed too. Slow spin bowling is no mean feat.

We used to play 'French Cricket' where one person had a bat, or (as Jackie said) a piece of wood, approximately the right size and shape, and everyone else tried to get him/her out by hitting their legs with the ball. I'm not sure that any Frenchman would have recognised it. Come to that I've never heard of cricket being played in France, but there you are.

It was remarkable how for several weeks the whole world was playing hopscotch then overnight everyone was playing conkers or marbles or cigarette cards or whatever was the game of the moment. Nothing was planned, nothing was said or arranged. It just happened.

Does it still work like that? I've not noticed it, but I have not had to do playground duty for 17 years. Thank goodness.

culpepper

I remember that dodge ball game. We called it Kingy . You were only supposed to throw the ball at legs in our version. If you were quick enough, you could jump over the 'ball' when it got close.

The boys played a sort of target football game in the playground. no balls allowed so they made them out of socks rolled together.

At the back of our flats there was a good big grassy bit so we played rounders ,sometimes with a bat belonging to a friend and sometimes just using our hand as the bat.

Tim tam tommy sounds very similar to JackieO's 40/40 ..We had to shout tim tam tommy 1.2.3 I see (name) behind the tree and they were caught and must go stand in the prison area. A person who was free could release them by reaching the prison and shouting tim tam tommy all released and then everyone could hide again.

Follow my leader was popular with the local children too as there were so many of us around a 'playing with' age. It could last hours.

We played a thing called colours too , the 'it' would call out a subject and the others would put their heads together and choose who was what colour or whatever. Then they would take the ball and throw it high in the air and 'it' would have to stay and catch it while everyone scattered. No hiding this time I think, it was 'catch' but the ball did the catching and the rule was that 'it' called a colour and whoever had chosen to be the named colour must run around in front of 'it' and not get caught. I cant remember how it progressed through the colours but if one person was caught ,they became a collaborator and helped to relay the ball until all were caught .

At school we played Jacks, French skipping (known as onesy twosy),
shared clapping games where one girl clapped hands with the other in various patterns and a song went with it. (it could get very fast once you got used to it).

Peep behind the curtain (is that grandmothers footsteps?) One person was it and stood with their back to the others who stood equal distance away and must tiptoe towards her, she would suddenly turn around and if she caught a movement, that person was out. The aim was to get up to her and touch her on the shoulder .

Another one we called Mother may I?? I think ,was a megalomaniac's dream game because the 'Mother' stood facing the line of kids and called out directions such as john take 3 pigeon steps, sara take 5 umbrellas,tony take 2 round the worlds, mary take 5 giant steps....the child who forgot to say 'Mother may I?' was dispatched smartly back to the start line. Mother had to say 'yes you may' but could just as easily say 'no you may not' and used the power to best advantage.

The usual skipping games with bizarre wording if you think about them..

'johnny was a sailor, came from Jamaica,had three daughters made of brown paper....'

'Up to Mississippi if you miss a loop your out'..

'my mother told me that she would buy me, that she would buy me, a rubber dolly but when I told her, I kissed a soldier, she wouldn't but me a rubber dolly'....

'vote vote vote for 'Mr (usually a teachers name)' he came knocking at the door...let him in, (usually the person skipping's name here) is a lady and shes going to have a baby so he wont be knocking anymore!..

At home we played cards of various kinds, draughts and chess.
Consequences with paper and pencil (it could get very smutty if my brother and I played), conkers, lolly sticks (like conkers but you had to break the other's stick held out between their two hands, noughts and crosses and board games.

[Deleted User]

Monnagram ,one of the benefits of having older brothers. As I was the shortest and skinniest I would be 'helped' over the wall to get our ball if it was over in next doors garden There was a very grumpy old man who lived there who used to yell and wave his stick at me if he saw me in the garden.The boys would say 'throw it back for us' and I would say 'not until you get me back over ' I wasn't daft :).

But my eldest brother wasn't too bad as he did used to make me things as there were few toys shops around in the late 1940s and even less cash to buy things He made me a fantastic dolls house from orange box wood once for Christmas and it was painted a lurid green (daren't ask where the paint came from) but I think it went 'walkabout' from three roads away where workmen were painting a municipal building in the same shade

We also played cards (but never on Sundays ) draughts, and my late Dad taught us all to play chess.
Ludo and snakes and ladders on an old board that my late Mum had managed to keep from before the war.Card games we played were Whist Rummy,Cribbage, and Newmarket but we were never allowed to gamble with money (not that we had any anyway ) only broken matchsticks.We amused ourselves with playing cat's cradle with bits of string, and we also used the local library where you were allowed three books at a time and no more, and the librarian would frown at almost all the children and inspect the books for marks when you took them back

I was, and still am a prolific reader and can't think of a time when I didn't read.My late Mum taught us all before we went to school.

Knitting was also a constant pastime and the hours I have spent unravelling jumpers to be washed and re-knitted into something else by the time I was 8 I could knit and 'turn' a heal in a pair of socks (hated that as I had to help my Mum make them for my two brothers who wore grey socks to school) and grey is such a boring colour.

Life was fairly full for us all, and my Dad thought a pair of idle hands were likely to be used in the devils work so you always made a point of being busy,or at least looking busy when he was around

We had no TV, only the wireless but I never missed it as I had never had it.The wireless took your imagination to parts all over the world, and my Mums wireless which was her pride and joy and 'untouchable' to the children had some places on the dial that I had never heard of 'Hilversum' was one which I imagined to be a silver city for some reason :):)
I think on the whole I had a pretty happy childhood and I don't envy the children of today with their gadgets and xboxes, our playtime used your imagination more I think but it was a totally different lifestyle in those days

thriftmonster

Jackie's 40:40 we called Relievo 123 but exactly the same rules. Also did any one else do the clapping game. All sit on a wall, numbered off and you pat your knees twice, clap once and then stick a thumb over your shoulder whilst calling out someone else's number. They have to respond by the next thumb signal or else they went to the bottom and everyone below them moved up a number. It's far more complicated to explain than to play.(and boys were rubbish at it)

Skipping rhyme (for long rope)
I am a little bumper car
No 28
I whizz around the coooooooorner (whilst exiting the rope, running round one of the people turning it and jumping back in to finish with..)
With my foot upon the brake.

monnagran

My goodness. Your memories take me back. Many of these games you mention sound familiar but we called them by different names. The game that JackieO calls 40/40 and Culpepper calls TimTamTommy sounds very much like one that we called Releasio.

I think you had to have elastic for French skipping so that was out for us. During the war it was difficult enough to get enough elastic to keep your knickers up.
Anyone who was found playing with it would have been lynched.

Culpepper, you are much better at remembering skipping rhymes, some of those ring bells in my mind.

Jackie: Loved the story about the dolls house. I never really achieved one. When my Dad was demobbed he decided that he was going to make a replica of our bungalow for me. I think that the half finished result was thrown out when they moved. I was 19 by that time so not too upset.

Oh my goodness, I'd forgotten about 'never on a Sunday'. No-one ever played out in the street on a Sunday. Everything was deathly quiet. Even in the house we weren't allowed toys, just a book to read, preferably an improving one. The adults didn't knit or sew or even do any gardening. I was staggered when I was quite grown up to find my mother knitting one Sunday, Dad had obviously been worn down by her arguments.
Sundays were truly a day of rest, and boredom if you were a child.
Mind, there were three visits to church to amuse us.

The library was a lifesaver. My mother, who was as much a bookworm as I was, used to belong to about three or four, including one that Boots ran. One library could never have satisfied our thirst for books.

I also knitted from a very early age, starting with dishcloths, necessary for washing up and cleaning.

Also the wireless. We had Housewives Choice, The Radio Doctor with his advice to eat plenty of black missionaries, (prunes), Workers Playtime and eventually, joy of joys, Childrens Hour with Uncle Mac. I still think that David Davis had the most glorious reading voice I have ever heard.

My father invented a board game called 'Indoor Cricket'. He really should have patented it. It was a circular board divided into segments labelled 1 run, 6runs LBW, Caught Behind, Run Out etcetera. It had a sort of clock hand in the middle which was spun round to point to whatever happened next. Loads of fun for cricket mad families.
The female players used to cheer when the pointer landed on 'Lunch' or ' Rain Stopped Play'.

Except for 1 second hand doll and 1 pre-war teddy bear all my toys were homemade affairs. An elderly neighbour even made me a wooden scooter - even the wheels were wooden circles. Very slow and uncomfortable but I was THAT proud of it.

Those of you who were children in those dark and difficult days seem to agree that we had much fun and developed our imaginations in a way that younger people have never had to. But there, we had never known anything else so didn't feel deprived or hard done by.

Not entirely happy days but definitely character-building.

x

[Deleted User]

Cheerful Charlie Chester and ITMA and The Man in Black.and the amazing Journey into Space which was so exciting on the wireless Monna:) I adored the Light Programme and you always knew what the time was by what was on . When Workers Playtime finished it was time to go back to school after lunch.Down your Way and have a Go was favourites at various times.To me Sunday Nights Palm Court orchestra with Max Jaffa meant my Mum scrubbing my grubby brothers ready for school next day Everyone listened to the wireless in those days .My eldest brother had a record played on Family Favourites sent in by my Mum when he was in Germany in the Army and Mum was so excited.

Sundays were often very boring though with church in the morning and Sunday school in the afternoon and often Evensong at night.I went to a church school as well so mid week on Wednesday morning there was more church going its a wonder I have any knees left considering I seem to have spent half of my childhood on them :):) but everyone did, so it wasn't strange.

There was one little boy who would keep all of us kids in church amused as he had a habit of flicking pellets of paper at the back of unsuspecting adults heads.Brightened up the service no end for lots of us :):)Such a different lifetime back then.Most of the time as children you were at best ignored by adults, definitely seen and not heard.No one wanted a child's opinion on anything,and anyway grown-ups were boring and michief was much more fun :):)