In the streets
Playing out on our street when I was a kid
Often brings back memories of what we played and did
Oh lets play marbles I'll just get my tin
it's only half full so I'm hoping to win
Or let's have fun with whip and tops
Carrot-shaped and mushroom put on chalk for spinning dots
Then there's snob, that come down on your hand
quickly gathering them up from where they land
Cigarette packets lined up in a row
flicking them down with one sweeping go
Getting the rope out and singing a skipping song
Our mum's old line was ever so long
Hopscotch on the pavement we'd chalk one to ten
Jumping the squares then back again
Clapping hands to many a song
"My mother told me "went on and on
A game in the entry was was to climb the wall
Jumping down fast hurt your legs in the fall
Two balls, three balls or one in a sock
To join in the games, the kids would all flock
What's the time Mr Wolf another good game
Children having fun........well that was the aim
Concerts on the back yard steps.. Everyone liked to join in
My memories are so happy with a few marbles in my tin
Was life so good in bygone times, when games were cheap and free
I can remember all my friends.....I wonder if they can remember ME !!
- Jean Taylor
Click here to follow this comment link
Playing out on our street when I was a kid
Often brings back memories of what we played and did
Oh lets play marbles I'll just get my tin
it's only half full so I'm hoping to win
Or let's have fun with whip and tops
Carrot-shaped and mushroom put on chalk for spinning dots
Then there's snob, that come down on your hand
quickly gathering them up from where they land
Cigarette packets lined up in a row
flicking them down with one sweeping go
Getting the rope out and singing a skipping song
Our mum's old line was ever so long
Hopscotch on the pavement we'd chalk one to ten
Jumping the squares then back again
Clapping hands to many a song
"My mother told me "went on and on
A game in the entry was was to climb the wall
Jumping down fast hurt your legs in the fall
Two balls, three balls or one in a sock
To join in the games, the kids would all flock
What's the time Mr Wolf another good game
Children having fun........well that was the aim
Concerts on the back yard steps.. Everyone liked to join in
My memories are so happy with a few marbles in my tin
Was life so good in bygone times, when games were cheap and free
I can remember all my friends.....I wonder if they can remember ME !!
- Jean Taylor
Click here to follow this comment link
Add your comments in the facebook group here
Snobs. A good game...
Click here to follow this comment link
Click here to follow this comment link
- I liked hopscotch as well
- I've still got my original ones (sentimental old fool)
- Did you use a piece of slate to play hopscotch with like we did, because i think kids used lots of different things to throw down.It sure was a good game, you never seem to see kids play it these days...
- I wonder where the saying comes from "Bit of a Snob".....
- I ent gor owt ta be snobby about. ha ha.
WHO REMEMBERS HOW TO DO THE CAT'S CRADLE? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY-c91a-5mI

howtocatscradle.pdf |
Can you remember when we used to sing "the big ship sails on the ally ally oh" when we were skipping? --used to jump in and out of 2 ropes
-- click here to follow this comment link
SKIPPING:
Dolly Dolly touch the ground,
Dolly Dolly show you'r toe,
Dolly Dolly out you go...
All in together girls, never mind the weather girls, when I call your birthday, you must jump in....
-- click here to follow this comment link
SKIPPING:
- salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper....
- On the last day of September.
- Loved 2 ball and chinese skipping xx
- I loved skipping. Remember reciting : " My mother said, I never should, play with the gypsies in the wood, if we did, she would say, naughty girl to disobey" The girl skipping would then run out and the new one run in.
- And this skipping song..." all in together girls, never mind the weather girls, when I call your name,you must jump in"
- there was a skipping song when you would say the months and you jumped in the month your birthday was
- That maybe the one I am thinking of it maybe ' when I call your birthday month you must jump in" ( see above msg),
- One song I remember the Girls Singing was
- " I AM A GIRL GUIDE DRESSED IN BLUE, THESE ARE THE ACTIONS I HAVE TO DO, SALUTE TO THE KING BOW TO THE QUEEN ,GIRLS SHOW KNICKERS BOYS THROW KISSES, I CAN DO THE ROUNDABOUT, I CAN DO THE SPLITS, I CAN DO ANYTHING THATS THE END OF THIS
- (they sang this whilst doing all the afore mentioned actions whist skipping really fast, when 1 girl jump out another 1 jumped in us lads would mostly be on either end of the rope then we'd get Bored & turn it really fast & spoil the girls efforts, but some girls could skip really fast whilst counting
- had forgot about that song, i now remember doing skipping and singing it...And yes Boys will be Boys.lol...
- This is some footage from 1957 children playing (including skipping songs here
- Also the skipping song with a girl on each end of the rope with a girl in the middle..Singing..
Dolly Dolly touch the ground,
Dolly Dolly show you'r toe,
Dolly Dolly out you go...
All in together girls, never mind the weather girls, when I call your birthday, you must jump in....
- Chinese skipping was fantastic, I had more bundles of elastic than anyone, the French skipping with two ropes was also a favourite, that's when we played all in together girls to see how many could keep going
- Yes indeed. What happened to skipping ropes. I suppose health and safety put paid to things like that.
- Does anyone know the difference between the Chinese skipping and French skipping? I played French skipping with the girls and boys, that was fun. Also remember getting Chinese Burns on the wrist which was anything but fun! Marbles and snobs were brilliant. Great memories!
- Chinese skipping was elastic around ankles two people stretched out and various moves were performed once completed the elastic was higher, French skipping was two skipping ropes turned opposite ways
- Oh, to have my school days back and the fun we had in the play ground
What were our childhood pastimes/streetgames/chanting rhymes to start games off with?
Click here to follow this comment link
They always seemed to be seasonal too! One day we'd all have whips and tops, and the next day they disappeated to be replace by anothe activity - we all seemed to latch on to the same game at the same time!
Click here to follow this comment link
They always seemed to be seasonal too! One day we'd all have whips and tops, and the next day they disappeated to be replace by anothe activity - we all seemed to latch on to the same game at the same time!
"I grew up in St Ann's,Nottingham, during a time when everyone treated each other like Family, every female that came to your house was your aunty even if they were no relation 👫
We went outside to play on streets, built dens and made tree swings 🌳, we got dirty and only bathed on a Sunday if you had siblings you shared a bath, we didn't eat fast food🍟🍔....we ate jam sarnies, home made food and chips cooked in a lard chip pan 🍛 we got ice cream from Mr whippey if ya mum was flush🍦. We played rounders 🏏Hedge hopping 🌳, Kerby 🏐 , Hide and Seek🙈, British bulldog and knock & run 🏁🏃 There was no bottled water🍶, we drank water from the tap 🚰 if we had a drink we would share the same bottle of pop ...after giving it a wipe with our mucky sleeves, We had no kids tv channels 📺 rode our bikes 🚲 for hours 🕰 There was no such thing as a mobile phone or any other electronic device 📵. We weren't AFRAID OF ANYTHING. If someone had a fight, that's what it was...a fist fight👊. Kids didn't have guns🔫 or knives🔪. The street lights 💡were your curfew or until you were shouted in from out the window. School was mandatory, but you'd still wag a couple of lessons every now and then ✏️📒. We watched our mouths around our elders👴🏼👵🏼 because we knew we'd get a crack, belt or some shoe , slipper 👞👠... Proud 👉😁 that you came from a close knit community? 👭👬👫.......never forget where you came from! . 😄😄 Posted on the facebook page 10/9/2016.. follow the comment thread here I remember:
marbles - playing in the cobbled streets (chucks were the holes we aimed for); skipping - someone's washing line and two stout kids or parents turning it... running in and out and singing the rhymes; Jelly on a plate, Jelly on a plate Wibble Wobble, Wibble Wobble Jelly on a plate."
"One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four; Five potatoes, six potatoes, seven potatoes, more. O-U-T spells out." When the letter 'T' was called, that person put one hand behind their back. The game carried on until only one 'spud' remained. That person was 'it.' |
Can anyone remember"There came a duke a-riding" ?
There came a duke a-riding x2, tikka ma takka ma tesa. You stood opposite another (girl) and danced towards them, sticking your legs out, then back again. Margi Dunum: There came a duke a-riding a-riding a-riding, there came a duke a-riding tikka ma takka me tesa. 1st girl: What ya riding here for, here for, here for, what ya riding here for, tikka ma takka ma tesa. opposite girl (2): I'm riding here to marry, to marry, to marry, I'm riding here to marry, tikka ma takka ma tesa. 1: Won't you marry me sir, me sir, me sir, won't you marry me sir, tikka ma takka ma tesa. 2. You're as stiff as a poker etc etc 1. Bend as well as you sir etc etc 2. You're as sour as a lemon etc etc 1. Just as sweet as you sir etc This could go on for quite a while, depending on how you felt and who knew the words. There could be more than one person on each side, and when they "spoke" they danced stiff-legged towards the others, and then backwards. Someone else might remember more of the fine details. Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's. You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin's. When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey. When I grow rich, Say the bells of Shoreditch. When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney. I do not know, Says the great bell of Bow. Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head GAMES WE PLAYED
Every now and then this topic comes up...the games we played...hopscotch, two ball, whip and top, cigarette cards (faggies), skipping, .... marbles, conkers...Click here to follow this link Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are!!!
Click here to follow this comment link OK ====where are you all? Speaking of which, can you remember the street games - including 'hide and seek'... Did you have a favorite hiding place? I used to love the whip and top - drawing with chalk on the top and then watching the colours merge as the top spun....and the skippinggames - especially when two older people would get out the washing line and we kids would line up to run into the rope... and the rhymes and songs - the rituals of deciding who was 'it'... so 'COME OUT COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE' |
Whip and TopMy brothers and sisters and myself would often walk up Wells Road on a Sunday morning in Autumn looking for Conkers beneath the trees under piles of leaves, did anyone else do this. . I also loved my whip and top,and if you had a mushroom shaped one we would use coloured chalk to make patterns on the top,which looked lovely when it was spinning.
Click here to follow this comment link
Sounds a lot like my youth ...used to love playing with whip and top ...chalking the top .....2x tennis balls ...Chinese skipping...sly fox...dobby...hide & seek ...kerby... Used to go up the coppice rec to find conkers or dad would take us to woodthorpe park in the autumn/ winter and we would build huge piles of leaves to jump onto !!! Those were great times....These days it's all computer games or wii ...as always I know which I preferred.
Click here to follow this comment link
Sounds a lot like my youth ...used to love playing with whip and top ...chalking the top .....2x tennis balls ...Chinese skipping...sly fox...dobby...hide & seek ...kerby... Used to go up the coppice rec to find conkers or dad would take us to woodthorpe park in the autumn/ winter and we would build huge piles of leaves to jump onto !!! Those were great times....These days it's all computer games or wii ...as always I know which I preferred.
- My daughter bought me a whip and top a couple of years ago in my xmas parcel and it was the mushroom top - she thought it would bring back memories as I was telling her how we played whip and top- don't know where she got it from but just like the one I had
- What was wonderful about school playgrounds is that we learnt everything from the older girls, it was like a big family.
- There really was a 'child's culture' back then....we learnt from the older children... and OH!! I loved my whip and top...especially the mushroom one... the chalk patterns seemed better on that one... and the thin leather strip that was the whip that made it whirl.... loved it when it would spin furiously, then do a leap if it caught on uneven ground ...flying up and landing securely...spinning on.... "don't let it fall of the kerb!!..." ... wonderful memories of childhood... precious, precious days....
- Think you got whip and top , shops , marbles about easter time might be wrong
- We got ours every pancake day I don't know why!
I remember the song...on the internet there are several versions..this is one....but it does not sound quite right...(Oh Johnny are you tired?? I don't recall...but the rest seems familiar: ..Blue bird, blue bird through my window
Blue bird, blue bird through my window,
Blue bird, blue bird through my window
Oh Johnny are you tired?
Find a friend and tap 'em on the shoulder
Find a friend and tap 'em on the shoulder
Find a friend and tap 'em on the shoulder
Oh Johnny are you tired?
Find a little boy/girl and tap them on the shoulder. x3 Oh my Johnny/Jilly and I? We would say the names of the girl or boy that was playing the game I seem to remember.
Other Comments from the facebook group:
- If I done the crab now you would find me on the floor lol
- What about Snobs, I've still got some snobs
- I also loved playing marbles I use to carry mine in a tin. Start off with two of us playing before you knew it there would be about six of us. Happy Days.
- And we used to play 2 balls on the walls of someone's house. And get told off
- Skirt tucked in your knickers tipple up to the wall walk down it and do the crab.
- Did anyone play what we called (Tin a Lerky ) a bit like hide and seek where someone would throw a bake bean can down the street as far as they could and someone had to fetch it while everyone hid and that person would stand the can in the middle of the street and you had to get to that tin and touch it before that person saw you
- I loved playing marbles and making the choc hole out the cobbles in the street
- I loved playing rounders, we would mark four corners of terraced house pick sides, used your fist to hit the ball ...
- .... Faggy's where you put say 10 Ciggy pkts up against the wall and then in turns skim other Cig Pkts and try and knock them down; the winner was the 1 who knocked down the last pkt. If you stood up the 5cigs pkt you could only skim 5 cig pkts at it and so on - spent hours playing this game & they sold Cigs in 5s,10s & 20s anymore ie 25 came mostly in Boxes& of course some shops sold 1d singles mostly Woodbine or Craven A: the odd thick cig Senior Service was welcomed
- I played hop scotch and two ball against the wall
- I loved the whip and tops
- There were so many good games in those days its hard to say what my favourite was,but one was the same as Mary,two ball against the wall,whip and tops,rounders and skipping.
- We used to all go up to the Coppice Park with one bottle of Dandelion and Burdock for about 20 kids of Cromer Rd and stump apples and pears on the way.
- I was also a fan of the whip and chalked the top too we would play two ball against the wall can't quite remember the rhyme that - we used to sing but it started with 10 working our way down to 1 doing different actions with the two balls which had to be tennis balls we used to hide them inside the foot scraper at the side of the front door. As well as using washing line for the skipping we also had the craze of Chinese skipping using thick elastic . Sly fox was a good one when we would stand on one kerb and the one who was on stood on the opposite and of course hide & seek but we would have to put a restriction to keeping it on our street !!! Those memories are all flooding back. We would also invent other games when we all headed up to the coppice- one was Dobby as there was much more area to run around - I used to be so athletic now just arthritic !!!! Lol !!!
- I used to love playing "Hot Rice" the one that was on had the ball... the person he hit with ball was then on...where did the hot rice come from...certainly not from a "Takeaway"
- "Cricket up the Entry" Most entries had a cricket wicket painted on the wall at the end, or we used to drag the dustbin out as a wicket...then you could hear it. It sure made you bowl straight...and do the perfect forward drive...if the ball hit a wall or came off the roof then you had to catch it left handed before he was given out.
- I loved playing out doors ...I didn't have any interest in T.V until I was around 16 and realised it was time to grow up .... THE GOOD OLD DAYS !!!!
- ...talking about the entry we used to try to see who could climb up inside the entry right up to the ceiling height by placing each hand and foot on each side of the entry wall and hitch ourselves up accordingly ....we thought we were invincible......TV back then didn't start till early evening and went off before midnight with the disappearing dot and replaced with the test card and as ours was a Rediffusion we switched channels on a wall switch......
- We played Rumstick a bum, rounders, releivio,on Duncombe
- Marbles in the hole in the Ground, Conkers,
- Plainy mother brown, plainy mother brown, plainy plainy plainy plainy, plainy mother brownover mother brown,over mother brown,over over over over over mother Brown.Under-over mother Brownunder-over Mother Brownunder-over, under-over, under-over mother brown upsie mother brown, upsie mother browncontinued with dropsie, sidie, first leg, second leg and queenie ...
- Loved snobs. The lads used to flick cigarette cards up to the wall. What about picking the gas tar out of the cobbles on red hot days oh can smell it now
Anyone for Two Balls?
click here to follow this comment link
We played two balls up against the wall to the song of..
Over the garden wall,
I let my baby fall,
My Mother came out and gave me a clout,
It serve's me right,
For mucking about,
Over the garden wall....
click here to follow this comment link
We played two balls up against the wall to the song of..
Over the garden wall,
I let my baby fall,
My Mother came out and gave me a clout,
It serve's me right,
For mucking about,
Over the garden wall....
- We were always playing this one - two up an under- luved it
- Can you remember when you twerd round, then catch the ball - if you could
- Don't know if anyone can remember- on the top of some walls the bricks used to be half moon shaped. My sister was playing 2 ball on a wall when 1 fell off and hit her on the head and split her head open (ouch) shouldn't laugh. I often wonder if that why she's a bit of a fruit cake (only kidding sisl)
- LOVED playing two ball...I still do occasionally if I can find a couple of tennis balls about. Tried to teach my step-daughter, but didn't get very far...
- Did anyone else do it - 10 unders, 9 overs, 8 both, 7 dropsies, 6 in the air, 5 bounce of the ground/wall, 4 under right leg, 3 under left leg, 2 in the air/on the wall, and I can't remember the final 1
- I think the 1 was an over-dropsy now I think about it. Loved it
- And round your back x used to play for hours xx loved it and sometimes three balls xx memories xx
- I can still do 3 balls
- Loved 2 ball played it most days in my childhood,could do the one under the leg,remember that! A few years ago,Ihad a go ,must have been in my mid 50s,Will always remember my two teenagers faces as i did it against my kitchen wall in doors to Ada Apple Lemon Tart Tell me the name of your Sweetheart,mouths wide open "Mum how can you do that" ! Loads of laughs,Iwent up a notch,"hey you never lived where i did!
Add your comments in the facebook group here
website: https://stannswellroad.weebly.com
facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/StAnnsWellRdPreDemolition1970
facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/StAnnsWellRdPreDemolition1970