Childhood games

[threebikesmcginty]

Playing on building sites was always a good laugh

I remember 'helping' out on a demolition site one weekend. The sledgehammers had been left out so we got stuck in smashing up staircases, fireplaces, toilets, etc. Halcyon days!

 

[ChrisKH]

You could still get your hands on petrol though couldn't you? Christ we were as stupid as ChrisKH...

You can't have been that stupid.

I got made to stand up in assembly once and the headmaster said "this is what happens if you play with fireworks".

 

[rich p]

Cowboys and indians was my favourite...used to cycle up the "bing" and chase each other round it then down....probably be politically incorrect to call it that now! Loved BB, conkers and tiddywinks.....always enjoyed kiss chase too.

I remember playing kiss chase but I was never quite sure what to do when I caught the girl. Sad really - never did work it out!

There was a game which I vaguely remember where at the cry of "Bundle" everyone jumped on top of a kid. I was on the bottom once and nearly died. Never fancied rugby after that either.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

You can't have been that stupid.

I got made to stand up in assembly once and the headmaster said "this is what happens if you play with fireworks".

Come on then Chris, the fireworks, do tell?

 

[Night Train]

All these dangerous activities!

My dad told me about one of his friends when he was a kid in Hong Kong. His friend found a bullet and decided to show off by firing the bullet into the ground. He poked a hole into the dirt with a stick and placed the bullet point down in the hole and said that if he hit it with a rock the bullet would fire downwards.
The kid blew his hand off.

In the mean time, my brother and I were making rockets out of copper pipe filled with all sorts of flammable stuff.

 

[Arch]

None of this dangerous stuff for me. Any of the girls remeber French Skipping? Or sometimes just called 'Elastic' (or in Leicester-ese - "Laggy".)

You got a loop of sewing elastic, probably about a 6 or 7 foot length tied into a loop. Two people stood facing each other, far enough apart for the elastic to be stretched around their ankles, with their feet 12-18" apart. Then another person had to jump in and out of the elastic loop, in various ways - I think it went "inny, (both feet in the loop), outy (both feet outside the loop, astride it), inny, onny (landing with one foot on each long side of the loop), inny outy off (jump away to the side). Everyone did this, and then the elastic was raised a few inches to mid-calf, and it was done all over again, then raised again etc, so it got progressively harder to jump high enough. I think it tended to get impossible at waist height.

I think there were other variations which involved crossing the elastic over in the middle - all a bit cat's cradle.

And skipping of course. These came and went in trends - one day someone turned up with a long rope, or an elastic loop, and then we'd do nothing else for a week or two.

 

[Yellow Fang]

We used to play a game called King E, I think. Someone was it and he went around trying to hit other kids with a tennis ball on the legs or backside. People who were being thrown at could dodge or jump, but if they were hit below the waist, they had to join the other side and help get the others.

We also played a game we called Tin Can Wallaby. This took place in the playing field in the lunch hour, and only worked if there were lots of other kids playing different games. Someone was set to guard a post while the others tried to get to it without being noticed. The guard would have to come away from his post to try and spot us. If we could get to the post before he did, we won. Surprisingly, sometimes we did.

We also used to do a bit of trespassing in the woods next to school, which was great fun, but scary if you heard a twig break unexpectantly. We played in a dilapidated house once, but I made the mistake of telling my father, who told the headmistress, who told off my mates.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Our infant school banned Bulldog back in '79 after a couple kids got hurt. Mind you, they also banned snow ball fights.

Bedale School 1978.

Snowball fights to be carried out on the field on Fearby road away from school buildings.

My brother and his mates snowballed me near the art block, and filled my snorkel parka hood (which was up at the time) with snow.

I retaliated by picking up some snow to make into a ball and get my revenge.

At this point my memory is a little vague, but I remember waking up on the floor, surrounded by people peering into my snowy-snorkel-parka-hooded field of view. A bit like the view out of a well filled with the class of 2C and a dozen or so 5th formers

The ginger haired (with a beard) art teacher, don't know his name, (but would LOVE to meet him now) saw me pick up the snowball and smacked me round the head with a massive blindside haymaker.

If that happened today, I would be minted.

I would love to have used the recent snows to exact a long-desired revenge, but sadly, I don't think the police would accept the defence that he hit me first.....do you?

 

[gbb]

We used to play a game called King E, I think. Someone was it and he went around trying to hit other kids with a tennis ball on the legs or backside. People who were being thrown at could dodge or jump, but if they were hit below the waist, they had to join the other side and help get the others.

We also played a game we called Tin Can Wallaby. This took place in the playing field in the lunch hour, and only worked if there were lots of other kids playing different games. Someone was set to guard a post while the others tried to get to it without being noticed. The guard would have to come away from his post to try and spot us. If we could get to the post before he did, we won. Surprisingly, sometimes we did.

We also used to do a bit of trespassing in the woods next to school, which was great fun, but scary if you heard a twig break unexpectantly. We played in a dilapidated house once, but I made the mistake of telling my father, who told the headmistress, who told off my mates.

Can't remember what it was called, but we used to play that too.

Bulldogs...definately.

Remember 5 jacks but didnt play it that much.

Anything to do with sheath knives, knife throwing at targets or standing with your feet as wide apart as they'd go. Opposing player would throw the knife so it stuck in the ground between your feet. You'd then move one foot to that point so they were closer together. Take it in turns and see who gets their feet so close they chicken out at the opponents next throw. Jesus....could you imagine kids carrying sheath knives now !!!

Firing ranges...someone always had an air rifle. Get you airfix kits out and shoot em up. I got pretty adept at picking out the pilots, canopy and pilot shot to oblivion. Jesus...could you imagine kids with air rifles now !!!

Mud wars...get out all you plastic soldiers (the ones about 2 inches high)...lay out your opposing armies about 10 to 30 feet apart, then get clumps of dry mud and bomb the hell out of each other. FFS, the mess !!! You'd go mental if kids did that up your street now.

Torch tig... 6 or 8 of us, all armed with torches would scatter and hide under bushes, round corners, behind cars on an old airbase and one person would be the 'catcher'. You'd flash your torch then either hide and stay still or leg it, they'd see the flash and come looking. If he tigged you, you joined the catchers. All of this in around 10 acres of houses, hedges, gardens, trees etc etc. All played after dark naturally, most of us were anywhere between 8 and 14, out at 9, 10pm.

 

[slowmotion]

Encyclopaedia Britannica had a passable recipe for gunpowder. All the chemicals were available from the local chemists. We started off with small devices but very nearly came to a sticky end. Our last bomb comprised of a steel gas cannister from an industrial fire extinguisher which we filled with our home-brew. The detonator was a length of Jetex fuse inside the bomb which we could connect to a motorcycle battery, via a long two core flex. We took our pride and joy to a remote spot and hid behind a piece of corrugated iron about 30 yards away. Nothing happened when we set off the detonator, so after about 30 seconds we emerged from behind our shelter at which point there was a huge explosion with steel shrapnel flying everywhere. We fell about giggling hysterically. Ah, fun...

 

[661-Pete]

I was of the hula hoop generation. Hardly daring, I'm afraid, and fully parent-approved, seeing as it kept us out of worse mischief for hours at a time. I managed just over 1000 'revs' with the hoop round my waist, and claimed a record, but other kids claimed to have beaten me - but it turned out they'd merely spun the hoop round their wrist.

Which was CHEATING!!! chiz chiz chiz!

Anyway, on to more serious stuff. Surely some of you remember those paper pellets (roll a small strip of paper up, cover in sellotape, bend into a V-shape). Fired with a rubber band, they made splendid projectiles. Some kids were quite uncanny with their aim (I wasn't) and if you got someone in the back of the neck, it really stung! They were all round the school for a while, then alas! the Headmaster had to ban them. Even in those carefree H&S-free days, he got worried about someone's eyes.

Then we moved on to the Nitrogen Tri-Iodide. I'm sure this has been discussed before, on this forum ...

 

[Intelligenthamster]

Flicking sellotape projectiles... ah yes. At my secondary school it was an annual ritual to fire them at the upper left arms of the 14-year-olds (no idea what "Year" that is nowadays) who had just had their BCG jab against TB.

One of those ultimately fair pursuits in that everyone had to get the jab and be fired at, so we all had the right to do the same once we'd had it ourselves!