Childhood memories

[dtaai-maai]

I was reflecting on my childhood recently - a sure sign of impending old age... - and thinking of how I used to spend my time between the ages of about 5 and 10.

My favourite 'toy' was my Scalextric, but there were so many improvised games.

Conkers. We lived in South London, near Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common, and used to pride ourselves on our ability to spot a champion conker. I seem to recall boiling them in water with some vinegar to harden them up, though that was probably considered cheating by some... A 'threesie' was a conker that had defeated three others (by smashing them to smithereens!).

Flicksy. You would stand a line of playing cards against a wall and flick other card at them - a sort of card version of a coconut shy.

I also remember a game with a dart with my mate Ian that involved throwing the dart between your opponent's feet. That ended when I inevitably got a dart stuck in my foot.

Marbles. For the life of me I can't remember what we did with the damn things, though I'm sure it involved something destructive.

Cowboys and Indians. No explanation required...
Cops 'n robbers. Ditto

Many more, I'm sure, but they escape me for now.

[Dannie Boy]

Hide and seek - fairly obvious

Hop Scotch - you marked out a grid of numbers 1-10 and then throw a stone into the correct number and then had to hop to retrieve it.

Knock down Ginger - you would knock on somebody's door and the run off but try to get a vantage point for when the house owner came to the door (of course I can now see how annoying that would have been).

[Frank Hovis]

Marbles - we used to scratch a circle in the dirt then you'd play a marble into the circle and your opponent would attempt to 'ping' your marble out of the circle with one of their marbles. If they succeeded they kept your marble.

My father used to work in an engineering place and he'd bring home ball bearings ranging in size from a pea to about 1" diameter. We called them 'steelies'. They were by far the best marble to have, glass marbles couldn't push them out of the ring and the glass ones would often shatter on impact with a 'steelie'.

We used to carry them round in an old sock.

People keep saying I've lost all mine now, but I know they are still in a box in the loft.

[dtaai-maai]

Hop Scotch - you marked out a grid of numbers 1-10 and then throw a stone into the correct number and then had to hop to retrieve it.

I'll bet you had a skipping rope as well!

[caller]

Conkers was a favourite with my friends too and as I grew up near Barnes Common,, we would go there to knock them down and collect. Not so far away from DM either!

The game I mainly remember, I sadly can't recall the name of (tim tam something or other). But it involved two teams, using a tennis ball or whatever, trying to knock down a small wicket made of lolly sticks laid against a wall. Whichever team were able to completely finish knocking the wicket down, then had the honour of trying to hit each member of the other team with a the same ball and when hit they were out. This took place in the playground on the estate I grew up on, so there was much running around, jumping on and around monkey bars, hiding behind roundabouts, using swings as a defence and so on. This continued until everyone was out and then we started again! It was a great game.

[Nereus]

[quote="dtaai-maai"]I was reflecting on my childhood recently - a sure sign of impending old age...............[/quote]
The following may be of interest:

http://www.goldenyears.co.th/en/

[Frank Hovis]

Hedging - It was (still is?) common for people to have a neat privet hedge round their front garden. If they had recently cut it, the top of it was as flat as a snooker table and about 2-3 foot wide. We used to play a game where you had to sort of fosbury flop on to the top of the hedge, keeping your body as flat as possible so that you didn't sink into the hedge.

Not very popular with the householders but getting chased away was part of the fun.

[dtaai-maai]

French cricket. The 'bowler' has to hit your leg with a tennis ball (thankfully), while you have to get the bat to it first.

[Big Boy]

Cowboys and Indians. No explanation required...
Cops 'n robbers. Ditto

Many more, I'm sure, but they escape me for now.

Doctors & Nurses - if you need an explanation, you didn't play

[PeteC]

American games a bit different. We used to shoot at each other a lot with dirt filled pop guns. These were metal with lever action air charging and I think meant to shoot a cork....but they did just great with mud jammed in the barrel while running through the woods chasing your friends. Any wonder Americans like their guns.

A huge one with boys in the 50-60's was flipping Major League baseball cards. These were packs of player photo cards that came with a sheet of bubble gum. Most of us used to buy for the cards and throw away the gum after accumulating dozens of pieces. Then, besides trading the cards there were various games played up against a wall where the tossed card on top of another...or the card closest to the wall...or the card leaning on the wall would be a winner. Collections changed hands faster than chips in Las Vegas. Great memories. Pete

[Bristolian]

British Bulldogs. As many kids as possible would stand at one end of a determined field, possibly outlined with discarded school pullovers, caps, shoes etc. a small number of kids were nominated as the catchers, possibly 1,2 or 3 depending on the size of the group.

The mob would run from one end of the "pitch" to the other. The job of the catchers was to lift one of the mob clearly off of the ground upon which he became a catcher. Last man standing was the winner.

The game was banned in many schools for obvious reasons.

[Siani]

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Skipping with lots of children with a big rope!

My sister & I used to play "hairdressers" this was until I cut all her hair off!!

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One of our favourite games was racing homemade soapboxes

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[Siani]

Game of rounders. Excellent game!

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[arcadianagain]

Attackers and defenders played on and around a ruined mill on the banks of a creek, we used home made bows and arrows cut from the local trees which we fired at the opposition, quite how no one fell the 30 odd feet from the top of the mill or had their eye put out by an arrow I don`t know.
Also sneaking onto the hockey pitch of the Royal Naval College to play 5 a side football, or as many boys as could be found to turn up. By the way does anyone remember the red Frido balls we used to play with.

[richard]

Meccano and soapbox building were my passion

Hornby Dublo train set too. Now it appears to be a grownups hobby