WW2 Games

[wateroverstone]

 In response to Rachel's question: 

Mum remembers that she played a lot of games. There was a distinction between games she played with friends after school or over the weekend, and games played at school.

 

School Games:

Tig, Kiss Catch (Mum wouldn’t play this but everyone else did), British Bulldog, various catch games, Tin in the Middle, In and Out the Dusky Bluebells, London Bridge is falling down , the Big Ship Sails through the Alley, Alley O.

These are games which need a lot of people. Boys and girls would play these together. ‘It’ would be decided by a counting out rhyme.

 

Out of School Games

Indoor games like Ludo, Snakes and Ladders. (The grown ups played Monopoly). Card games.  No one had many games. Someone might have Ludo and someone else Snakes and Ladders.  The games were often battered, missing bits, second hand or passed down from older siblings.

Pretend games – sometimes a farmer would let them play house in an unused shed or hut. Mum remembers playing a lot of ‘let’s pretend’ games.

Mum also remembers card fish being made, with holes so they could be 'hooked' by little home made fishing rods. Her brother used to make the hooks.

She had one doll. It was double-ended so she had a doll wearing a dress which covered where you'd expect the legs to be, then if she turned it upside down, she had a different doll in a different dress. She remembers that one doll was white, and the other was black. She liked the change. It was like having two dolls. She'd play with the white doll one day and the black the next.

 

Games Played at School and Home

Hopscotch, Cats Cradle, Skipping – a clothes line was used with a girl turning at each end and someone in the middle completing the actions to a rhyme. If they caught their foot and stopped the rope, then they relieved one of the turners. A lot of the rhymes were also used for ball games, where one or more balls were thrown against a wall then caught in a pattern. Handstands against a wall, walking on hands, handstands into crab and back, leapfrog.  These were girls’ games. The boys played football.

 

Mum can’t recall any skipping rhymes off the top of her head, but some years ago, I picked up a copy of Ip Dip Dip, a booklet published by the North West Sound Archives of skipping rhymes, counting out rhymes etc which I promptly amended with the versions I remembered from school.  If you want any examples, I’m happy to send you some.