Playground games

[Si]

Lilysmum wrote: Si wrote: blackprince wrote: jim wrote: Relievo - basically a "tigs" ( or "tag" ) variant. The object is for whoever is "it" to tig all the other players. Tigged players retire to the home or den, a designated holding area. If a player not yet tigged manages to enter the holding area, all previous captives are released. The game can go on interminably and is the source of much falling out. These are the basic principles, but there were many local variants and alternative rules ( which led to even more falling out! ). That's pretty much as I remember playing it too in Harehills in the 1950's. Its a combination of hide 'n seek & tig. The base was usually a lampost. If a player could run to the base touch it and yell "relievio" then all the ones who had been caught (ie tagged) already were released and the game continued. I seem to remember it was best played in the evenings when it was getting dark or foggy which made it a bit easier to hide and sneak up to the base That's how I remember it.There was another game we played, probably before school age, in which "it" stood on the opposite kerb from the rest, and called out letters. You took a step forward for each letter that appeared in your name. The first one across was the winner. "N" was good for me, as I have five in my name! Ahhh...simple pleasures. I vaguely remember it was called Black Pudding, the reasons for which are now lost in the mists of time...Another was similar, but "it" had to face away from the street. The others had to cross, but if spotted moving by "it" when he turned around, were out."Off-ground tig" was very popular in our street. "It" was usually chosen by "Ip dip dip" or "one potato, two potato."     Hi Si,I too remember playing "Black pudding" the same as you describe it but when you got to the person on the opposite kerb calling out the letters you had to "tig" them,shout "black pudding"and run back across the road without them catching you.If they did you were "on" next. Now you mention it, I think that's how we played it too. I wonder how such an obscure (and obscurely named) game spread from Pudsey to Guiseley (or vice versa?)We played "Spot" too. And miniature cricket, kneeling down with a ruler and ping-pong ball. Also French cricket.

[Reginal Perrin]

Kick out can - Where someone would hoof a can from a designated spot and the one appointed to fetch it had to then find the rest after he had replaced it on the "spot". When individuals were caught they had to sit near the can but could be released if one of their fellow runners hoofed the can away again.Well it was something like that anyway.

[Trojan]

[quotenick="Si"] Lilysmum wrote: And miniature cricket, kneeling down with a ruler and ping-pong ball. Also French cricket. And "Owzat" two hexagonal pieces of metal on one, the scores 1,2,3,4,6 and "owzat" engraved on them. The other with how you were out engraved on them. The batsman rolled his piece and scored until "owzat" came up. Then the bowler rolled his to see how the batsman had got out - or if the "not out" face on the bowler's piece came up - he wasn't out. We used to play for hours.

[yorkiesknob]

Reginal Perrin wrote: Kick out can - Where someone would hoof a can from a designated spot and the one appointed to fetch it had to then find the rest after he had replaced it on the "spot". When individuals were caught they had to sit near the can but could be released if one of their fellow runners hoofed the can away again.Well it was something like that anyway. Same rules ,but we used a ball and called it kick out ball.

[Leeds Hippo]

Found this from the book Wortley-de-Leeds - I've never heard of "The Peace Egg"William Benns's chapter on Wortley Folklore and Old Customs describes Victorian boyhood as young Tom Lamb might well have known it:It was customary fifty years ago [c. 1875] in Wortley and other places for boys to go about playing a fantastic dialogue called "The Peace Egg," where St. George and Slasher fight, and Slasher is wounded, and the play is finished by the following:-- Here comes I little Devil DoubtIf you don't give me money I will sweep you all out,Money I want, and money I crave,If you don't give me money I'll sweep you all to the graveWindow Taping with a long string, a pin, and a button, was not as expensive as going to the pictures, and probably we had as much fun with it. "Releevhaw," or Relieve Oh! was a great game. Perhaps the present popular game of "Tig" is similar. The men used to play at "knurr and spell" and skittles. There was a skittle alley behind the William the Fourth Inn, Lower Wortley. We remember "Blind Harry" coming in the Skittle Alley and the Cricket Field, when the Lower Wortley Victoria or "the Beck Hoil" were playing the Institute, with his basket of nuts, and his "spinner," and we used to spin for nuts. "Blind Harry's" name was Henry Clayton. He was both deaf and blind. He was a native of Lower Wortley. He used to sit on the Wellington Bridge reading the Bible from Braille Type. He died in 1915. Aged 73 [i.e. born c. 1842 and so probably a familiar figure to young Tom Lamb].The great attraction for boys and men in Lower Wortley District about forty years ago [c. 1885] was "Dolly Bob Show" which used to come occasionally and stay several weeks in the New Blackpool District. It was run by a man called Harry Ashington. It was a Marionette Show, and it really was a wonderful show. Harry Ashington must have had a wonderful memory. He would take all the different parts in a play, and have several dolls or puppets on the stage at once, worked by innumerable strings. Then, for a change between the scenes he would have all kinds of contests, such as boys eating pieces of bread tied to a string, the bread being covered with treacle, and the boys' hands being tied behind their back.We have heard Mr. Henry Walker, or "Hent" Walker as we called him singing his favourite song, "A Little Green Leaf in the Bible," in a singing contest there. We think we can recollect Mr. Alfred Boshell singing "The Moon Behind the Hill". Certainly we have heard Mr. A. Greenwood Clegg and Mr. James Clegg singing there.The history goes on to report a visit to 'Dolly Bob', then nearly eighty years old, and say "this remarkable man is in very poor circumstances now, although at one time he was fairly well-to-do … [he] lost his money with a venture in the cinema industry." Benn goes on to describe more popular games of his childhood (presumably, ones which girls could also play):At Sunday Schoolfeasts we used to delight in Ring games. We used to sing "Green grows the leaves on the Old Oak Tree"; and "There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name Oh." Many of the churches would allow Kissing Games, but strongly objected to dancing. This objection still lingers, although many of the dancers think that they are as good as those who don't dance. Children used to go Wassailing at Christmas-time, and some of them carried a doll in a box for people to look at, and they used to sing:--"Here we come a WassailingAmong the leaves so green,And here we come a wanderingSo fairer [sic] to be seen," ... finishing with "God send you all a Happy New Year."When boys were tired of a game, they used to say,-- "t'lakes brokken, t'eggs is rotten, pigs in gone to t'market."If they had been reprimanded for some fault, they would say,-- "Sticks and stones will brek mi bones, but calling wean't hurt mi."Jews used to come round mending broken windows, with a box slung on their backs with glass in, and boys would shout to them,-- "Who killed Christ?" One Jew once replied,-- "It was not me, it was my faders."Bob Hollingsworth was the funny man of the district. When Western Flatts Park was made, and Mr. Brookes went to live at Joshua Redfearn's Farm, Bob said to him -- "Thaal find it a bit bleak up there, there's nowt to shield tha but Pudsey Church

[Leeds Hippo]

More about "Christmas Mummers Plays" - the Peace Egg being one of the plays - it's like something from the "Wicker Man!" or "The League of Gentlemen!" - makes me wonder if Wortley was like "Royston Varsy" in the 19th century.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummers_Play    

[Leeds Hippo]

More about Mummers Plays here - plus loads of material about Leeds in the 19th century"The Dialect of Leeds and its Neighbourhood" 1862 http://books.google.com/books?id=Uo4SAA ... &q&f=false

[dervish99]

Trojan wrote: raveydavey wrote: Treadstone71 wrote: Hot Rice - The name rings a bell and im sure we played it at school in the late eighties (Thornhill Middle).Was it the one with a tennis ball played in a rectangle by about 20 kids, slowly getting knocked out by having the ball kicked passed you at lightening speed, your only hope of survival was taking a hit and vollying it back in some other poor souls direction. Think you got one chance to survive (yellow carded) before being knocked out (red carded) and I seem to remember if it was close that you could have stopped the ball then someone shouted 50/50 and you played on. Or am i getting confused with something else. That sounds similar to our preliminary round of Hot Rice to decide who was "it".Everyone stood round in a circle, with feet touching and the ball was batted back and forth using your feet like the flippers on a pinball table. If the ball went between your legs you were "it" (I seem to remember that if someone hit the ball out between two people rather than through their legs then they got a warning - do it twice and you were "it").As soon as the ball went through someones legs everyone else scattered around the playground (and at Braimwood we had a huge playground plus playing fields above it), while the hapless "it" tried to pick the ball up, usually as escaping players hoofed it further away. Once the tennis ball was picked up "it" hunted down the rest of the players using the ball as a near lethal weapon - once hit by the ball you also became "it" and joined forces with the original "it", with the winner being the last one caught.I think we had a rule where the original "it" could run freely with the ball, but once he had captured others to join him then they could only run when they didn't have the ball - pass and run, a bit like netball.Obviously the whole thing regularly got out of hand with people being hit at full force with the ball from about two feet away, often in areas far too sensitive to be mentioned on a family forum like this.One memory this has brought back is how long a lunch break we got - I don't know how long kids get now but we must have got well over an hour. If you were on 'first dinners' you could get well over an hour of ball games in once you'd eaten your coconut sponge with pink custard. But the players who weren't "it" couldn't handle the ball, they could fist it, or kick it, but they couldn't catch it or throw it and if it hit them they were then on the catching team is how I remember the rules anyway. Thats what we used to play in the late 80's but we called it Kingy or Kingie (pronounced king ie)

[Squatch_11]

While discussing old games like these a few years ago over a few pints, me and a few mates devised a game we called "monkey hat fight club" - basically, it was like semi-violent tig while wearing a monkey hat. And drinking. It was one of those things that at the start of a night, was a gentle little tap to the arm, but by the end of the night, well, basically the gloves were off.I've still got pictures of us playing this modern classic (ahem), so it will be interesting to see whether the Secret Leeds of 100 years from now is trying to decypher the rules of this game with strange headware.....

[Keg]

Tig 1 2 3, kick the bucket and scram, all variations on the same themes when i lived in Cookridge!.