This way Valerie That way Valerie This

[PinkSyCo]

way Valerie all the way home. Woke up early this morning with this song in my head for some reason and can’t get it out of there! Has got me reminiscing though about playtime at primary school in the 70’s and the games and activities we used to play/do. What were your favourites? I used to love ‘two balls,’ ‘Jacks’, marbles, skipping, French skipping, ‘Stuck in the mud,’ ‘kiss chase,’ ‘what’s the time Mr. Wolf’ and I’m sure I’ve left many out. I bloody LOVED playtime!

The beauty of railings’ was you could play it anywhere. We had a bus stop that was great for it.

Funnily enough I was telling DD6 about ‘French Laggy’ the other day!

Not sure if we all played it the same way but we hooked elastic round 2 pairs of feet and the jumper did various sequences getting more difficult, it started off ‘In, Out, Side, Side, On, Off’ (for some reason that is has never left my memory!)

Then we added twists and ‘slipses’ and the height went to ‘Kneeses’ and I’m sure I recall ‘thighses’ as well, but I can’t remember anyone ever actually doing that!

Weird how I remember it and I couldn’t tell you why it was French! 😂

We called it French skipping. Which reminds me of another game we’d play on the rare occasion we managed to get hold of a bat or tennis racquet-French cricket. Not sure what was French about that either. 🤷🏻‍♀️

We used to skip to the rhyme of Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, (40 skips) when she had done, gave her father forty one (41 skips). Yes it was a rough school ha ha ! Never did the tea, coffee one.We only knew about Camp coffee in those days. If someone was jumping in to skip we sometimes did say jelly on a plate, wibbly wobbly, jelly on a plate.

Yes, it was ‘ankleses’, ‘kneeses’ and ‘thighses’ (not great if you weren’t tall!). One of our sequences was “England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, inside, outside, inside, ON” and you had to jump on the elastic with one foot on each side.

That was it! That was ‘elastics’ as we used to play it. And there were all different handstands, we used to have competitions for each one.

Kids just don’t seem todo these things any more. In primary there was a push from teachers to ‘just let kids be kids’ and I can remember thinking how can they be, what can they do if you won’t even let them bring a ball in.

Don’t remember that one. Sounds fun though!

Hopscotch and leap frog were two other games we used to play. And piggy in the middle too.

I remember playing Bulldog but can’t remember how it was played or the aim. Can anyone remind me please? Remember it being a cross between thrilling and terrifying although I was a wimpy child.
I remember when it snowed the older boys used to make massive and very slippy slides. I remember telling my parents I wanted to go to school early to have time to slide. They would never be allowed now.

Radio?

IIRC, there was a gang of kids at one end of the playground with one person stood in the middle of the playground. The aim was to charge down to the opposite end without the person in the middle "getting" you. If you were "got" then you joined that person. This went on until most of the gang were now the "getters" and about 3 terrified looking kids were left to run the gauntlet. It was the human equivelent to "The Running of The Bulls" and just as dangerous.

I played all of these!

I like coffee,
I like tea
I like player2 in with me
Then (rope turning very fast..)
Tinker Tailer Soldier Sailor
Richmond, Poor man
Beggerman
Thief, Thief (can’t remember) Thief
until you got caught out. At least at my primary.

I had a great book on this once where the authors recorded playground games all over Britain. Think it was the Opies?

I remember 'this way that-a-way (x3) all the way home'.

I loved playing Bulldog as a child
It's been banned at our school as it was becoming too dangerous!
I remember a lot of these games mentioned

We also had this skipping game
Vote, vote, vote for Mrs “child’s name”
In comes
“child 2” at the door (second child runs into the rope)
She’s the one to have all the fun
So we don’t want “child 1” (first child leaves rope)

The song is making me think of Wizbit:
“Ha ha this-a-way
Ha ha that-a-way
Ha ha this-a-way
My oh my”

Apparently based on an old folk song from the US

At my primary school the "eeny meeny" rhyme had the N word in it! It later got changed to "tinker" which isn't much better. I now work in a primary school and we sometimes teach the children the skipping rhymes, they love them.

"Not last night
But the night before
Three wee monkeys
Came to the door
One had a fiddle
One had a drum
And one had a pancake
Stuck to his BUM!"

@Mmmmdanone You heard them sung by older children in the playground, so if you didn't know them from older kids in your road or your siblings/mum, you picked them up there. Same with the games, older kids played them and the new ones took them up soon too.

We sang about Shirley Temple and mostly had no idea who she was, so they obviously went back quite a way in time. Lots of stuff like "My maw's a millionaire/Green eyes and curly hair/Sitting among the eskimos/Playing a game of dominoes/My maw's a millionaire". No idea where they all came from, some would be references to old time stars like Shirley Temple, others seem less easy to trace.

Yes I remember this now! And there was also an added bit at the end which included the words ‘kick her out’ and I think ‘touch the floor’ and ‘slam the door’ but I don’t quite remember how it went.

Does anyone remember Red River? I seem to remember it was similar to British Bulldog but was definitely a different game as we played BB as well (until the school banned it).

This was mid to late 1970s, Scottish primary school.

Spanish lady turn around
Spanish lady touch the ground
Spanish lady do the splits
Spanish lady show us your knicks!

Red Rover, my phone keeps changing it to River.

Two groups of kids and one group would chant "Red Rover, red Rover, let (name) come over" the named person would have to run from one group to join the other. I think they had to dodge one or more "catchers" but I can't remember the rules or how it differed from British Bulldog.

The version at our school, mid-1980s was:

🎶Here comes Lucy, all fat and juicy
Here comes Lucy, all the way home.

Here comes the other one, just like the other one
Here comes the other one, all the way home.

This way, that-a-way
This way, that-a-way
This way, that-a-way
All the way home.🎶

I realise we were singing it wrong (and apologies to Lucys everywhere).

We sang a slight variation of this.

Vote vote vote for Sarah Wilson
Who’s that knocking at the door?
If it’s Jenny let her in and we’ll do the highland fling
And we don’t like Sarah anymore
Shut the door!!

Sarah would be the first skipper & Jenny would jump in & Sarah would jump out.