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!

I think when we played British Bulldog we had to grab them, and shout ‘BRITISH BULLDOG 123! CAUGHT AND NO RELEASE!’
or something like that, and it was so tough because you had to get through the whole saying to win, and if the person got away they won. So the bigger kids were always the bulldogs, and they’d just pull the smaller ones to the floor whilst saying it.
it got banned at our school to.

We sang This Way Valerie in Cheshire in the 80s.
The words were:

This way Valerie
That way Valerie
This Way Valerie, all day long

Here comes Suzie
Big fat Suzie
Here comes the other one, twice as fat

There was a dance to it too. Everyone had a partner and stood face to face holding hands in a line and at the second verse, the two from the end ran down the middle of the line and we would start again.

What about: My girls a corker, she's a New Yorker...

What was the rest of it?

There was maybe something about 'a pair of hips, just like tomato's chips'?

The kids at our local primary school still skip to one I knew as a kid:

Cinderella, dressed in yella [ow]
Went upstairs to kiss a fella
How many kisses did she get? [skip v fast, counting, until you trip/stop]

My girl's a corker, she's a New Yorker
I'd buy her anything to keep her in style
She's got a pair of eyes, just two big meat pies
That's where my money always go-oh-oh-oes

More verses:
She's got a pair of lips, just like two greasy chips
She's got a pair of hips, just like two battle ships
She's got a pair of legs, just like two wooden pegs
She's got a pair of feet, just like two plates of meat

TimBoothseyes ·

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.

Thanks for that. Maybe I wasn’t as bigger wimp as I thought. Sounds terrifying.

Did anyone else take a tennis ball in an old pair of tights into school? We used to stand, back against a wall, swinging the ball from one side to the other shouting out months. Your friends ran to stand next to you when their birth month was shouted out avoiding being hit by the ball.
Any games we played were on the perimeter of the playground as the boys took that over playing football.
We were in a new 70's built flat roofed school and every Friday we'd all stand on the playground at hometime waiting for the caretaker to go on the roof and throw any balls down.

Yes I remember that and frech skipping and magmatic balls on string.

I like coffee was for skipping. Two people turned the rope while you skipped, then you'd sing the song and invite X in with you, then Y etc. When it got too full, you'd sing I don't like coffee etc

Not last night but the night before
24 robbers came knocking at my door
When I went out to let them in
This is the song they began to sing
Spanish Lady turn around
Spanish Lady touch the ground
Spanish Lady give a high kick
Spanish Lady do the splits
Spanish Lady turn around
Spanish Lady get out of town
This was another skipping game.

Love the organic nature of these games

In the 80s we sang a clapping game
“I went to a Chinese restaurant,
to buy a loaf of bread, bread, bread.
He wrapped it up in a £5 note and this is what he said, said, said:
”my name is Elvis Presley, girls are sexy, sitting in the back seat, nudge, nudge!

And I loved oranges and lemons. Chip, chop, chip, chop, the laaast maaaan’s DEAD! Until I worked out that the choppers could pick on you by dragging out the last bit to chop whoever they wanted to.

Mothers in the kitchen, doing a bit of stitching, in comes the bogyman and chases her away.