LONDON
STREET
GAMES

By the same Author

FOUNTAINS IN THE SAND
OLD CALABRIA
(Published by Martin Secker)
SIREN LAND
(Published by J. M. Dent & Sons)

LONDON
STREET GAMES

By

NORMAN
DOUGLAS

LONDON
THE ST. CATHERINE PRESS

STAMFORD STREET, S.E.

First Published 1916

TO HIS FRIEND
L·K
THIS BREATHLESS
CATALOGUE

LONDON
STREET GAMES

There’s not much for us to do, down our way—in the way of sports, I mean. Nothing at all, in fact. When we come home from work we generally go straight indoors and have a lay-down, and a cup of tea and a pipe; or else we go out and watch a match somewhere. There’s always the “Three Swans”, of course....

But the youngsters get on all right—seem to, at all events. Some of them have got bats and stumps or footballs, and off they go into the park; and some of the girls have got shuttlecocks, and off they go. But most of them haven’t, you know; so they just lark about where they are. Paper-chase and ROUNDERS, for instance; you know those? They’re plain sailing. But some of these games, like EGG-IN-CAP (also called EGGET), are rather complicated; and as to MONDAY-TUESDAY (or NUMBERS; another kind of egg-in-cap)—it would take me till next Saturday week to explain it. Perhaps you can make it out from this description:

“After clipping the throer calls out the name of the day in the weke and the chap whats taken that day has to catch if he misses it they all run away and shout no Egg if I move—becose if they dont the throer can say a egg if you move—& that helps to make the quantity of the Eggs. The Misser of the ball throes it at one of the player and if he misses it is a egg to him and if he hits its a egg to the one he hit. After the throer has hit his man—the man has to throw it up again. If one of the player catch the Ball they throw it up again and call out the name, the total of egg to get you out is three. After the game is over the winner has clockwork on the Losers; they each stand up against a wall wile the winner throes at their heads with the ball. They can also claim 3 Hard throes or six soft ones.”

Now you know how it’s done.

Then there’s QUEENIE, which is really a girls’ game. One boy stands on the kerbstone with his back to the street, and they call him Queenie. He throws a ball backwards over his shoulders into the street, where four others are standing to catch it. As soon as one of them has it, they all hold their hands behind their backs, and then Queenie has to turn round and face them and guess who has the ball. If he guesses right, he goes on being Queenie; if not, the boy who has the ball takes his place.

Why they call it QUEENIE? Because that happens to be its name. Aunt Eliza, who has travelled all over the place and can explain mostly everything (or thinks she can) tells me that QUEENIE is a Chinese game and that she has seen it played there and that it must have come to London over the docks. I daresay it did. But the worst of Aunt Eliza is that you never know whether—

There are other ball-games, such as HOT RICE and FRENCH CRICKET and FOOTBALL-CRICKET and FIDDLE-DE-DEE and PALM OVER (a rough game) and CATCH (also called TEASER), which goes not as you think it does, but like this—

“Two boys stand at each side of the road and one in the middle, that’s Hee. One of them tries to get the ball over middle’s head for the other to get it but if middle gets it the throer goes Hee”—

and WALL-BOUNCING and KING and MISSINGS OUT and FRENCH FOOT and KNOCKING UP THREE CATCHERS and SWOLO (rather like hockey) and DAYS OF THE YEAR and PUNCH-BALL and BOUNCE-BALL and TOUCH IT RUN and HUNDRED WINS (where you knock bricks out of a ring with a ball) and ONE-TWO-THREE-AND-A-LAIRY (I wish I knew what a-lairy meant) and ALONG THE ROW and UNDER THE ROW and ACROSS THE ROW and RABBIT IN THE HUTCH and FIVE-TEN and BASE (or DOLL) and WALLIE (because played against a wall) and STRIKE UP KNOCK DOWN and IN THE HAT and DUSTHOLES, and no doubt many more. But however many I might tell you, there are not nearly as many as there ought to be.

Why not?

Well, Mr. Perkins—he works with the firm of Framlingham Brothers (Limited), a likeable well-spoken gentleman, and he often watches the children playing and sometimes we have a talk about things at the “Three Swans”—Mr. Perkins says, speaking of ball-games, exactly what I always say, which is this: that there’s a difficulty about ball-games, which is this: that most of them generally need a ball; meaning you can’t play with a ball unless you have a ball to play with. And you generally haven’t got one—meaning the children. And then the trouble begins. Because then you have to start thinking about something that doesn’t need a ball.

Somebody or other may have a top, for those who care about this kind of game. Top-games are not as fashionable as they used to be; still, there are a good many of them left. You can play TOP-FOOTBALL, and SKATING, and GRULLEY (also called GROWLEY, or GROWLING KEEPS, or PLACING), and GETTING IN THE RING, and SENDING MESSAGES, and GULLEY HOLE (or HULLY-GULLY) and FLY DUTCHMAN and BACK SCALINGS and TRACING and RAILWAY LINE and MOUSETRAP (where you have to get the string wound round the top as it spins) and CHUCKING and GRUDGES and GULLEY KEEP TOP and GULLEY KNOCK ABOUT and FETCHING HOME, and PEG IN THE RING, and BOAT-RACE, and PEGGING, and LIVE O’S, and CHIPSTONE. For CHIPSTONE you need hard smooth ground and some pebbles and this is how you play it:

“Two lines about 6 ft apart are drorn. A boy first puts his stone on a place half-way between the two, he spins his top picks it up and makes it spin in the palm of his hand and chips his stone towards the line. The first boy who gets his stone beyond the line he wins.”

I used to know quite a good deal about tops, but it’s quite a while since I played, and I have forgotten half their names, and couldn’t describe them if I tried. I can only remember peg-tops, whipping-tops, mushrooms, klondykes, tomtits, boxers (made of boxwood), racing tops, corkscrews, clodhoppers, humming tops, Russian tops, Jews’ tops, Japan tops (rather flatter at the end than the usual kind), French tops (red and white on the top, with a little thing for tying a piece of string on, to spin with), and window-breakers, which are rather like mushrooms.

And the dumb-bargee.

Ever heard of a dumb-bargee? It’s a kind of top after the style of a klondyke. It’s too heavy to rise from the ground like a racer. You simply can’t get a rise out of a dumb-bargee. Perhaps that accounts for the name. Because it’s easy enough to get a rise out of an ordinary bargee, isn’t it? And when you do, he’s not exactly what you call “dumb”, is he? Not the bargees I’ve known.

And if you have no tops, you can make up games with your caps or boots or jackets. Dead man’s rise (also called DEAD MAN’S DARK SCENERY or COAT) is one of these jacket-games, where one party has to hide, covered up in their coats. Shoe-games are rather commoner—there’s SIZE OF YOUR BOOT (one boy has to be blindfolded for this), and BOOT IN THE TUB, and NAILS, and COBBLER COBBLER MEND MY SHOE. But the commonest are the cap-games. Here are some of them: CHIMNEY-POTS (or UPSETTING THE CHIMNEY); HAT UNDER THE MOON; MOUSE IN TRAP; SAUSAGE; KNOCK HIM DOWN DONKEY; PULL FOR THE SHORE SAILOR; SUGAR AND MILK; HOP O’ MY THUMB; TOUCH-CAP. In the three last you have to go “through the mill”, if you fail. Nuts in cap is played with caps and crackers (Spanish nuts); in HITTING THE SUN you must throw your cap at your opponent’s at about twelve yards distance; other cap-games are QUOITS (with folded-up caps), and FIRE ENGINES, and SHYING OVER THE MOON, and SHOOTING THE STARS, and PILING THE DONKEY, and CAP IT, and WHERE’S THIS LITTLE HAT TO GO, and SALLY ROUND THE JAM-POT (with piled-up caps), and BALL IN CAP, and RUN A MILE FOR A HALF-PENNY, and HOOK AND CAP, and HOT SOUP, and FOX COME OUT OF YOUR DEN, and THROW OVER, and MILLER’S SACK, and WHACK CAP, and HATCHING EGGS, and UNDER THE GARTER. All these are played with caps, and some of them, such as FLIES (or SALLY) ROUND THE JAM-POT, are really duty-games, of which I must tell you later on.

And if you have no caps, which you sometimes haven’t, you must just find something else to play with. Buttons, for instance—everybody knows the old game of BUTTONS (or BANG-OUT, or BANGINGS) where you pitch them against a wall and have to measure the intervals between them with the span of your fingers and always end up with a row about cheating distances. You can make a fine gamble out of BUTTONS if you play the same game with halfpennies; you can win quite a lot, when there are no coppers about....

But nobody need play for money unless they like, and, anyhow, I don’t care to talk about these things. Because, of course, our boys don’t gamble, and there’s an end to it. They never try to make money, like some do, out of silly tricks like BRAG, and BOOKS, and SPIN UP THE PENNY, and RAPS ON THE BUGLE, and NAP, and TRUMP, and BEAT YOUR NEIGHBOUR OUT OF DOORS, and MY BIRDIE WHISTLES, and POLISH BANKER, and DONKEY, and TUPPENCE YOU HEAD IT, and PITCHING UP THE LINE (double or single), and SHOVE HA’PENNY, and NEAREST THE LINE TAKES, and CHUCK-FARDEN, and PONTOON,[A] and PIEMAN, and ODD MAN SPINS, and ON THE STICK, and GUESSING WITH THREE CARDS, and GUESSING WITH SIX CARDS, and ANCHOR-CROWN-HEAD, and PITCH AND TOSS and BLIND SAM and OVERS KEEPS—or whatever all these things are called; no, not our boys. They never climb down to the cut[B] on a Sunday afternoon like some people do—although, as a matter of fact, it’s a pretty safe place just now, because only three weeks ago a couple of peelers were chucked into the water for interfering.

Many of these sports are played with cigarette-cards or with ordinary playing cards, or with either; and I might tell you the names of some of those of the first kind, seeing that the lads have to play their card-games out of doors, hereabouts, if—if it weren’t for the gambling they lead to. For instance, there’s KNOCKING DOLLY OUT O’ BED where you lay down three for a king, two for a jack, one for a queen and none for an ace, and—well, there you are! You must just come and ask some of the boys higher up the street; maybe they’ve heard of the game[C]. Ours are respectable. Gambling is forbidden by law, and they know it. That’s why you have to be so darned careful not to get copped.

Or you can play with tins, or bits of metal and wood, or with nuts. In THROWING THE NICKER (or TIN ON THE LINE) you really ought to use a piece of lead or tin, or an old key, but sometimes you haven’t got one, and then you must put up with a slate; and the same with NIXIE and PITCH OUT and PITCHING ON THE HAT and PITCHING IN THE HAT and BULLS EYE and ONE, TWO, THREE and OVER THE LINE. There are many tin-can games, such as TIN-CAN BUMP and TIN-CAN JUMP and TIN-CAN CATCH and TIN-CAN FISHING and TIN-CAN FETCH IT and TIN-CAN RACING and TIN-CAN GO IT and TIN-CAN TOUCH and TIN-CAN HIDE IT and TIN-CAN HAVE IT and COCK-SHY and CATCH THE RIDER and PITCHING UP THE WALL. The best of all of them is TIN-CAN COPPER (or KICK-CAN POLICEMAN) which goes like this:—

“You get a tin and place it on the road. You then toss up who is to be tin-can copper. After the one is found you throw it up the street & then go and hide. The one who has to go after the can must not turn round and must come back backwards. When he has got back he puts the tin down & then looks to see if he can see you—if he see you he points were you are and shout your name & Bangs the can down three times, if he does not see you you can creep up and steal the can & fling it up the road again and all of them can hide. The last one caught is the Tin-can-Copper”.

There are different ways of playing TIPPIT and I can’t stop to explain them; one is played with sticks, and one without, and another with tin; and you can play tippit with a top and a coin; in fact, it’s one of those names, like “fire-engines” or “pitching up the line”, that don’t mean anything in particular and are used for all kinds of sports. With sticks you can also play CUNJER, and CATCHING THE FALLING WAND (a ring-game for children) and SEIZING STICKS (or SCOTCH AND ENGLISH):—

“One of A.’s side tries to rush and get a stick from B.’s side without being caught. If he is caught he remains a prisoner, unless touched by one of his own side again. But no sticks can be taken by any one while there are prisoners. The game is won by the side who get all the sticks”—

and WAND BALANCE RACE and different kinds of TIBBY-CAT (or NIBBY-CAP) such as SETS and RUNS and WOGGLES and CATCHERS and SINGLES. You can’t play TIBBY-CAT if there are any blue boys hanging around; they’re down on the game, because people sometimes get their windows smashed or their eyes bunged up.

Hitting the mummy is played with nuts—

“You throw nuts against a wall and let them lay there till one of them is hit, then he who hits has the lot. But if he doesn’t leave Mummy laying down he has to pay six.”

With nuts (or cherry-stones or date-stones) you can also play YOU HAVE ALL YOU GET and KNOCK HIM DOWN HAVE HIM and TIP-TAP and MOP CHERRY-STONES and UP THE GUTTER-SPOUT; as well as another game for which you need nuts and an old tobacco-tin. I can’t tell you its name, because I don’t know it; and the lads can’t tell you either, because it hasn’t got one—not yet. It’s quite a new game.

But some of the best sports are those which they make up without anything at all, just out of their heads, like STAGS, and FOX-HUNTING, and SHOEING THE WILD HORSE (you need confederates for this, and a fresh boy; but it’s quite a respectable game), and TOMMY ALL ROUND, and BLIND DONKEY, and SAILOR, and HORSE-SOLDIERS. Horse-soldiers (also called FLYING ANGELS) is rather rough, and so is COCK AND HEN FIGHT. Or hide-and-seek games like I spy—spit in your eye, which goes like this:—

“Five or ten can play, one has to hide wile the Others hide. If he sees you you have to come out of your Crib & twig & get home. The one that hides can only come a little way from home—to get home you have to run and touch the piller or Post where he was hiding”.

Point is like I spy; but you need a lamp-post for it. Monkey in the wood is the same kind of game, but without a lamp-post; FORTY and INNER AND OUTER are other hide-and-seek games. Or hunting sports like WIDDY, which you play in winter to get warm with. There are different ways of playing WIDDY; one is this:

“Say there’s ten of you, one is widdy, that’s Hee. He runs after the others till he catches his one then there’s two that must hold hands then they run after the eight till they catch another and so on till there all cort and the last one to be cawt is widdy for next go”.

Or you can make WIDDY into a hopping game. One is “he”, they all gather round him and sing—

Widdy Widdy way, I shan’t play,

Kick your post and run away—

and then he kicks his lamp-post and hops after them on one leg. I don’t know what “Widdy” means, but I should think that all these hunting “he” games are rather old (other “he” games are sometimes new). Fishing (or FAG-OUT) is another of them, and COALER another, and LAST ONE HOME another.

To play DELIVER UP THOSE GOLDEN JEWELS (or DELIVER UP THE BLACK PUDDING) you need confederates. You go up to a soft boy and say “Let’s have a game of Deliver up those Golden Jewels and you shall be judge.” So the softy gets very keen about being judge, and sits down “in Court” on a step or somewhere; then they lead up the prisoner who is in the know, you know, and they ask him a lot of sham questions; and as soon as the judge says “Therefore deliver up them golden jools”, the prisoner—no, I can’t tell you any more about that game. It’s rather rude. None of our boys are caught at it more than once—not at playing the judge, at least. There are other games of this sort, like WHITE MICE and HIGH TREASON and THREE GOLDEN BALLS and FARMER LEFT HIS HAT BEHIND and SCORING and RUNNING TOO FAST and HIDE AND SEEK (not the usual kind); they can all be played in a respectable fashion, but the worst of it is, they generally aren’t. Another is called P.....E. That’s worse. I can’t say anything whatever about it except that you need good confederates and a boy who is quite new to the quarter. And some of them are still worse; not at all nice, in fact. If you want to find out about them, you must come yourself and talk to a few of our rough chaps. You might ask them about TOUCHING THE KING’S SCEPTRE. If you can get that out of them, you can get anything....

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The French “Vingt-et-un.”

[B] The cut is the canal.

[C] One of them tells me that OVERS KEEPS goes like this: “Make a line, pitch up ha’pennies, if they go over, they are kept by the man whose coin is nearest to the line under. He keeps all those what are over, and spins up those what are under.”

Now I daresay you’ve heard of leap-frog, and maybe you think there’s only one way of playing it. Well, if you want to see how our boys can invent things out of their heads because, and only because, they have no bats or other things to play with, you should come and watch them at their leap-frog and duty games. (In leap-frog and overbacks they go in certain fixed orders over each others’ backs; in duty one man stays down until another fails in the duty and takes his place). Always inventing new kinds, too. You could write a whole book about sports of this kind, each with its separate rules and separate name—fancy names they are, some of them—and each with its “showman” or “duty-man” or “namer” who decides what things are to be done. There’s ALL THE WINKLES, a grand game for as many as you like; and HOPPING TO LONDON and ALL THE WAY TO LONDON and RACING TO LONDON and FOUR WAYS TO LONDON and HOT PIES and COLD PIES and HERE COMES MY SHIP FULL SAIL and BUNNY RABBIT (rather difficult) and HOP, STEP AND JUMP and HOPPING ROUND BIG BEN and ALL HANDS ON DECK (also called FINGER ON THE BLOCK). Cut-a-lump (or CUTTER)—that’s another kind. Bill bends down in the gutter, while the others stand up behind him in a row; the first of them is called cut-a-lump. He goes over Bill’s back, and where his feet touch the ground—there he makes a mark; then the next boy, without moving from his old place, has to jump over Bill and touch the same mark; then the next, and the next—over they go! Of course, it becomes more difficult with each jump, as the distance gets wider. Whoever first misses the mark must take the place of Bill, who then becomes cutter in his turn. That’s cut-a-lump: see?

Why it’s called cut-a-lump?

Because he cuts a lump off the distance in front of Bill.

Then there’s FROG IN FIELD and FROG IN THE MIDDLE and FROG IN THE WATER and INCH IT UP and SHRIMPS (where you have to go over a boy’s back with your cap doubled up on your head—many duty-games have to be played with caps) and LOBSTER (also called EGGS AND BACON, where you have to throw down your cap while going over his head and pick it up with your teeth without rolling off his back) and EGG IN A DUCK’S BELLY (holding the cap between your legs) and CAT O’ NINE TAILS and SPUR THE DONK and OVER THE MOON and FOOT IT (where you jump sideways) and CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE and CAT ON HOT BRICKS (about as good as any) and POSTMAN and HOPPING ALL THE WAY TO CHURCH and MUSSENTOUCHET—

“In mussentouchet one boy flies over back and then he puts the boys hats anywhere he likes [on their bodies] and tells them to run to certain spot and they must not touch their hats the one whose hat falls off is down”—

and NEWSPAPERS (or PAPERS) and TWO FOOT FLY and STIFF-LEGGED COPPER (also called POLICEMAN or STIFF BLOATERS or SHOWING NO IVORY, because, after jumping over, you have to stand stock still and not show either your teeth or your finger nails) and WHITEWASH and PLATES AND DISHES and FLYING THE GARTER and WRITING LETTER TO PUNCH and SENDING LETTER TO CANADA, which is played like this:

“When all the boys have gone over the boy who they call namer calls out sending a letter to Canada. Then the boy who is down has to bend down again then all the boys write the letter on his back then they put it up his coat then stamp it then they hit him with their knees on the....”

or perhaps you can understand it better from this:

“One boy bends down and then you pretend to write on his back then you bang for the Stamp and then put it under his coat and push him first leap over his back and say Sending a Letter to Canada.”

Perhaps you think these are all the duty-games they play, but there are a good many more, such as FLIES ROUND THE JAM-POT and HOT COCKLES AND HOT MUSTARD (rather like BUNNY RABBIT) and SHOOTING THE MOON (played with caps and spittle) and YANK HIM OVER and UPSETTING THE APPLE-CART and WEAK HORSES (played against a lamp-post where you pile yourselves as high as possible) and STEPPING-STONES (difficult) and GLORY and FISHING FOR OYSTERS and TICKLERS and COUNTRY (or NORTH, SOUTH, EAST AND WEST) and BUMPER (or BUMPUMS) and SMASHING YOUR GRANDMA’S WINDOWS and BACKY-O and ROMAN CANDLES (or THUMBS UP: very difficult) and CHINESE ORDERS and CHINESE YUM-YUM and KING JOHN SAYS SO and DEAD SOLDIERS and SALMON FISHING and MISCHIEF and PULLING LEGS and FOLLOW MY LEADER (yes; duty) and PIGGY BACKS and WHEELBARROWS and JOCKY WHACK and SWIMMING IN BLUE WATER. Swimming in blue water is played like this:

“One boy stoops down in bending attitude, and another boy lays on his back crossways, and does the action of swimming, if the boy who is swimming falls off he has to be down”—

and CARRYING THE OLD WOMAN’S WASHING and MESSENGERS (or MESSAGES) and ELEPHANTS’ TRUNKS AND TAILS and SKINNING A RABBIT and MOGGIES[D] ON THE WALL and SOPPY SOLDIER and TAILOR.

And if you’re not yet tired of duty-games, I will tell you one or two more. There’s PICKING LEAVES and SCISSORS and THROUGH THE MOON and PULLING BONES OUT OF FISHES and PORTER COLLECTING TICKETS (or TICKET PUNCHING) and HOP THERE AND BACK AGAIN and UP SIDES DOWN MIDDLE and NELSON and HIDING HATS IN THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT and POLLY TELL ME THE TIME (duty) and BUCK, BUCK, HOW MANY FINGERS HAVE I GOT UP and SOLOMON SILENT READING. Solomon silent reading—queer name, isn’t it? This is how the game goes:

“First of all a boy bends down and each boy flies over and the Duty man being last shouts out a game while flying over such as Solomon silent reading. A boy must bend down, then the Duty man thinks of a word and writes it on the boy’s back with his finger, then the one who is bending down gets up and tells the Duty man what he wrote, then all the other boys stoop down one at a time and the Duty man repeats the writing [on their backs] and the last one to get it wrong has to give down”—

and BULL-DOG RACE and EATING FISH AND POTATOES and UPSETTING MOTHER’S GRAVY and HANDS OFF and CAP TELLING and WHO WILL TAKE THE PIG (or the UGLY BEAR) TO MARKET and ARM’S LENGTH and LAUGH AND CRY and BRASS BAND and CANNON BALLS and FOOT IT and DEAF AND DUMB MOSES (also called DUTY FOUR, where you have to pretend to be deaf and dumb) and FIRE ENGINES (or FIREMAN: duty) and STICK IN THE MUD (or STICKUMS) and BRITISH WORKMAN and SUGAR CANES and CARRYING CROCODILES’ FOOD. You play CROCODILES’ FOOD like this:

“All the boys leap over one’s back and then run to end of street and then you all come back with your hands and feet on the ground and your chest above the ground and then you place your hat on your chest and walk along and the boy who falls over has to go down”

in other words, the cap (the crocodiles’ food) has to lie on your stomach, which is sometimes called chest, while you move forwards with your back to the earth supporting yourself on hands and feet, as you can see perfectly well from this other description:

“Have to run to top of street then the boy who is down shouts out carrying crocodiles food, then the other boys have to come back with their hats on their chests and their hands behind and running along on their backs”

and GAMMON RASHER and CATCHING STONES and RACE FOR A LEAF and CARRIAGES and ALL SORTS and PULLING UP FATHER’S RHUBARB and HAYSTACK and KING’S DINNER and MOUSE IN THE TRAP and PUNCTURED TYRE and COBBLER and DRUMS and FOOT AND LEE and FINGER IN THE BIRD’S NEST and BABBLE and OVER GARDEN WALL and THREE AND ON and HOW FAR CAN YOU RUN and BUNG THE BARREL and PICKING THE BLOATER and SIFT THE GRAPES and HOT ROLLS and WARNIE I’M A COMING—and that’s just a few of them.

Warnie has to be played against a wall, and this is what they say to it:

Hi Jimmy Nacko, one, two, three—Obobé,

Obobé-all-y-over!

Warnie, I suppose, means “I warn ye”, because they say it just before they jump. But I can’t even make a guess at Obobé—wish I could. It’s quite possible that it never meant anything at all, to begin with. The boys sometimes call it High Bobbery—it’s a way they have, of working the old names round into a sort of sense, when they’ve forgotten their real meaning. I must write and ask Aunt Eliza; she knows everything (thinks she does). As to Jimmy Nacko—they sometimes call it Jimmy Wagtail, but one of the lads tells me it means “Neck, ho!” which only shows how they like twisting the names about. (That’s why they now say shuttlecock instead of shuttlecork, because they forget it’s played with a cork). What I think about Jimmy Nacko is this: judging by his name, he was just an old shonk[E] of some kind....

And now I must tell you about RELEASE. There is one game of this kind played by small children, and not worth talking about. But the real RELEASE (or ROBBERS AND COPPERS) is quite another thing altogether. In release you take sides and catch prisoners; you have to touch their heads and “crown” them; that’s what makes them prisoners. And that’s what makes them so wild—because the other chaps can’t always release them; and that’s why the old people bar the game—because you always get your clothes torn; and that’s why it’s also called BEDLAM—because there are so many rows while it’s going on. You see, they don’t like being made prisoners and being “crowned” and having their heads touched—not at all, at all. Just mad, it makes them.

“D’ye want a claht over the jor?” says one. “’Cos yer never did touch me ’ead, so there.”

“Ole Ikey see’d me doos it.”

“Liar. ’Cos ’e wos t’ovver side o’ the street.”

“’E never. Yer wos on the grahnd when I crahned yer napper.”

“Liar. Yer sez I wos a-layin dahn when all the time I wos on me stumps. Yer finks I’m up the pole to ’ear yer tork. Knock ’arf yer fice orff.”

“Not ’arf. Yer knows I touched yer nut ’cos don’t yer remember me a-standin on yer arms?”

“Ef yer want an eye bunged up or a punch on the snaht—”

“Well ef I’m a liar yore the biggest. So yer lumps it. I’m goin to be blowed ef I play wiv a lahsy blisterin blitherin blinkin blightin bloomin bleedin blasted baastard wots got a movver wots got a bloke wots—”

“’Ere, d’ye want a clip on the Kiber-pass?”

“Garn! P.........,[F] an play wiv the steam.”

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Moggies are cats.

[E] A shonk is a foreigner, generally a Jew.

[F] Four words censored.

Girls’ games? Bless you, dozens of them.

They play sports together with the boys: ball-games like ROUNDERS (“FOUR CORNERS”) and HEAD GAME and DAGGLES and BROKEN BOTTLE (yes; BROKEN BOTTLE is a ball-game, and is also called PASSING ROUND) and THREE CATCHES OUT and ROTTEN EGG (or CRACKED EGG) and A AND B, where they have to stand in four rings marked in chalk on the pavement; and some without balls such as FOOL, FOOL, COME TO SCHOOL (rather like DUNCE, DUNCE, DOUBLE D.) and WRINKLE-SHELLS and HARK THE ROBBERS COMING THROUGH—an old catch game—and STEPS, and SLY FOX, and LET GO MUST GO (a wall game) and HONEY-POTS.

Honey-pots is very respectable, but a little old-fashioned. Aunt Eliza says she used to play it, and I can quite believe that. I can just see her playing HONEY-POTS.

Please we’ve come to learn a trade (also called GUESSING WORDS or DUMB MOTIONS)—another game for boys and girls. There are two parties, one on each side of the street. One of them has to think of a trade, such as picking hops, for instance; then they take the first letters, P and H, and go over to the others and say “We have come to work a trade.” When the others ask, “What’s your trade?” they must answer “P. H.”, and pretend to be picking hops with their hands. If the others guess what trade they mean, they must shout it out and chase them across the street; and if they catch one of them—why, then they, the hop-pickers, must do the guessing instead. Catch-in-the-rope is also for boys and girls, and so is PUSSY CAT, and so is STATUES. There are UGLY STATUES and PRETTY STATUES. When you play this game you have to line yourselves up against a wall or a house; then the judge comes along and pulls one of you forwards and in that moment you have to make a posture and a face, sometimes pretty but mostly ugly, and pretend to be a statue. It spoils everything if you laugh over this game, as you may understand from this description:—

“A lot of players stand on a form. One person in front tells the person to form a statue if she move or laugh she is hee—”

Another of them is HERE WE GO UP THE MULBERRY TREE, where they form two parties who challenge each other and try to pull each other across the street. And they have handkerchief games together such as I sent a letter to my love (“and on the way I dropped it”, a decent game for boys and girls, also called LOST LETTER; and if you haven’t got a handkerchief, which you generally haven’t, you can take any old rag); and NICK NACK TOLLY WHACK, which is rather rough and goes like this:—

“Pick up for sides and one side says nick nack tolly wack. Then if the other side does not move they rush and each one has to have a wack with the tolly wack (a handkerchief with a knot in it).”

There are several more of these games for boys and girls—such as LOOKING GLASS and GOOSE-GANDER and SNOW-WHITE (where they go on hands and knees and get very dirty) and PET POST—but not as many as there might be, because they don’t play together as much as they might....

Then the girls have games to themselves: ball-games like MACKINTOSH, and BASKET-BALL, and CROSS-BALL, and EMPEROR BALL, and CENTRE BALL, and CORNER CATCH BALL, and CIRCLE STRIDE BALL, and HAND BALL, and ONE IN THE MIDDLE, and QUEEN MAB (a ball-hiding game, also called QUEEN ANNE); and hand-clapping games such as ONE-TWO-THREE and ORANGES, ORANGES, FOUR A PENNY, and TWISTERS AND CLAPS; and ring games like UP TO THE RING, and RUNNING IN AND OUT THE BLUEBELLS, and FIRE, and WALKING ROUND THE VILLAGE, and THIEF, PRINCE, KING, QUEEN, BEGGAR, and THROWING THE BEAN-BAGS, and PRETTY AND UGLY—where one girl stands in the centre of the ring and picks out another one who has to make a face, and if she’s satisfied with the face, she allows her to stand in the centre instead.

Other girls’ games are MOTHER I’M OVER THE WATER and BOX NUTS and VICTORIA and TURNING MOTHER’S WRINGER and WE THREE KINGS and JOHN BROWN’S KNAPSACK and FILLING (or PUSHING THROUGH) THE GAP and when I was a schoolgirl and BREAD AND BUTTER (shuttlecock game) and COME TO SEE POOR MARY and WE ARE ROMANS (two parties of girls) and WHAT IS IT and WHO KNOWS and HOW, WHEN AND WHERE and HEAD AND SHOULDERS and BEAST, BIRD, FISH, FLOWER and POLLY GOES TO BED and POOR POLLY CAN’T SEE and TAG and RAILWAY RACE and ON THE MOUNTAIN and HOOK AND EYE and EGG IN THE SPOON and HAWK AND DOVE and BORROW A LIGHT and PEASE CODS and GOLDEN GOOSE and TREACLE PUDDING and WHO’S AFRAID OF BLACK PETER and JENNY PLUCK PEARS and WALKING-STICKS and LOOKING FOR MOTHER’S THIMBLE and TIME and LADYSMITH and PUSHY BACK and PASS OVER and WE ARE BRITISH SOLDIERS and L. S. D. and the WHITE SHIRT. The white shirt is an old ghost game, played like this:

“You have a lot of girls standing against a wall, one of them being the mother of the others. She tells them to go and see if father’s shirt’s dry (the shirt being a girl in white, standing at a distance). They go in turn to see if it is dry & each time the “ghost” in father’s shirt catches one. At last the mother alone is left, she goes and is caught; then another “shirt” is picked, and so the game goes on.”

I don’t think Aunt Eliza ever played THE WHITE SHIRT; she wouldn’t care about the name—

and MERRY MONTH OF MAY and CON-STANT-I-NO-PLE and BLACK AND BLUE and FOLLOW YOUR MOTHER TO MARKET and PUSS and MY SISTER JANE and TWO LITTLE PEOPLE WENT OUT ONE DAY (“As they went out they were heard to say”) and OLD DEVIL IN FIRE (or LIGHT MOTHER’S COPPER FIRE), which is played so:

“About one dozen girls can play. They select one who has to be the devil, she’s to stand against a wall, with a girl hid behind her. All the children have to try and light the fire, and each time the girl behind pinches them and they say “Oh, mother, the devil’s in fire.” Then the mother tries to light the fire and the devil chases them, and the one who is caught has to become devil, next time.”

It’s perfectly certain Aunt Eliza never played OLD DEVIL.

And other girls’ games are JACOB AND RACHEL (where two of them have to chase each other blindfolded) and BUSHEL BASKET and MRS. BROWN and WOODEN LEG and ROLLING PIN (two parties of girls who decide which of them has to chase the other by the red or blue colour marked on a rolling pin which is rolled between them) and PORK AND GREENS—

“One player asks a question and the next says pork and greens. If she says anything else she is out—”

and TWO’S AND THREE’S—

“A double ring is formed. Then two children are out, they chase each other & one runs in front of a child then the back one is hee—”

and BUZZ—

“One player count one then the next says two and so on. Every 5 the player instead says buzz—”

and PARSON’S CAT—

“Children sit down in a ring and begin saying something about the cat such as Abomnerble Cat. Then B and so on.”

I spy with one eye and BLACK IN TOPPER and LOOKING THROUGH THE KEY-HOLE and PEEPING BEHIND THE CURTAIN are hiding games for girls. For SWINGS you need a lamp-post and a piece of rope; it’s not exactly a game, but you can spend a nice Sunday afternoon over it, if there are no coppernobs about. In POLLY TELL ME THE TIME they wind a skipping-rope round a girl’s waist a certain number of times, and then unwind her.

And that reminds me that some of the best girls’ games are with skipping ropes.

They have SWING-SWONG, and DOUBLE DUTCH, and AMERICAN JUMP, and HIGHER AND HIGHER, and RUN AND SKIP, and HOOP AND SKIP, and INNERS AND OUTERS, and TOUCH TAIL, and NEBUCHADNEZZAR, and HIGH WATER, and NEVER LEAVE THE ROPE EMPTY, and OVER THE MOON, and ONE-TWO, and TIPPERARY (new), and ONE AND OUT, and SNAKES, and BIG BEN STRIKES ONE, and WHAT O SHE BUMPS (a new one), and ALL IN THE ROPE, and FOLLOW THE LEADER (yes; a skipping game) and FULL-STOP, and COLOURS, and HAREM SKIRT, and NAUGHTY GIRL, and THROWING UP GIRLS, and CATCH IN THE LONG ROPE, and EIGHTS, and DIFFICULTY, and THREE BETWEEN, and THREE AND ALL ON and SITTING ON THE STAR, MARY and I AM A LITTLE SHADOW and ROCK THE CRADLE and GIRLS’ NAMES, and BOYS’ NAMES, and goodness only knows how many more....

Some of the hand-clapping and ring and skipping games—most of them, in fact, and other ones too, in which the boys used to join—have songs that go with them; BOYS’ NAMES, for instance, begins like this:

Black-currant—red-currant—raspberry tart:

Tell me the name of your sweetheart,

and then they begin with A. B. C., and all through the alphabet, a skip with each letter; and when they have found the sweetheart’s name they have to discover when they are to be married, and how many rings, and how many brooches, and in what clothes, and in what carriage, and how many kisses, and in what house they will live, and how many children—all in the same alphabetical manner; so that, if this game were ever properly finished, it would take at least a month’s hard skipping. Others of them end either with the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc.; or with penny, tuppence, threepence, etc.; or with the things in the cruet-stand (salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper); or with the days of the week, or the months of the year.

Here are a few of these chants:[G]—

I had a dolly dressed in green,

I didn’t like her—I gave her to the Queen—

The Queen didn’t like her—she gave her to the cat—

The cat didn’t like her, because she wasn’t fat.

or

Sally go round the moon, Sally,

Sally go round the sun.

Sally go round the ominlebus

On a Sunday afternoon.

or

Dancing Dolly had no sense,

She bought a fiddle for eighteen pence—

And all the tune that she could play

Was “Over the hills and far away.”

(Or: “Sally get out of the donkey’s way.”)

(Or: “Take my dolly and fire away.”)

or

Eaper Weaper, chimbley-sweeper,

Had a wife but couldn’t keep her,

Had anovver, didn’t love her,

Up the chimbley he did shove her.

or

Do you like silver and gold?

Do you like brass?

Do you like looking through

The looking-glass?

Yes I like silver and gold,

Yes I like brass, etc.

or (an old one)

As I was walking through the City,

Half past eight o’clock at night,

There I met a Spanish lady

Washing out her clothes at night.

First she rubbed them, then she scrubbed them,

Then she hung them out to dry,

Then she laid her hands upon them,

Said: I wish my clothes were dry.

or

Policeman, policeman, don’t touch me,

I have a wife and a family.

How many children have you got?

Five and twenty is my lot,

Is my lot, is my lot,

Five and twenty is my lot.

or

Pounds, shillings and pence,

The monkey jumped over the fence.

The fence gave way, and the man had to pay

Pounds, shillings and pence.[H]

or

I went down the lane to buy a penny whistle,

A copper come by and pinch my penny whistle.

I ask him for it back, he said he hadn’t got it—

Hi, Hi, Curlywig, you’ve got it in your pocket.

or

I’ll tell Ma when I get home

That the boys won’t leave me alone.

They pull my hair and break my comb,

I’ll tell Ma when I get home.

or (for a shuttlecock-game)

Sam, Sam, dirty old man,

Washed his face in a frying pan,

Combed his hair with the leg of a chair—

Sam, Sam, dirty old man.

or

Look upon the mantle-piece,

There you’ll find a ball of grease,

Shining like a threepenny-piece—

Out goes she!

or

Piggy on the railway, picking up the stones,

Up came an engine and broke Piggy’s bones.

Oh, said Piggy, that’s not fair—

Oh, said the driver, I don’t care.

or

I had a black man, he was double-jointed,

I kissed him, and made him disappointed.

All right, Hilda, I’ll tell your mother,

Kissing the black man round the corner.

How many kisses did he give you?

One, two, three, etc.

or

Charlie, Arlie, stole some barley,

Out of a baker’s shop.

The baker came out and gave him a clout,

And made poor Charlie hop, hop, hop.

or

Up the ladder, down the wall,

Ha’penny loaf to feed us all,

I’ll buy milk and you buy flour,

There’ll be pepper in half an hour.

or

Lay the cloth, knife and fork,

Bring me up a leg of pork.

If it’s lean, bring it in,

If it’s fat, take it back,

Tell the old woman I don’t want that.

or (an old one)

Green gravel, green gravel,

Your grass is so green, (or: Your voice is not heard)

I’ll send you a letter

To call (Florrie) in.

I’ll wash you in milk, and dress you in silk,

And write down your name with a gold pen and ink.

or

Two in the rope, and two take end,

Both are sisters, both are friend,

One named (Maudie), one named (Kate)—

Two in the rope and two take end.

or (evidently made up of different bits)

The woods are dark, the grass is green,

All the girls I love to see

Excepting (Rose Taylor), she’s so pretty,

She belongs to London City.

or

Callings in and callings out—

I call (Rosie) in.

Rosie’s in and won’t go out—

I call (Maudie) in.

or

All the boys in our town, eating apple-pie,

Excepting (Georgie Groves), he wants a wife—

A wife he shall have, according he shall go

Along with (Rosie Taylor), because he loves her so.

He kisses her and cuddles her, and sits her on his knee,

And says, my dear, do you love me?

I love you, and you love me.

Next Sunday morning, the wedding will be,

Up goes the doctor, up goes the cat,

Up goes a little boy in a white straw hat.

or

Vote, vote, vote for (Billy Martin),

Chuck old (Ernie) at the door—

If it wasn’t for the law,

I would punch him on the jaw,

And we won’t want (Billy Martin) any more.

or

I know a washerwoman, she knows me,

She invited me to tea,

Guess what we had for supper—

Stinking fish and bread and butter.

or

Half a pint of porter,

Penny on the can,

Hop there and back again

If you can.

or

Down in the valley where the green grass grows,

Dear little (Lily) she grows like a rose.

She grows, she grows, she grows so sweet—

Come little (Violet) and grow at her feet.

or

Sweete, sweet Carroline,

Dipt her face in Terpentine,

Terpentine, made it shine,

Sweet, sweet Caroline.

or

Monday night, Band of Hope,

Tuesday night, pull the rope,

Wednesday night, Pimlico,

And out comes (Ethel Rowe).

or

I had a bloke down hopping,

I had a bloke down Kent.

I had a bloke down Pimlico,

And this what he sent:

O Shillali-tee-i-o.

or

Mary had bread and jam,

Marmalade and treacle,

A bit for me and a bit for you,

And a bit for all the people.

or

Mrs. Brown went to town,

Riding on a pony,

When she came back she took off her hat,

And gave it Mrs. Maloney.

or

Light the fire, blacksmith, show a pretty light,