The Great Outdoors Hop, Skip and Jump: The Story of Children's Play


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This is the story of the rise and fall of children's outdoor games in 20th century Britain.

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It's a journey into a secret world of adventure and imagination that

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blossomed in the nation's streets, back alleys and playgrounds.

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Playing on the streets was the defining feature of a working-class childhood.

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But the freedom they enjoyed meant they often got into trouble, none more so than the tribal

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gangs of boys who named themselves after the places where they lived.

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# We are the King's Cross boys

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# We know our manners We spend our tanners

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# We are respected wherever we go

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# I tiddly, I-tie, eat brown bread, Ever seen a donkey fall down dead?

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# We are the King's Cross boys. #

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CHILDREN CHANT

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# When I call your birthday, please jump in, January, February, March

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# April, May, June, July... #

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Children enjoyed a huge repertoire of games and songs, all still fondly remembered today.

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# I'm looking for my ogo pogo My funny little ogo pogo

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# His mother was an earwig His father was a whale

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# Let's put a little bit of salt On his tail. #

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Aw, soppy songs.

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This is the story of a lost world of outdoor children's play

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that survived into the 1950s before changing forever.

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100 years ago, folklorists began documenting the extraordinary

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kaleidoscope of children's games that flourished in the city streets.

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In working-class London, they collected more than

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1,000 different children's games from street football to leapfrog.

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But what struck them most of all was their spirit of defiance, expressed most vividly in their songs.

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There was quite a big repertoire of street songs that all kids knew that they learnt from other kids.

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They weren't nursery rhymes. They weren't the sort of songs

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you learnt at school, although some of them were parodies of things you learnt at school.

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As a child in the 1920s, Charles Chilton sang these

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songs and later collected them as a folklorist and writer.

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He was one of that generation of schoolchildren who celebrated Empire Day every 24th May,

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for which they were taught patriotic hymns designed to instil national pride and duty.

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I want to tell you, children, that you are each one of you a member of the Empire

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and when you sing that you are proud of the empire, I want you to feel you are proud of yourselves.

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# Land of hope and glory... #

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But the stark contrast between the rhetoric of empire and the poverty

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of much working-class life was not lost on children like Charles.

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This is what they sang.

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# Land of soap and water

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# Mother, wash my feet

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# Father, pick my toe nails

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# Whilst I eat my meat. #

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We were supposed to be very proud that Britain had the largest empire in the world.

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Most of us, of course, had no soles to our shoes and some of us

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didn't have shirts to our backs but we were very proud of being British.

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However, there were some customs where

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poor children were truly grateful for the gifts they received.

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On highdays and holidays, there was often fun and games on the streets as children scrambled for food

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and money, ritually dispensed to them by the better-off.

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In the Norfolk village of Chedworth, children eagerly looked forward to the 14th February.

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St Valentine's Day was the best day of the year for Ed Mitchell.

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We congregated down the bottom of our road, and we'd go to where the posh people lived

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and we would sing,

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# Old mother Valentine Draw up your window blind

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# You be the giver I'll be the taker... #

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Then we would jazz it up,

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# Old mother Valentine Draw up your window blind

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# You be the giver I'll be the taker... #

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Quicker and quicker and quicker, Then they would heat up halfpennies on a shovel over a coal fire

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and throw them in the road and us kids would scramble for them cos they were red hot. As soon as you put

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your hands and fingers on them they burnt your fingers so you had to drop them, which caused a big laugh.

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Then we would go down the road to the shops where we would sing it, Old Mother Valentine.

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Then out of the shop would come old Alborn, the shop keeper, and he'd

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chuck us all the old sweets he had since Christmas.

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And we'd be scraping about on the floor for these and it was a very

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big day in our lives, more important than Christmas cos we were getting something for nothing, you see.

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Another popular custom in the children's calendar was

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Bonfire Night on the 5th November, when almost every street ritually burned an effigy of Guy Fawkes.

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This fascination with bogeymen and folk devils ran deep

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and surfaced in children's games throughout the year.

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John Salinas grew up in Liverpool in the 1920s and '30s.

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There was one game we played, "Old witch, old witch, what are you looking for?"

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One of us would bend over like an old women and then the rest of us

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would group around whilst she hobbled along and we would say,

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Old witch, old witch, what are you looking for?

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And she would say "pins and needles".

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"Old witch, old witch, what are the pins and needles for?"

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"To sew buttons on clothes."

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Now, everybody knew what was coming next

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and the fear was anticipated.

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"Old witch, old witch, what are you looking for?"

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"Knives and forks."

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"Old witch, old witch, what are the knives and forks for?"

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And at this she would straighten up and fling her arms wide, "To eat little boys and girls like you!"

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By which time everybody had scattered.

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The street was a fairly safe place where children could act out

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their fears and fantasies, free from adult control.

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Mothers and neighbours often kept a watchful eye on the young ones

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but it was the children who decided what they wanted to play.

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For girls, skipping was a perennial favourite and in London's East End

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girls like Joan Risley had a large repertoire of skipping games.

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That was one of our everyday games, you couldn't

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go out without a skipping rope or you would always try and find someone who had a skipping rope.

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Sometimes there was a crowd of us or sometimes we skipped on our own.

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And we used to sing a little song to it.

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# There's somebody under the bed I don't know who it is

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# I feel so shocking frightened I'll call Marjorie in

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# Marjorie lights the candle Marjorie lights the gas

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# Run out, run out There's somebody under the bed. #

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But children's play wasn't always as good natured as this.

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Some boys and girls were routinely left out and picked on for being different.

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Any sign of weakness or inferiority might be cruelly seized upon.

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Eileen Cook remembers how one boy's life was made a misery

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in the Lancashire mill town of Colne in the 1930s.

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One of the lads, he started wearing glasses

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and they were little tin rim things,

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not much bigger than a shilling.

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Well we were fascinated with them. It used to be

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who could smash his glasses, or let's try them on.

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We used to take them off him and twist, twist the thing that went round his ear and break them.

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His mother stopped him playing out with them in the end because she was having to go back to clinic for fresh

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glasses cos as soon as he came out we'd all try them on and twist and break his blooming glasses.

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The children played mostly with other children who lived in their street.

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This was their territory and there was a pecking order based on age and strength.

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Though any footballing prowess always helped boost a boy's popularity.

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Despite the fact that every game had its own rules, foul play meant it could soon all end in tears.

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Boys quickly settled most disputes by fighting,

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but long running rivalries between gangs from neighbouring areas could flare up at any time.

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Children always had to be prepared for a surprise visit from their street fighting, poorer neighbours.

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We were pretty low down where we were,

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but there were children who didn't wear boots or shoes and walked around in bare feet.

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We used to call them Buckhoes.

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And if we saw a crowd of Buckhoes coming towards us we would take a quick side turning

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to get out of the way.

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But John's street had their tried and tested methods to fend off the intruders.

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One of our secret weapons, in the street there were two

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deaf and dumb boys and one of them, they didn't play with us much,

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but when we were attacked by another gang, threatened

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not attacked, attacked is a strong word, someone would say "Get the dummy!"

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Get the dummy, how cruel.

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But "get the dummy", and out would come

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the dummy and he was twice our size and he would make these awful noises

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and as soon as they saw the dummy and he made his noises and waved his arms they were away.

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You never were pretty, were ya?

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Come on then, here.

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You're hurting me.

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That don't matter. You never was pretty, was ya? Come here, you.

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What's the matter with you?

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-I don't want my face done.

-You gotta have yours done.

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-What's the matter with you?

-Every street had its own leader of the

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pack and although the adults tried to stop bullying and anti-social behaviour, it often flared up.

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Donald Bayley grew up in Birmingham in the '30s.

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No other kid was going to push me about.

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If I wanted something

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and there was no adult there to secure it for someone else, then I

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would take it, I would have it, even if it meant I had to fight for it.

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Then of course once you establish yourself as the one who will use

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his fists most of the other kids wouldn't even face up to you.

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In our street, in Copper Street, nobody ever

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came to me and really, really opposed me.

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I think you get a reputation.

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Kids talk as much as anyone else and you don't mess with him type of thing.

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In the leafy suburbs, middle-class families enjoyed a much more private, genteel lifestyle.

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They wanted to protect their sons and daughters

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from the bad influence of rough children who played on the streets.

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Educational and improving home-based play was strongly encouraged by parents who had more time and money

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to spend on their children's personal development.

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For them the back garden was the best playground for their children,

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a place where they could safely let off steam.

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To play in the street was common and strictly out of bounds for grammar school boys like Warwick Taylor.

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In those days there were a lot of rules of play,

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but you weren't allowed to go around and play in the street,

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especially not on a Sunday.

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I think it was a sort of

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snobbish thing between neighbours.

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"My child doesn't go out and play in the street." "Neither does mine,"

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I mean it was silly really because there were two boys

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living next to me and we used to shout over the fence but we mustn't go outside to the front at all.

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The imagination of middle-class children was captured by the fast

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growing toy industry which created games to be bought by parents as birthday and Christmas presents.

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Most popular of all was the Hornby OO train set,

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the dream of a generation of schoolboys whose biggest fantasy was to run Britain's railways.

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Each year, I would get something to add to this, some points,

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crossovers, more track, a railway station, a signal box,

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trucks, carriages

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and gradually and gradually it would build up.

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All this represented to me was a really live running railway,

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so I would have imaginary timetables and imaginary destinations.

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My station wasn't really a main line station, it was what we called a through station, on route somewhere.

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So I used to watch the clock and say right that will be the 9.30 going to Wigan or Liverpool.

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It was a fantasy world, it really was, and it was absolutely wonderful, I loved it.

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The toys bought for working-class children, mostly at Christmas, were much more modest.

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They were purchased on the street and often played with on the street too.

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But these toys didn't always bring the happiness that they promised.

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In an atmosphere of scarcity they could fuel bitter rivalries

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between siblings who didn't want the toy they'd been given.

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On Christmas Day 1938, there was only one present Donald Bayley

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really wanted from his mum and dad. A toy penknife.

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Geoff, who was four years older than me, was given this lovely penknife.

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So I wanted a penknife

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and they said, "There's your ball."

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And I said, "I don't want a ball, I want a penknife."

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"But you've got to have a ball."

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I said, "You can keep your bloody ball," and threw it back at them.

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And that's how I felt that I was not being treated the same as Geoff.

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Although I was four years younger, I couldn't see that there was any difference between me and Geoff.

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The present to die for was a new bike.

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They were rare in working- class neighbourhoods and if one was bought it was usually given

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to the eldest boy and would then be passed on down through the family.

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But this wasn't going to stop Eileen Cook from getting the birthday present of her dreams.

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I wanted a bike and it was coming up to my birthday

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and I moidered and moidered about suggesting about this bike, but my dad wouldn't buy it.

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So we were having a meal one day and me mother had put it on the table. And I asked, "Can I have a bike?"

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And me dad says, "Don't mention that bike again, you're not having one."

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I said, "Well, I won't eat another thing.

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"I'll starve to death till I get a bike."

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He said, "Right, leave the table, go in the living room, that's end of story."

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I thought I'll be dead by the time they finish dinner, this can't happen,

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he'll give way, but he didn't, no, no, he didn't.

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Eileen then decided to take the matter into her own hands.

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She collected the bike she wanted from the owner of the local bike shop, a close friend of her father,

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on the grounds that he'd agreed to the sale and would settle up on Friday.

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I took the bike, rode round on it and all me friends we all rode all round on it.

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Then I said to me friend, "Oh, me dad said

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"you have a shed, where your dad keeps his bike, can I put ours in because we haven't got a shed?"

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And she said, "Yeah, yeah, all right."

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However, by Friday evening Eileen knew her game would be up.

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Me dad came home and he went ballistic but the man wouldn't take it back

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because we'd been playing out on it all week and he couldn't take it back, so me dad had to pay for it!

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Country children had few toys or presents, but they at least had

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the vast adventure playground that nature provided on their doorstep.

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Birds nesting was popular with many schoolchildren

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but it inevitably brought them into conflict with authority.

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Cos every boy in them days, out in the country had

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a collection of birds eggs in a box, and we used to go round birds' nests, thrushes, blackbirds, hedge sparrows,

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spinks, yellow hammers and all that sort of thing, you see.

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But we wouldn't take more than one egg out of a nest because the

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bird wouldn't come back and lay another one if we took the lot out.

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All us boys had caps in them days, peaked caps, and we use to get

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the eggs before they were blonde and put them behind our caps, you see, to carry them. They were safe there.

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But when, if we were caught by old Amos

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coming back from the common or from the river bank, who was

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the gamekeeper, he'd know we'd been bird nesting.

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And he'd say, "Hello, where you all been?"

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And we'd say, "We been for a walk down the common."

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"Oh, well, come here then."

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And he'd smack our caps on the top like this and if we had any birds eggs in them all the

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shell and yoke would run down our face and he'd say, "Right, go on, I know where you been now, don't I?"

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Also growing up close to the countryside, in hundreds of private boarding and public schools,

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were the children of well-to-do middle- and upper-class parents.

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Their schools, mostly built in Victorian and Edwardian times, were often set in a semi-rural idyll.

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Here they could learn and play in a structured environment far away from

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the temptations of the city and the corrupting influence of working-class children.

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But entering this closed world could be a shock for young boys leaving home for the first time,

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like Alec Gunn, who at the age of eight travelled

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to Oxford with his mother to begin his first term at the Dragon School.

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On the day I left for the Dragon School we went to Paddington, that was the train to Oxford.

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And my mother came with me,

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and we got to the school

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and we had tea with Mrs Lynam, who was the headmaster's wife.

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And then I was sort of handed over and my mother was near tears

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and I was near tears, and I had this little rubber duck which my mother gave me

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and I arrived clutching this in the dormitory on my first night there.

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And a kindly boy who was a year senior to me came up and said,

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"Put that way, you'll have an awful time if anyone sees you with that."

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So I did, it was very good advice.

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Alec was lucky.

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In an era when many public schools were obsessed with physical contact

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sports, he'd landed in a place with a much more enlightened attitude to healthy exercise and outdoor games.

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The ethos at the Dragon School, in sport was mainly fitness, it wasn't so much toughening one up

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to be a leader of empire or anything like that. For instance,

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we were offered a reward if we bathed in the Charwell every morning

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before breakfast,

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including Sundays.

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And you had to swim across the river and back every day of term.

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There was a thing of adventure about it and there was the competitive thing to think, you know,

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marking off the days,

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I only have a week to do till the end of term.

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And everyone was clapping and the headmaster came around and dished out half crowns.

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Working-class children enjoyed outdoor swimming too,

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in the new lidos or in their local streams and rivers.

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With no schoolteachers in charge, and sometimes no costumes on,

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swimming for them involved much larking about.

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But the fun and games would often be brought to an abrupt end with the arrival of the bobby on his beat.

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Round by us we had to swim in the River Chet and we went in,

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we didn't have no clothes on, couldn't afford a costume,

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until you got about 14.

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Then old PC Hall, the village slop, he used to come down there

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and hide in the nettles cos the nettles grew about 5ft high.

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And his job was to catch any boy over the age of about 13 or 14 swimming down there.

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And of course if you were over 14, he'd book you

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and you'd be up Larden town hall and get fined five bob for that, or your mother and father had to pay.

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If there was one thing children did that was guaranteed to antagonise

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those in authority over them, it was to take their clothes off in public.

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But to be caught exposing your private parts in the school playground was to break every rule

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in the book, as 12-year-old Bolton boy Harry Dibnah discovered to his cost in 1936.

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You always knew the teachers were watching you from the classroom windows above, always.

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I once got a hell of a hammering.

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There were six of us and we were measuring our penises

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and we didn't know the headmaster was watching us.

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When we got back to the classroom he said,

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"Dibnah out, Ball out, Carr out, Holding out."

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We were all looking round, "Wh-What's going on?"

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"Now, gentlemen,"

0:22:360:22:38

to all the classroom,

0:22:380:22:40

"these are the products of the English men, who will hold our empire together.

0:22:400:22:47

"These are the men who are going to work and keep their families together,

0:22:470:22:52

"and do you know what I found them doing?"

0:22:520:22:55

"No, sir. No, sir."

0:22:570:22:59

"Measuring their penises."

0:22:590:23:01

Well, the classroom erupted.

0:23:030:23:07

And now he said, "We'll see what kind of English men they are."

0:23:070:23:11

So he went to his cupboard and we knew what was coming.

0:23:110:23:14

Now he said, "Gentlemen, one at a time, put your hands up."

0:23:140:23:19

And when he brought that cane down, man, you went down with that cane to the floor.

0:23:190:23:25

When you got up you dared not whimper.

0:23:250:23:28

There was a blue mark across each hand.

0:23:280:23:31

SIREN SOUNDS

0:23:310:23:32

In September 1939, the Second World War began and it turned children's lives upside down.

0:23:340:23:41

With impending German air attacks the city streets where children had once played suddenly became

0:23:410:23:46

THE most dangerous place to be and were emptied at the sound of every air raid siren.

0:23:460:23:52

To begin with the authorities predicted that poison gas would be dropped.

0:23:520:23:57

-INFORMATION FILM:

-This hand rattle means gas.

0:23:570:24:01

Put on your gas masks.

0:24:010:24:03

And keep it on.

0:24:040:24:07

44 million gas masks were issued to protect the lives of every man, woman and child.

0:24:070:24:13

One of the children who wore them was Odette Buchanan from Harrow.

0:24:130:24:17

They were made of black rubber and you had to fix them over your face,

0:24:170:24:23

and once they were on you got a piece of Perspex for the eyes to see out

0:24:230:24:28

and then you got this funnel with the grid at the end of if it

0:24:280:24:31

that you breathed through.

0:24:310:24:33

And it fixed over the back of your head with a strap and...

0:24:330:24:39

it stuck onto your face, and the smell was absolutely disguising.

0:24:390:24:44

I still can't stand the smell of rubber, It was just totally revolting and the thing was we never used them.

0:24:440:24:50

There were no gas attacks, and to begin with, no bombing raids either.

0:24:500:24:55

The war was seen by some children as a new adventure where even the gas mask could inspire new street games.

0:24:550:25:03

We discovered that they made brilliant weapons, so you know,

0:25:030:25:07

I was one part of a gang and the other gang had their weapons as well and we used to charge.

0:25:070:25:13

Our school was on a hill and we used to have to go downhill to get home,

0:25:130:25:18

and we used to go hurtling down the hill swinging these gas masks over your shoulder

0:25:180:25:22

and when you caught up with someone, whack!

0:25:220:25:25

Official films were insistent

0:25:250:25:27

that everyone should carry their gas masks at all times -

0:25:270:25:31

a message that was taken seriously by children far and wide,

0:25:310:25:35

especially by Lancashire girl Eileen Cook.

0:25:350:25:38

We were all issued with a gas mask and they were in like a brown cardboard box with a string on

0:25:380:25:45

and you never went through the door without your gas mask.

0:25:450:25:49

And at one time we had like little luggage labels with name and address on your coat.

0:25:490:25:54

And because we knew there was going to be a bombing,

0:25:550:25:58

we didn't know what it was going to be, but it was going to happen.

0:25:580:26:02

We've got to be prepared for this, you see.

0:26:020:26:05

Attacks from the air are swift...

0:26:050:26:07

Everyone knew a gas mask was essential in an air raid.

0:26:070:26:10

Be quick in getting your masks and putting them on, but keep cool and you will always be safe.

0:26:100:26:17

So when Eileen lost hers whilst playing, she panicked.

0:26:170:26:22

When I'd got home, I'd lost me gas mask,

0:26:220:26:25

I had our Rita's but I hadn't got mine.

0:26:250:26:29

Oh, my God. So me mother had to tramp back up right up to the fields

0:26:290:26:35

and we looked all over for this gas mask.

0:26:350:26:38

Gone, lost. Oh, my God.

0:26:380:26:41

So we had to go down the ARP station to be issued with another

0:26:420:26:47

and they gave me a right telling off.

0:26:470:26:49

I was absolutely terrified of the guard telling me off,

0:26:500:26:55

but had somebody notified Hitler?

0:26:550:26:59

That was my main worry, because if he knew I had lost my gas mask

0:26:590:27:05

and knew where I lived, was he going to send these gas bombs

0:27:050:27:08

that I had been training to put my gas mask on for?

0:27:080:27:12

Oh, I were poorly. I felt sure somebody would of notified Hitler that I had lost me gas mask.

0:27:120:27:19

If you have a child of school age and wish to have him evacuated,

0:27:190:27:23

you should send him to school tomorrow, Friday,

0:27:230:27:26

with hand luggage containing the child's gas mask,

0:27:260:27:30

a change of underclothing, night clothes, shoes, spare stockings or socks,

0:27:300:27:36

a toothbrush, a comb, a towel...

0:27:360:27:39

At the outset of war, around two million children from the big towns and cities

0:27:390:27:46

were evacuated in voluntary schemes to the safety of the countryside away from the predicted air attacks.

0:27:460:27:53

Around half of all city children left on what seemed to be a great adventure.

0:27:530:27:58

But many had never been away from home before and the upheaval was greater than any had imagined.

0:27:580:28:04

It was a lottery whether a child found a good home or not and some were treated cruelly.

0:28:040:28:10

However, for the lucky ones, this could be the beginning of a new life

0:28:100:28:13

that extended their horizons forever.

0:28:130:28:16

Like Donald Bayley, the young bully from West Bromwich.

0:28:160:28:20

We looked around the house and this house was different,

0:28:200:28:24

this was what I would say now was a middle-class house,

0:28:240:28:28

very quiet, very sombre, very peaceful house.

0:28:280:28:35

And she turned out to be the most wonderful, wonderful person.

0:28:350:28:38

We became "my boys".

0:28:380:28:42

We were all "my boys", Donald and Philip.

0:28:420:28:46

Never called me Don, never called him Phil, Donald and Philip.

0:28:460:28:50

The Blitz finally began in September 1940, bringing with it terror and heartbreak

0:28:520:28:57

for the families who remained in London and big cities all over Britain.

0:28:570:29:01

For almost nine months they were the targets for nightly bombing raids

0:29:010:29:06

that would kill more than 60,000 civilians.

0:29:060:29:09

Parents and their children took refuge in a variety of shelters.

0:29:090:29:13

For David Bromage from Plymouth, it was an Anderson shelter.

0:29:130:29:17

Things really started getting bad, the raids started about five o'clock in the evening.

0:29:170:29:23

We had an Anderson shelter in our garden,

0:29:230:29:27

so we stayed there and stayed there and I think,

0:29:270:29:30

during when the night time came, suddenly there was one hellish bang.

0:29:300:29:36

We couldn't go out and look but the house must of shifted

0:29:360:29:40

from one side of the road to the other more or less,

0:29:400:29:44

then a warden, an air-raid warden, come along and said, "I'm afraid you'll have to move.

0:29:440:29:49

"You gotta go out because your house has gone.

0:29:490:29:51

"You can see from the front of the house through to the ruddy back."

0:29:510:29:55

David went to live with relatives nearby.

0:29:560:29:58

The children in blitzed cities settled into a new daily routine

0:29:580:30:04

that revolved around air-raid shelters.

0:30:040:30:06

They continued to entertain themselves inside,

0:30:060:30:10

but with the next bombing raid never far away it wasn't easy.

0:30:100:30:14

You were in there for four hours, five hours at times because the raids were so big

0:30:140:30:19

and people were just getting...

0:30:190:30:22

well, us boys were trying out games of some sort.

0:30:220:30:26

Or read a little book but you were to scared to really do very much anyway as children.

0:30:260:30:32

However, even amongst the devastation of blitzed streets,

0:30:330:30:37

the morning after a raid, the children could find adventure and excitement.

0:30:370:30:42

One of the most popular boys' games was to search for shrapnel and bomb shells.

0:30:420:30:47

When we came out of the shelter,

0:30:470:30:49

us boys, out again on to the streets, onto the bomb sites.

0:30:490:30:54

We'd go out and pick up bits of shell, bomb casings, everything like that and live incendiary bombs.

0:30:560:31:03

Well, you could barter with them very well indeed, you know,

0:31:030:31:08

nice big bomb with the fin on it and them German markings.

0:31:080:31:12

We had so many at the time we took 'em and put them on the mantelpiece, one either side.

0:31:120:31:17

The true horror and tragedy of war was never far away for the children of the Blitz.

0:31:190:31:24

It was brought home to David in the aftermath of the worst attack on Plymouth.

0:31:240:31:30

One particular bomb came down and killed five, I think it was five people.

0:31:300:31:36

Completely gone outright, the following morning,

0:31:360:31:40

we boys would scrabble around the bomb site looking for shrapnel and one thing and another

0:31:400:31:45

and on this particular...

0:31:450:31:47

I moved this stone and there was a finger...with a ring on it.

0:31:470:31:53

It just stunned us for a minute, then it made me realise it was...

0:31:550:32:01

..friends and brothers of friends of mine who had been killed.

0:32:030:32:07

Meanwhile, many of the city children who had been evacuated

0:32:100:32:13

were beginning to discover the joys of the countryside.

0:32:130:32:18

"Dear Mum and Dad,

0:32:180:32:19

"Thank you so much for the postal order.

0:32:190:32:21

"This morning I went on a horse to Westwood Farm.

0:32:210:32:26

"The horse's name is Prince."

0:32:260:32:28

We'd got a wood which was ours,

0:32:300:32:32

you could go round the edges of the fields.

0:32:320:32:34

There was a stream that ran through, you could drink out of this stream.

0:32:340:32:39

The best we'd ever seen was the recreation ground, but there wasn't a tree on there.

0:32:390:32:46

This had... You could climb the trees.

0:32:460:32:49

In fact, one thing we used to do, cos there were young willow's there,

0:32:490:32:53

we'd climb up as high as we could,

0:32:530:32:55

until we couldn't climb any higher.

0:32:550:32:58

And we'd hang on and the tree would bend slowly

0:32:580:33:02

and lowered us to the ground.

0:33:020:33:05

Sometimes, if we were lucky,

0:33:050:33:07

it would spring back up again so we could do it again.

0:33:070:33:09

The evacuees quickly learned the games played by generations of country children,

0:33:110:33:16

all of them geared to the opportunities provided by each changing season

0:33:160:33:21

and by nature's bounty.

0:33:210:33:23

One game was to pretend to be a poacher,

0:33:230:33:25

as John Hooper, evacuated from Cardiff to mid Wales, remembers.

0:33:250:33:31

The salmon came up to spawn and we used to play poaching salmon.

0:33:310:33:35

Cos the river ran right past the school and one of the boys

0:33:370:33:42

would go up the stream about 50 yards or so

0:33:420:33:45

and chuck in lumps of wood about that long, salmon-size lumps of wood.

0:33:450:33:49

And then as these little logs came down we'd hook them out, you see, land a salmon.

0:33:500:33:56

It was inevitably you'd get wet feet.

0:33:560:33:59

Some of the bigger boys would occasionally be the water bailiffs

0:33:590:34:03

and if they caught us they would naturally push us into the river.

0:34:030:34:07

So we'd go in the afternoon to school, soaking wet feet, freezing cold - anyway, loved it.

0:34:070:34:13

We sent our children out into the country for their safety.

0:34:130:34:18

And we found we'd given them more than safety.

0:34:180:34:22

We'd given them a new world.

0:34:220:34:25

In 1945, the evacuees were enjoying their last summer in the countryside.

0:34:250:34:30

By then, the experience had inspired the nation with a new vision of a better life for all its children.

0:34:300:34:37

Donald Bayley had been changed forever.

0:34:370:34:40

I think I was a different person when I came home after evacuation,

0:34:400:34:45

the aggression had gone, the absolute aggression that I had as a child

0:34:450:34:49

had totally dissipated.

0:34:490:34:52

And I think I was a more friendly person.

0:34:520:34:57

The environment in which we lived clearly has a difference,

0:34:580:35:03

I mean there's no comparison between the green fields

0:35:030:35:07

and the countryside to the back streets of West Bromwich.

0:35:070:35:11

But the cities to which the evacuees returned had been deeply scarred by the war.

0:35:120:35:19

There were social problems, one of which was an increase

0:35:190:35:21

in troublesome behaviour amongst the children who'd remained behind in the blitzed cities.

0:35:210:35:28

The disruption of family life took its toll.

0:35:280:35:31

The soldiers who returned came home to cities that were often unrecognisable to those they'd left.

0:35:310:35:36

It would take a long time to build the better future that they'd been fighting for.

0:35:360:35:42

For their children, the disruption sometimes continued as countless families

0:35:420:35:46

were forced to move around, looking for jobs and new homes.

0:35:460:35:50

All too easily the child without a settled home and friends

0:35:500:35:55

could end up an outsider, like Josie Pickering from Manchester.

0:35:550:35:59

We moved around the country a lot and it always went to a place

0:35:590:36:05

where I couldn't speak the accent,

0:36:050:36:08

and so when you went to a new school

0:36:080:36:12

the teacher would pick you out to read aloud, because you spoke differently.

0:36:120:36:18

And the kids would all take the mickey then

0:36:180:36:22

in the school playground, "You can't speak properly and all that."

0:36:220:36:25

So I used to say me prayers at night, "Please God, help me to talk like the rest of the kids."

0:36:250:36:32

So I was pronouncing the words like,

0:36:320:36:35

SOUTHERN ACCENT: "Come", "fun", "don't".

0:36:350:36:39

But really I was saying come, fun and don't.

0:36:390:36:44

So then when I learnt to speak Southern,

0:36:440:36:48

blow me down, we came back to Manchester and I spoke differently again

0:36:480:36:54

but this time the kids thought I was posh.

0:36:540:36:57

I used to make this imaginary game up, to me it was real, it wasn't imaginary then.

0:37:050:37:10

And I would sit on the outside loo and I used to think, "I'm going to escape one day."

0:37:100:37:17

And I really thought I could.

0:37:170:37:19

And I used to pack a few of my favourite toys in this little toy suitcase

0:37:190:37:25

and I'm really sad when I think of it now.

0:37:250:37:29

And I had this green umbrella with this duck handle

0:37:290:37:34

and this duck looked quite human,

0:37:340:37:38

so I used to talk to it.

0:37:380:37:40

I used to say, "One of these days, Quacks,"

0:37:410:37:44

cos that were his name, "we're going to escape, we're going to go on a train to London."

0:37:440:37:51

I'd wiggle the umbrella then so he was answering me,

0:37:510:37:56

then I'd make this noise of a train going, "Choo ch choo choo."

0:37:560:38:01

Then me mother use to shout in, "What you doing out there, you been out there for ages.

0:38:030:38:09

"And you've got jobs to do in here."

0:38:090:38:11

I had to say, "I'm coming now."

0:38:130:38:15

Post-war Britain was in a sombre mood.

0:38:170:38:20

Large swathes of many cities had been seriously damaged or destroyed by enemy bombing.

0:38:200:38:27

With almost 400,000 deaths during the war there were few streets and families

0:38:270:38:32

that did not suffer the loss of a loved one.

0:38:320:38:34

All this helped shape children's lives and imaginations.

0:38:340:38:38

When evacuee Marcia Fletcher returned to Manchester,

0:38:380:38:42

one of the favourite games she played with her friends took place in the local cemetery.

0:38:420:38:48

It was nice and quiet there, lots of wild flowers and we use to look at the statues really

0:38:480:38:54

cos there were angels, and things like that.

0:38:540:38:57

And we used to get sort of morbid and look for babies' graves

0:38:570:39:01

of which there were very many in a Victorian cemetery,

0:39:010:39:05

often four or five on the one grave.

0:39:050:39:07

Then a baby and a mum or a mum and the baby

0:39:070:39:10

and we found this very sad, we used to enjoy the misery of it, you know.

0:39:100:39:14

We use to look for graves where you know there was a lot of babies buried, and we'd sort of adopt it.

0:39:150:39:21

Or a grave that was abandoned that obviously no-one had visited for many many years.

0:39:210:39:26

And we'd adopt them and have them like our own little private garden

0:39:260:39:30

and we'd put flowers on a jam jar.

0:39:300:39:32

There was always jam jars where you got water for the flowers

0:39:320:39:35

and we might pick a few flowers that had been discarded but that were still quite fresh.

0:39:350:39:40

And some wild flowers we put in and we'd look after these graves.

0:39:400:39:45

We played in the graveyard but we did respect it.

0:39:450:39:48

We didn't walk on graves.

0:39:480:39:50

We always made sure we didn't walk on graves.

0:39:500:39:52

With the war over, the police could now give their full attention

0:39:540:39:58

to law and order on the streets and to catch any gangs of children who dared to defy them.

0:39:580:40:03

Much street play resumed where it had left off before the war,

0:40:030:40:07

and if there were minor misdemeanours

0:40:070:40:09

they were usually dealt with on the spot by the bobby on the beat.

0:40:090:40:13

A sharp rebuke, a clip round the ear or a visit to the child's home usually sufficed.

0:40:130:40:18

Maurice McGinnes and his friends from Plymouth were known to the local police.

0:40:200:40:25

They loved scrumping apples from the orchards on the outskirts.

0:40:250:40:29

You couldn't get on the wall because they used to put glass,

0:40:310:40:35

cement glass on top of the wall,

0:40:350:40:38

but then we'd get a sack,

0:40:380:40:40

put that on top of the glass and climb the wall, put our hands on top, and get the apples.

0:40:400:40:45

There was about three of us, course we were filling all your pullover up and all this.

0:40:450:40:51

Course you'd get down and you're walking out like this

0:40:510:40:55

and the policemen up there - and they were policemen, I mean six footers and big blokes.

0:40:550:41:01

"Come here!" they'd shout.

0:41:010:41:03

He's not miles away but course you'd stand still and all these apples.

0:41:030:41:08

Down he'd come and you had to put all these apples down

0:41:080:41:11

in front of him on the floor and he'd say, "What's your name?" You told him your name, where you lived.

0:41:110:41:17

No lies, you told him and he'd turn around and say, "Right, I'll be around to see your father."

0:41:170:41:23

The policeman was a respected authority figure and if children got into trouble,

0:41:230:41:29

their parents knew they had to be seen to uphold the law.

0:41:290:41:32

Dad would open the front door.

0:41:320:41:35

"Mr McGinnes?" "Yes, Constable, what is it?"

0:41:350:41:39

"Your son, Maurice, was scrumpying."

0:41:390:41:43

Come on in here, you! I don't know what I'm going to do with them.

0:41:430:41:46

Don't you let me catch you again.

0:41:460:41:47

This policeman's going to lock you up.

0:41:470:41:50

In front of the policeman, Father would say, "Right, boy, upstairs, no tea,"

0:41:500:41:54

and the policeman would say, "Right oh, Mr McGinnes."

0:41:540:41:58

And I'd go upstairs, police would be gone, and father would say,

0:41:580:42:02

"Maurice come down and finish your tea, boy." And that was it.

0:42:020:42:06

In the early 1950s, Britain was still struggling to recover from the war

0:42:100:42:14

and rationing was still in force.

0:42:140:42:16

The spirit of make-do and mend was embraced by children who made their own toy swords and bows and arrows.

0:42:160:42:22

The recent victory over Germany boosted the popularity of every kind of war game

0:42:220:42:28

and children re-lived glorious battles from World War Two in their imagination.

0:42:280:42:33

Even greater flights of fantasy could be inspired by discarded objects from the Blitz,

0:42:330:42:38

as South London girl Jo Roffey discovered.

0:42:380:42:42

We used blackout curtains as a magic carpet.

0:42:430:42:46

Oh, and I loved it,

0:42:460:42:48

and my brother, he used to make us dress up so we looked the part

0:42:480:42:52

cos he said, "You can't go to Timbuktu looking any old how.

0:42:520:42:55

"You don't know who you might bump in to."

0:42:550:42:58

He used to put my dad's waistcoat on and a tin helmet

0:42:580:43:00

and we used to get on this magic carpet and go all over the place.

0:43:000:43:05

In austerity Britain any child's toy was a luxury

0:43:070:43:11

and there was no bigger birthday treat

0:43:110:43:13

for a working class girl or boy than a pair of roller skates.

0:43:130:43:17

I wanted these roller-skates and they were 15 bob,

0:43:170:43:21

old money, that's quite a bit of money,

0:43:210:43:25

15 shillings, you could do a lot with 15 shillings in them days.

0:43:250:43:28

But my mum knew I really, really wanted these roller skates

0:43:280:43:32

and I woke up on me birthday and there they was in brown paper, wrapped up in brown paper.

0:43:320:43:37

Well I couldn't put them on my feet quick enough, I put them on me feet and I never had them off.

0:43:370:43:42

Everywhere I went. My mum would say, like, "Go down the bakers and get a loaf of bread."

0:43:420:43:47

Vooom, I used to whiz into the shop. "Oh, careful," the women used to say, "coming in here on them."

0:43:470:43:52

I said, "Well, I'm not going to be long, I only want a loaf."

0:43:520:43:55

But I wouldn't take them off.

0:43:550:43:58

Me mum use to say, "Be careful how you cross the road on them."

0:43:580:44:01

Social class continued to define play in '50s Britain.

0:44:010:44:06

And there was to be very little social mixing.

0:44:060:44:09

# If you go down in the woods today

0:44:090:44:12

# You'd better not go alone... #

0:44:120:44:14

Middle- and upper-class children grew up in a closed, chaperoned world

0:44:140:44:19

where the back garden often marked the boundary of unsupervised play.

0:44:190:44:23

Friends were vetted, and in well-to-do families all activities were supervised by nanny.

0:44:230:44:29

It could be frustrating for more adventurous children like Stella Sykes.

0:44:290:44:34

The only children we really knew, were children whose parents

0:44:340:44:38

were friends of our parents and we would be taken there

0:44:380:44:42

and our nannies would usually be friends.

0:44:420:44:44

Because everybody I grew up with had nannies,

0:44:440:44:47

all called by the name of the family they worked for,

0:44:470:44:50

of course, never by their own name.

0:44:500:44:52

And we would go and have tea with, I don't know,

0:44:520:44:58

John and Jane, with nanny,

0:44:580:45:00

and there nanny would make an arrangement for them to come back and have tea with us.

0:45:000:45:07

We did used to escape. We were quite good at escaping the nannies.

0:45:070:45:11

The one thing we really wanted to do, loved more than anything,

0:45:140:45:18

was to go down to Tenterden and play on "The Rec" - the recreation ground.

0:45:180:45:22

Which was forbidden with nanny.

0:45:220:45:23

Nanny, being the most appalling snob,

0:45:230:45:26

we weren't to go there because the common children would be playing there.

0:45:260:45:30

We weren't suppose to mix with rough children, not her little charges.

0:45:300:45:34

But, of course, the only thing we wanted to do was go down there!

0:45:340:45:38

And for some extraordinary reason, we were allowed to drink Lucozade,

0:45:380:45:42

but Tizer was forbidden, because that was common, according to nanny!

0:45:420:45:48

So the only thing we ever wanted to do was to drink Tizer and meet these rough children, exciting children.

0:45:480:45:54

You knew you was late when I shouted you this morning.

0:45:540:45:57

I overslept a bit meself.

0:45:570:45:59

Now look, it's a quarter to eight by the right time - that clock's not fast this morning, you know.

0:45:590:46:04

Most working-class parents with larger families

0:46:040:46:07

simply wanted to get their children out from under their feet so the day's work could be done.

0:46:070:46:12

Even in the bomb-damaged cities, there were still enough parks and council playgrounds

0:46:120:46:17

within walking distance to keep children occupied all day.

0:46:170:46:20

One of them was Rene Ranahan from Bristol.

0:46:200:46:24

You went out in the morning and you didn't come back till tea time.

0:46:240:46:29

Your mother used to say,

0:46:290:46:30

"I don't want to see you till tea time, out! Go on!"

0:46:300:46:33

And off we used to go, in all winds and weathers,

0:46:330:46:36

to the park with our little fishing net,

0:46:360:46:39

with our little jam jar, do the fishing, you know.

0:46:390:46:42

Put the little tiddlers in the jar.

0:46:420:46:45

And then we used to go off then, we used to find the swings and the roundabout.

0:46:450:46:51

If you were on the swings, if you could go over the bars of the swings, you were brave.

0:46:510:46:57

And I never, I never ever.

0:46:570:46:59

But some of the girls that were ever so brave, they used to let the boys push them,

0:46:590:47:05

and push them up so high that the swings literally went over the top of the bars of the swings.

0:47:050:47:12

Oh, my heart used to come up in me mouth with fright, I'd say, "Oh, I could never do that!

0:47:120:47:17

"Don't ask me to do that, I could never do that."

0:47:170:47:20

In their search for adventure, gangs of boys discovered new areas to play in.

0:47:220:47:29

Daring each other to take risks to prove themselves.

0:47:290:47:32

Occasionally, accidents did happen and tests of courage ended in tears.

0:47:320:47:37

But the abiding memory is of the freedom and excitement

0:47:370:47:40

of growing up and learning limits, away from adult control.

0:47:400:47:44

Robert Morris grew up in a village near Leicester.

0:47:460:47:51

We had a group of trees in the field below the street where I lived and they were known as The Climbers.

0:47:510:47:58

And it was a range of trees,

0:47:580:48:01

so the art was you'd climb a tree, then you'd progress

0:48:010:48:07

across the canopy, as it would now be called, and get down on the far one.

0:48:070:48:11

If you fell off in between, you went back and started again.

0:48:110:48:15

One of the boys said, "I bet you daren't get on that branch

0:48:150:48:19

"and do like they do in the circus,

0:48:190:48:21

"where you hoop your legs over and hang upside down off the branch."

0:48:210:48:29

And I distinctly remember saying, "No, no, I don't think so,

0:48:290:48:33

"because if I fall, I'll probably land on my head."

0:48:330:48:35

And they said, "You coward, you cowardy-custard, you daren't do it!"

0:48:350:48:39

So bravado kicked in, and I picked the branch,

0:48:390:48:45

got into position, then realised it hurts like hell at the back of your...

0:48:450:48:49

cos you're on a knobbly wooden branch.

0:48:490:48:52

And I must have tried to shift position and down I came.

0:48:520:48:56

But as luck had it, in the process of falling, I did the complete turn and landed on my feet.

0:48:560:49:02

SINGING

0:49:020:49:05

Well-to-do girls were carefully protected from any contact with common children in the street.

0:49:050:49:11

But when they were sent away to boarding school,

0:49:110:49:14

they discovered that behind its respectable image, lay a dormitory sub-culture every bit as tough.

0:49:140:49:19

One of those initiated was Stella Sykes.

0:49:190:49:23

When I first went to my boarding school, I took Teddy with me

0:49:230:49:26

because he had been my constant companion, and he was, after all, chief of the toys at the nursery.

0:49:260:49:32

And when we had the dolls' tea party, Teddy was always the host.

0:49:320:49:37

One of the girls snatched him and they threw him around the dormitory

0:49:400:49:44

and I was backwards and forwards trying to grab him.

0:49:440:49:47

And one of them got him with her nail scissors, she cut his nose off

0:49:470:49:50

which was really, really upsetting and actually, I remember another thing too.

0:49:500:49:56

They stabbed him, they cut his tummy open

0:49:560:49:58

to see if I'd got anything hidden inside him, which I hadn't.

0:49:580:50:01

I did cry. I remember sobbing my heart out about Teddy, but there wasn't anything I could do.

0:50:040:50:10

They were bigger, they were older, they knew what was going on. I didn't. So I probably...

0:50:100:50:15

I supposed I just had to be as stoic as I could,

0:50:150:50:19

but I don't think it was very stoic.

0:50:190:50:22

I mean, at eight, one isn't really very well equipped to deal with what seemed to me like a mob.

0:50:220:50:28

It was probably only three or four girls, but it seemed like a big mob!

0:50:280:50:31

The cinema provided a welcome escape from the harsh realities of life in early '50s Britain.

0:50:310:50:37

This was the golden age of Saturday-morning matinee shows

0:50:370:50:41

and cinema clubs, with three quarters of Britain's children attending weekly.

0:50:410:50:46

Good morning, kids. Welcome to another matinee...

0:50:460:50:48

The local cinema was a great meeting place for boys and girls from all over the neighbourhood

0:50:480:50:53

and there were plenty of opportunities for wheeling and dealing before the lights went down.

0:50:530:50:58

..the great collie that you saw in the film A Mystery in the Mine. Here they come...

0:50:580:51:02

This boy said to me,

0:51:040:51:07

"Have you got any money?" So I said, "I've got a penny, why?"

0:51:070:51:11

He said, "Do you want to buy something?"

0:51:110:51:13

So I said, "What is it?"

0:51:130:51:15

He said, "Put your hand in my pocket".

0:51:150:51:18

So me brother was sat next to me on the other side and I said to him, "What shall I do?"

0:51:200:51:26

He said, "Well, have a look what he's got to sell!"

0:51:260:51:29

So I put me hand in his pocket and it was a white mouse, so I bought it off him for a penny.

0:51:290:51:37

The main attraction was usually a cowboy film, hugely popular, especially with the boys.

0:51:380:51:44

The ritual battle between good and evil played out by their fantasy heroes never failed to please.

0:51:440:51:51

It was a safe place where every boy and girl could let go and create pandemonium in the darkness,

0:52:000:52:06

often driving cinema managers to distraction.

0:52:060:52:09

One of the imaginary cowboys was Robert Morris.

0:52:110:52:16

We'd got a very strict manager and he wouldn't have any nonsense.

0:52:160:52:20

And if the kids were bouncing up and down too much, he'd come in and say,

0:52:200:52:24

"Any more of this and the film stops and you're out".

0:52:240:52:27

And you'd think, "Like hell we are! We've paid thruppence."

0:52:270:52:30

So you'd sit like little choir boys through the rest of the film and then explode when you got out!

0:52:300:52:36

But you were restless.

0:52:360:52:38

Because you'd seen these cowboys, every kid that came out of that cinema was on horseback.

0:52:420:52:49

And away you went...

0:52:490:52:51

SLAPPING ..all the way down home.

0:52:510:52:53

Imaginary reins, "Whoa!" Rearing up if a car, which was rarity, came.

0:52:530:52:57

"Whoa, BOY!" and let the car go on across the road.

0:52:570:53:01

This rough and tumble fantasy world of Cowboys and Indians was mostly a boy thing.

0:53:020:53:07

Any girls who wanted to join in had to bargain hard to make sure

0:53:070:53:11

they didn't end up with the less glamorous roles the boys didn't want to play.

0:53:110:53:15

But being a baddie could have its advantages.

0:53:150:53:19

I said, "I bags to be a cowboy

0:53:190:53:22

"or the Indian chief."

0:53:220:53:24

So they said, "Well, you was the Indian chief last week."

0:53:240:53:27

So I'd have to take turns. They were all lads that I played with.

0:53:270:53:31

And then when I was the cowboy,

0:53:320:53:35

I was the one that rode into town, the baddy

0:53:350:53:39

with me two guns and I was shooting everybody.

0:53:390:53:43

All these lads had to die then, they would all fall,

0:53:430:53:46

"Aah", on the floor, playing the part, pretending to be dead.

0:53:460:53:50

And we had really good times.

0:53:500:53:52

Good times for middle-class girls also often involved riding, but on a real horse or pony.

0:53:540:54:00

In the early '50s, pony clubs all over Britain blossomed

0:54:000:54:03

as parents indulged their daughters' love affair with their very own pony.

0:54:030:54:08

The girls entered a fantasy world, encouraged by countless adventure books,

0:54:080:54:12

in which they imagined themselves and their ponies to be brave heroines saving the day.

0:54:120:54:17

They were absolutely magical ponies.

0:54:170:54:19

My second pony, I was told she'd been a circus pony.

0:54:190:54:24

Because if you asked her her age, she was probably about 15 at this point,

0:54:240:54:28

she would pat the ground four times with her paw.

0:54:280:54:30

And I was utterly convinced she'd been trained in the circus!

0:54:300:54:33

But I'm sure this was just a figment of my imagination.

0:54:330:54:38

But I loved the idea, this circus pony, and we were going to travel the world together, you know.

0:54:380:54:44

It was the way we went off into our imagination.

0:54:440:54:48

And living of course as we did, with plenty of land, I'd go off on my pony and...

0:54:480:54:53

I was always going to be rescuing people from burning buildings, or rescuing people trapped somewhere.

0:54:530:54:59

With my plucky pony, we'd be pulling the log off, you know, to rescue someone's trapped leg or something.

0:54:590:55:05

# There was a lovely princess... #

0:55:060:55:08

Unsupervised outdoor play flourished everywhere in the 1950s.

0:55:080:55:13

Whatever social class they came from, the most popular girls' games

0:55:130:55:17

conjured up a fairy tale world of handsome princes and wicked witches.

0:55:170:55:21

And they were usually very inclusive, with each girl taking a turn.

0:55:210:55:27

"A wicked fairy cast a spell, cast a spell, cast a spell!

0:55:270:55:31

"A wicked fairy cast a spell, long, long ago!

0:55:310:55:35

"The princess slept for a hundred years..."

0:55:350:55:37

# She fell asleep for a hundred years

0:55:370:55:40

# A hundred years, a hundred years... #

0:55:400:55:44

It was one of those games where we all did it.

0:55:440:55:46

Everybody was the princess and everybody was the wicked fairy.

0:55:460:55:50

And everybody with the swords and briers and everyone was the prince.

0:55:500:55:53

So you were all...

0:55:530:55:55

we quite liked that, because we were all the same, you know.

0:55:550:55:58

Because sometimes in games where you were picked out,

0:55:580:56:01

there are often children who aren't picked out, you know.

0:56:010:56:03

And you could say, "Dip, dip, dip, my blue ship, sailing on the..."

0:56:030:56:07

And if you know someone's coming up who you don't like, you could say, "wa-ter" instead of "water".

0:56:070:56:13

CHILDREN CHANT A RHYME

0:56:130:56:15

This was a unique children's tradition, with strong democratic instincts shared by the boys too.

0:56:230:56:30

You definitely had phases.

0:56:320:56:33

If the majority said, "We're off this game, we're on the other," then that's what you went to.

0:56:330:56:39

If you didn't, you just didn't get a game, you weren't invited.

0:56:390:56:42

So you went with the majority and once the decision was made, "We're on to ciggies."

0:56:420:56:47

Or "Johnny on the Mop Stick, ye-es!"

0:56:470:56:50

And away you go.

0:56:500:56:51

To the children of the early '50s, it seemed as if these games would last forever.

0:56:560:57:02

Patterns of children's outdoor play had survived the disruption of war

0:57:030:57:08

and had changed little since the first decades of the century.

0:57:080:57:11

"On the mountain lived a lady, who she is we do not know.

0:57:120:57:18

"All she wants is gold and silver, all she wants is a nice young man."

0:57:180:57:24

And then they would skip out of the rope and the next one would skip in and then the song would start again.

0:57:240:57:30

# ..Who she is I cannot tell All she wants is gold and silver... #

0:57:300:57:38

"Eachy peachy pear plum, out goes Tom Thumb."

0:57:380:57:42

Then you go for through it again, "Eachy peachy pear plum", so it's

0:57:420:57:45

one up, one at the wall, or you can do one up one over, or one under your leg.

0:57:450:57:50

But of course, soon as you dropped the ball, if you dropped the ball, you were out. You gotta start again.

0:57:500:57:55

CHILDREN CHANT A RHYME

0:57:550:57:58

But from the mid-'50s onwards, children's play would be transformed

0:58:010:58:05

by a revolution in the British way of life,

0:58:050:58:07

which brought greater affluence, mass car ownership and modern housing estates.

0:58:070:58:13

Each new generation had more of everything - except the freedom to play outdoors.

0:58:130:58:19

Could children's creative instincts survive and flourish in the modern world?

0:58:210:58:27

This is the question behind the continuing story of children's play in Britain.

0:58:270:58:33

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:500:58:53

E-mail [email protected]

0:58:530:58:56

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