Moving Indoors Hop, Skip and Jump: The Story of Children's Play

This is the story of children's play and how their games have changed

in Britain over the last half century.

50 years ago, the school playground echoed to the sounds

of traditional games

passed on from one generation of children to the next.

But the social revolution that transformed Britain since the '60s

led to fears that this centuries-old world of children's play

was disappearing.

Folklorists documented games and songs from what they believed

would be the last generation of children to play them.

# Did you ever ever ever in your long-legged life

# Meet a long-legged sailor with a long-legged wife

# No, I never never never in me long-legged life

# Met a long-legged sailor with a long-legged wife

# Bye-bye, baby Baby, goodbye... #

Soon the school playground would be ringing to very different songs.

Pop music, boy bands and the spread of television into almost every home in Britain

brought new dreams to the nation's children.

No boy or girl was too young to be a teenybopper

as growing up was commercialised

and everyone was encouraged to be a dedicated follower of fashion.

My favourite outfit of all time was my Bay City Rollers trousers

and they had Bay City Rollers down the side and all the tartan

and I had my Bay City Rollers t-shirt on.

I thought I was fantastic. I was only about seven.

I thought it was ace and I wouldn't take it off.

Hip-hop, the new black music and dance culture of the '80s,

was much more than a fashion statement.

Originating in America, it became a source of pride

and identity for boys growing up in Britain's inner cities.

To be able to do the best windmill or backspin was so exciting.

My personal specialist move was the backspin, which I just...

whipped the legs round and spin, and freeze!

# Have you ever, ever, ever in your long-legged life... #

Yet in the multi-cultural playgrounds of modern Britain,

traditional songs and games survived.

The worst fears of the folklorists weren't realised.

But how much have we gained - and how much have we lost?

This is the rich and surprising story of Children's Play in Britain.

The mid to late 1950s were the high point of outdoor play in Britain.

The benefits of the welfare state,

better health care for children and an improving standard of living

all helped create a heyday of the singing street.

Girls and boys enjoyed a huge repertoire of games -

with most of the singing games played by the girls,

like Laura Hopkins from Manchester.

In the playground particularly, there's a nice big space.

Boys just charge around. Boys were happy even then

with just a football and if no football, they'd find a stone.

But girls like to be organised,

and we used to play lots of games in a circle holding hands and one was,

# In and out the fairy bluebells In and out the fairy bluebells

# In and out the fairy bluebells I choose you. #

And you'd all hold hands and one would go, weave in and out,

you'd hold yours slightly raised to make little archways

and that person would weave in and out and then come to somebody

and pat them on the shoulder.

# This little girl I pat on the shoulder

# This little girl I pat on the shoulder

# This little girl I pat on the shoulder

# I choose you. #

And you were quite honoured then and you'd hold hands

and both weave in and out.

Ball games were especially popular

and were often accompanied by repetitive, nonsense rhymes.

They were part of a children's culture passed down

from one generation to the next.

Angela Chilvers grew up in Great Yarmouth.

One of the songs was, "One a-lairy two a-lairy three, four, five,"

which was just banging the balls up

against the wall but then you got a bit complicated - you said

one an uppy, two an uppy three four five,

one and over, two and over three four five, one and dropsy, two and dropsy

three four five.

You kept going until you actually dropped the ball,

then it was the next person's turn.

But the uppy was like that, one two three and uppy

four five six and uppy, but it was better up against a wall

than it is sitting here doing it like that.

In the '50s, traditional games like marbles

could still capture a boy's imagination and on a good day,

his pockets would be full of marbles won in competitions.

Working-class children played outdoors a lot -

this was their territory, a stage for hundreds of games.

Graffiti was frowned upon by parents but was used everywhere by children

to amuse themselves and mark out their territory.

Tommy Smith grew up in the Glasgow Gorbals.

As a kid I used to do drawings

on the pavement and the close walls with chalk, and all my friends

used to say, "Tommy, do an Indian or a cowboy," things like that,

I was always getting into trouble with my neighbours.

They always knew it was me.

"Look at the mess you're making on the walls'.

Most kids actually drew on the walls, I mean...

graffiti was everywhere, you know.

Kids used to put names of the gangs on the wall and different things.

If someone got somebody into trouble,

they would put their name on the wall. maybe...

"Joe's mum's a clype" like a grass.

If somebody got in trouble and it was Joe's mum that shopped us,

we'd put on the wall "Joe's mum's a clype."

The film-makers and folklorists who documented

the profusion of street games

that flourished in Britain during the '50s were impressed

by the children's democratic instincts - especially the girls.

They were inclusive in their play,

with friends taking turns in choosing who did what.

Girls might be the favoured daughter at home,

but when they came out to play on the streets,

they were treated just the same as anyone else.

You didn't have a kingpin outside.

You were all equal outside.

The only reason I was a leader indoors

was because I was first born and I was older than them.

But when I was outside with my friend June and my friend Pearl and Valerie

and one or two more of them,

we were all the same age group so you didn't have a boss.

Nobody could be bossy

because if you were, you soon got knocked down.

Playing together every day on the streets,

girls inevitably had their disagreements and upsets.

Most, however, would be resolved by the children themselves

without adult interference.

It was all part of growing up and the children of the '50s

recognise how important this was in teaching them social skills.

If you were losing, or things weren't going your way

in the game, you'd go in and your mum...

no sympathy for you cos she knew what had gone on, that there'd been

a bit of a disagreement, you know,

you'd got to sort it out yourself, that's what playing out's about.

And your mum, you know, would call you bluff and say

"Better get your pyjamas on - it's probably time for bed anyway,

"it's getting late. You've got school tomorrow,"

and that's when you probably thought

"I'll just go out for ten more minutes,

"to see if they're still playing that game,"

or" I've thought of a better game."

As city children grew a little older,

they looked to extend their horizons

and dreamt of bigger adventures

beyond the immediate confines of their street or neighbourhood.

Yet for children living in the poorest areas of the big cities

and ports like Glasgow,

the opportunities to explore different places to play

were few and far between.

Turf wars between rival gangs in neighbouring streets and districts

meant that children only rarely dared venture

outside their own patch.

Every street had its own gang.

You could go so far and someone would say, "That's Tommy Smith,

or George Lee, "They shouldn't be here," so you got chased

and this was the way it worked you know.

You'd would chance it.

You started to chance it and venture further out

and you thought it was great if you were in somebody else's territory

and you could get something and go back to your own

without being caught or getting chased.

So we had all these...

alleys and different ways we could get back.

If we got chased we had it planned.

We could run over to Pollokshaws Road

and climb over the coal bins.

Then you knew once you got to Hospital Street you were safe.

I had cousins and aunts and uncles stayed there

so this is how your mind worked, you know.

Children who grew up on the remoter parts

of Britain's 7,000-mile coastline inhabited a very different world.

Free to roam on the seashore and the rocks, their imagination ran wild.

Every day brought new adventures for village children like John Harris.

The beach to us was a playground to explore but not a bucket and spade,

not a sandcastle thing.

We explored the rock pools, we wanted to go and find caves,

caverns - we lived in a fantasy world at times. We were pirates.

One of the highlights of the year, for country children everywhere,

occurred when the circus arrived in town.

This was a time when many smaller circuses encouraged direct contact

between children and their animals

to help promote interest in their performances.

The circus elephants provided a glimpse into a distant exotic world

that could inspire new fantasy games for the children who saw them.

We would stand there in sheer excitement,

to come within feet of an animal.

I mean, we didn't realise then they come from Africa or Indian.

I mean, it was a massive animal

and we were allowed as children to

walk with the keepers.

They always, when they unloaded them,

took them down on the beach and let the elephants have

a whale of a time on the beach

and we as children were actually allowed to touch them

and I never forget,

one lifted me up on its trunk and...

I cried with excitement.

You really felt that your whole life had been lifted,

long after the circus had gone.

You were still fantasising you were riding an elephant

through the beach or somewhere.

The romance of outdoor play in both city and country in the '50s

is captured by the love affair of the nation's children

with steam railways and trainspotting.

It was an activity that appealed more or less exclusively to boys.

Girls just didn't get how important it was

to collect every number of every engine in the land.

This obsession drove boys to spend much of their spare time

standing on station platforms in their quest to spot them all...

..like Barry McQueen.

You use to have this book and in there it would have every number

of every steam engine in Great Britain

on all the regions and, of course,

the electrics and the diesels when they started coming in.

What you had to do is spot these trains, then you'd underline them.

Our region was The London Midland region.

We had Patriots, we had Jubilees,

the Royal Scots, Princess Royals, Duchesses, Britannias

and they were the namers.

Pocket money would be saved up

and spent on trips to faraway stations and sheds.

And when you used to get to these, these places

like Crewe or York and Doncaster and there was nothing to see

apart from about 100 trainspotters from all over the country

on the end of the platform.

But the old world of children's outdoor play

was about to be swept away

and it began with an enormous increase in road traffic

and car ownership from the late '50s onwards.

Busier and more dangerous roads posed a major threat

to children's safety and to the way working-class communities

used their streets as a playground.

To begin with, the children turned the new danger

into a game of chance, like East End girl, Lorraine Kavanagh.

That became a play opportunity, unfortunately - you'd play

chicken in the road and who could get the other side.

The chicken in the road is who gets nearest the car

before you get across the other side of the road.

And, you know, you'd get, "Ohhh!"

where it was a real close one.

You are gambling with death

whenever you cross a road without thinking.

Constant road safety campaigns

warned of the threat to children's lives.

However much you may feel like it, never play in the street.

And never, ever dash out into the road.

But there was only limited success.

In the '50s and '60s, the number of children seriously

injured or killed each year on the roads remained alarmingly high.

The tradition of playing on the streets was deeply ingrained.

We were playing and we was so involved in the game.

I think it was something like five-all or something like that.

I know we weren't taking notice of what was happening around us

at the time and a car came round the corner

and this boy, we didn't have time to tell him

that this car was behind him. All I heard was a thud

and then silence.

He was just covered in blood. It's just bringing it all back to me now.

I hadn't even thought about it before.

I can't remember the boy's name.

Yet, the following day, the street games continued as usual.

With overcrowded homes, there was simply nowhere else to play.

After that it became a token, like a trophy, you know,

the blood in the road was the trophy.

Um, and all kids would look at it and say that that was his blood.

I mean, thank God he lived.

The first adventure playgrounds, created from the '50s onwards,

recognised that the streets were becoming too dangerous for play

and that children needed a safer alternative.

In these ramshackle worlds,

they could take risks without endangering their lives.

# Good golly, Miss Molly! #

As the adventure playground developed,

Chicken In The Road didn't seem so interesting any more.

Having the risk put in to a place where it was allowed

to do these things, allowed to have

the adrenaline rush, allowed to have your heart beating

at God knows how many beats a minute, that was great.

Older brothers and sisters supervised

the play of the younger ones, just as they had in the street.

It was a hidden rule that you had to develop

and go through the phases and it was just accepted,

you know, that a five-year-old would not climb up and go on the swing,

because the other ones would say, "No, no, down,"

because they knew the danger for that five-year-old.

And it was great to think,

"I'm eight now - I can have a go on the swing"

or, "Oh, I'm ten, I can go round there,"

and start running this bit.

It was wonderful. It was a great, great time for me.

In some of the poorest parts of Britain like the Glasgow Gorbals,

children still enjoyed the freedom of the streets.

Few here could afford cars, but there were even greater dangers

facing boys and girls growing up in an area

legendary for its everyday violence.

The children were all very familiar with drunkenness,

crime and even murder,

and it all came out in their songs and their games,

as Colin MacFarlane remembers.

We were out playing football and all the pubs were coming out and it was

quite a light night in Glasgow, a summer's night

and these two drunks came out and they were swearing.

This other guy, much to our surprise, pulled out an open razor,

one of these shaving razors,

and slashed the guy with one swoop across the throat.

As the guy got slashed, he held his throat

and the blood began to spout into the air like a fountain.

The guy held his throat and collapsed onto the street

and the guy who did the murder shouted,

"If you tell anybody about that, there'll be trouble.

"Nobody saw nothing!" And then he ran off.

About an hour later, the police arrived

and they drew white chalk marks around the guy's body.

They took the guy's body away and the next day we were out

in a bright summer's morning playing in the streets

and one of the girls decided to draw hopscotch marks

inside the chalked image of a dead man.

So there we were, all these kids playing hopscotch.

One of the girls began to sing,

"Murder, Murder, Polis, three stairs up.

"The woman on the middle floor, hurt me with a cup.

"Ma heid's all bleeding and ma face is cut.

"Murder, Murder, Polis, three stairs up."

Murder Polis at the time

meant that you were having a diabolical situation

and one of the neighbours said to me,

"It really is Murder Polis living across from that pub."

Living in cramped tenement slums, the Gorbals boys and girls

spent almost all their free time on the streets.

Despite the poverty that surrounded them,

they thrived on the independence they enjoyed from adult control,

and living by their wits,

they managed to turn a bleak urban landscape

into an imaginative and exciting world of play.

The Gorbals had a soundtrack and the soundtrack was the kids

singing in the background playing and no matter what you were doing,

you'd always hear kids singing.

You would hear things like,

"My maw's a millionaire, blue eyes and curly hair,

"sitting among the Eskimos,

"playing a game of dominoes."

When you went into the back courts, there was lots of things to do

and we'd been to the pictures one day,

we were watching this thing about safaris.

It was amazing, this Africa thing - people were hunting things

and there were elephants running about.

We thought, well, we've got our own wildlife here, we've got rats.

We'll start doing a sort of Gorbals Safari.

So we started to hunt down as many rats as possible

and we became sort of rat catchers, amateur rat catchers.

The middle class childhood could not have been more different.

Outdoor play and fantasies took place in the protected setting

of suburban back gardens.

The parents' aim was to guard their children's innocence

against the dangers of the modern world.

One way was to encourage

an appreciation of the wonders of nature.

Linda Shanson was a dreamy, romantic north London girl.

I lived very much in my imagination when I was a child.

I was quite serious a lot of the time,

trying to figure out what was going on around me.

I don't actually remember the first poems that I wrote.

I must of just been playing with words,

but I have found in my mother's diary where I had written

one of my first poems, and it goes like this:

"It was a summer's morning, In the middle of July

"I dreamt of hours passing Very slowly by

"I dreamt of all the colours, Yellow, red and blue

"I dreamt of us together, Me and you."

Growing up in the suburbs and in semi-rural retreats,

middle and upper class children enjoyed more traditional games

like collecting and playing conkers. There was a new reverence

for what seemed like innocent and natural forms of play

a world away from the dangers of the modern streets and cities.

One child who adored conkers was Nimmy March,

the adopted daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Richmond.

I remember a song about collecting conkers,

# Conkers, we're collecting conkers

# We're trying hard to find the biggest and the best

# Conkers, I'm collecting conkers... #

Something about, "it's gonna beat the rest". That sort of thing.

To be the conker champion was the ambition of most boys

and they did everything they could to win,

but Nimmy was determined to beat them at their own game.

Lots of, you know, wily shenanigans

going on around conker playing and it was considered very much

to be a boys' thing, but I really loved it.

One person would be the challenger,

holding your string up and holding your conker up and making sure that

you're not to close to each other

and working out the length of your string,

and missing because you were wrong about the length of your string,

and the disappointment and then, you know, you get the cocky boys

standing there because they know they are going to win.

But in '60s Britain, there were only a few remote rural areas

truly free from the encroachments of modern life,

where childhood play echoed a centuries-old tradition.

In years gone by, children's work and play

had been closely interwoven, all shaped by the changing seasons.

Work often became play for Thomas Jones and his brother William

on their small family Welsh hill farm.

I can remember right from a very, quite young age being,

well, I felt, a very important part of every aspect of the farming.

I can never, ever remember being bored.

I can never, ever remember saying to my mum or dad,

"What can we do next?"

Rounding up and breaking in the Welsh mountain ponies was one of

the jobs the children were expected to help with from a very young age.

I've got a photograph which shows my brother and I,

he'd have been five. I'd have been three years old,

actually holding a Welsh mountain pony foal,

which would have been about six months old.

Having a tug-of-war with the foal to actually see who was the strongest

and eventually we would win the battle

and the foal would become quiet enough to be able to ride.

'Yes, it's Crackerjack!'

The coming of television into almost every home in Britain

would help transform children's play more than anything else

in the second half of the 20th century.

The children of the '60s were the first real television generation.

They began to timetable outdoor play

around favourite television shows like Crackerjack.

One avid viewer of '60s children's television was Shabnam Mahmood

who grew up in Yorkshire.

TV was massive in our lives.

I use to come home from school round about 3:30pm, 4pm,

and the TV would go on straight away

and I used to watch all the children's programmes.

Here's a couple of bells that are very easy indeed to make.

You need one of these bleach bottles,

and what you do is take the bit off here...

'Blue Peter used to influence me a lot.

'One particular thing I remember was,'

at Christmas time, they got two coat hangers, stuck them together,

put tinsel round it and hung baubles from it,

and that looked like a Christmas decoration you could put

in your front window, and I made that - with the help of Mum as well,

because she quite liked all that as well.

Television and radio helped bring a new urban soundtrack

into children's lives, which would also influence their play.

Rock and roll music and the rise of the teenager

gave children new dreams.

They imagined themselves to be popstars.

Derek Cleary from Liverpool spent less time playing in the streets

and more time at home practising his guitar.

I enjoyed staying in.

Whereas I'd been that used to being out with all the kids

and knocking round the block, I'd have kids calling for me.

Any excuse at all, I'd want to stay in.

I'd go up into the bedroom and I'd get the guitar.

I'd take the guitar up and I'd start practising on the chords.

The Shadows were great.

I went to see them live in Liverpool at the ABC with a friend of mine.

They were just fantastic, and that just steered me on.

I was definitely going to start learning some of The Shadows numbers.

Using his friend's record player, 13-year-old Derek

taught himself to play by ear.

We used to go in his back kitchen.

He'd keep playing it on and off, taking the needle off

and putting it back on again and taking it off and back on again.

I'd show him the rhythm and I played the lead to it.

I think within about six months,

I must have learned quite a lot of Shadows numbers off to a tee

and I was chuffed to bits and all the kids loved it.

I felt like a star. I felt like I was in The Shadows.

Television could also help inspire girls to play football.

At a time when they were discouraged from taking up the sport,

Shabnam Mahmood became the best player in the neighbourhood,

and, unusually for a northerner, she supported Chelsea.

'I was passionate about football.'

Being a northerner I supported Chelsea and I used to play football

every night with the local boys and I just used to love it.

Of course, being a Chelsea supporter, when I was playing football,

in my mind I was Peter Osgood, the number nine,

dribbling the ball and scoring the goal.

It didn't occur to me then that they were men and I'm a woman

and I can't be Peter Osgood, I can't be Ray Wilkins, but in my mind

I was them on the football pitch, playing in the FA Cup final.

The '50s and '60s were a golden age of science fiction comics and films,

pushing children's imagination into new frontiers.

'Imagine yourself as one of the crew

'of this faster-than-light spaceship of the future.'

Forbidden Planet was one of many cult movies

which popularised stories of heroic adventures in space,

a fantasy that the toy industry soon began selling to children,

like Lancashire boy, Steve Wakefield.

We just couldn't get enough of space.

I mean, there were American films like Forbidden Planet

and there was Robbie the Robot, you know, the famous robot.

We all wanted to have Robbies.

The '60s space race made the fantasy real.

Now playgrounds were full of boys playing at being astronauts.

We were absolutely captivated by the space race then.

You would start to do the things that space people did.

We would get washing lines and tie them onto us

as if we were floating out into space.

We would make all the movements very slowly, you know what I mean?

We said, "Oh, we better pull him back in", and we'd have to pull him in.

But in the mid-'60s, a new threat to children's freedom emerged.

The body found on the Yorkshire moors yesterday

has been identified as that of John Kilbride,

the 12-year-old boy who disappeared from his home nearly two years ago.

The Moors murders,

one of the most sensational television news stories of all time,

marked the beginning of a new era of parental fear

for children's safety outdoors.

Child murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley helped to

change the nation's attitude towards children's outdoor play.

As the Moors murders story unfolded the horror of child abduction

and a fear of strangers began to take hold.

When they were arrested, they were put on trial

and the details came out of the cruel deaths that these children had faced.

It was so shocking in those days people didn't really talk about it,

but as kids we knew something terrible had happened

to those children, even though we didn't know the details.

It was almost as if innocence had gone, do you know what I mean?

And so we...

Previous to that I'd been able to go off and play down by the canal,

all sorts of things, but it used to be, "Oh, you can go out for an hour",

or "Just go to the end of the street."

That began to curtail what we did.

The freedom of the streets children had once enjoyed

would also be curtailed

by long-running slum clearance programmes, which saw thousands

of Victorian terraced streets, like these in Salford, condemned,

to make way for modern estates.

But the demolition of neighbourhoods often took years to complete

and the children of the last families to move out

enjoyed a final opportunity for fun and games in the ruins.

One of the boys playing here was Paul Ramsbottom.

You had all these houses, that people once lived in, now empty,

so it was an adventure area for children.

We'd go and make dens, and if somebody moved out

we'd get all the furniture and stack it on the bonfire,

and if we got bored we used to have target practise with the windows.

We just used to throw a half brick through them.

Nobody bothered because they were coming down the following day.

These children were the last generation to enjoy

some Salford street games that had changed little for a century.

They were witnessing the death of a community

in which home and outdoor play were closely bound together.

I felt a little bit lost.

I'd look at the area and I'd see the bulldozer coming down,

and I'd see me wall falling in

and I'd think, "I used to sleep in that bedroom.

"That was my little haven,

"my world, that little room."

Bit by bit, I was watching the roof fall in,

me mum's and dad's bedroom caved in and it was just a rubble.

I just thought, that's so strange, one minute it's there

and the next minute it's gone.

Growing up in the tower blocks that replaced the terraced streets

would be a very different experience for the next generation.

On anonymous estates, the dangers posed by strangers

was a constant worry for parents.

'A door...'

They used television to keep children occupied indoors

and out of harm's way in the streets below.

Keith Dover grew up in a tenement block in east London in the '60s.

There were certain things you just couldn't do.

You couldn't go there, you couldn't go there.

If you did, you had to say who you were with

and what time you'd be back.

Even though I was allowed to play downstairs with various friends,

I always knew my mother would probably be looking down on you.

Even though that area there was no cars, there was always that sense

you were being watched and I could only go so far within a certain area.

I couldn't go out of sight, so to speak.

'This is my brother, George.

'This is Mummy.

'She is always telling us we must never talk to strangers,

'no matter how nice they are.'

Public information films, warning of the dangers of strangers,

helped to create an atmosphere of suspicion,

a world away from the trust enjoyed in the old communal streets.

It was instilled into you, "Don't talk to strangers."

"Don't take sweets off a stranger,

"don't talk to this person, that person."

'If someone you don't know offers you something, always refuse.

'Never, ever, talk to strangers.'

You'd guess there was other people out there with other motives,

even though I didn't understand them at the time.

Even in the middle class suburbs, the out-of-school play of children

became more structured and closely supervised.

One of the advantages of ballet for young girls,

was that it could be turned into a game,

played in the safety of the home.

Amongst the many girls of the '60s who dreamt of

being a dancing princess, was Londoner, Francis Lundy.

My parents had a lot of classical music in the house

which I used to listen to a lot because it was there, it was on.

My mother also used to turn on the television for me

and put the test card up,

which played more classical music,

but I really liked that because I enjoyed dancing.

I would spend hours and hours making up dances,

watching my reflection in the screen to see if it was OK.

All the practise culminated in performances in the back garden.

We used to find a costume to wear, costumes that we liked.

We had a big dressing-up box

and all the friends had these dressing-up boxes and costumes

from maybe shows that our ballet schools had done with us.

We used to put them on, get some props, rummage around in the attic

for things like golden leaves or baubles that we could make

some sort of story around, put the music on

and spend the whole day making the dance up,

and then at the end of the day perform it for our parents.

With children spending more time indoors, the influence

of children's television became even more powerful.

Talent shows like Junior Showtime fostered more brash and popular

ideas of child stardom that made ballet seem very old-fashioned.

Boys and girls rehearsed their acts in bedrooms and back gardens

all over Britain, in the hope that they would win fame and fortune.

# Never thought I could be a star

# Never thought I could go so far, But look, Ma, it's me, on TV... #

A contestant on one of the shows was Linda, who by the age of 12

had progressed from writing poetry to become a singer-songwriter.

The song that I wrote was called Mother Don't Interfere.

I'm not sure whether my mum was too keen on that one.

I don't remember all of it, but I remember one verse. It said,

# Mother always tries to help me, Sometimes hinders me

# Tries to make me see things that I don't want to see

# Mother, don't interfere Next time that love is near

# Next time love comes my way, I'm gonna keep it,

# No matter what you say. #

By the '70s, 25 years of immigration had transformed British society.

Racial conflict and the political backlash against

the new ethnic minorities, or anyone from a mixed-race background,

also crept into children's play.

There was an upsurge of bullying in the school playground,

which even extended to predominantly white middle-class areas.

One of the targets for racial taunts was Nimmy March.

There was a clapping game,

this was towards the end of my time at primary school, which was,

"If you're white, you're all right,

"if you're brown, hang around, if you're black, stay back,

"go back, go back."

And that was one of the things that was...

levelled, and then there would be loads of giggling,

because there I was, and it was fairly obvious who it was about.

Children's television programmes conjured up

a cosy, traditional world.

But in the 1970s and '80s, Britain was being transformed

into a multi-racial society,

briefly glimpsed by the use of a black presenter.

# We all put salt On our fish and chips

# And add a dash of vinegar too. #

'Adapting to mainstream British culture and finding an identity

'was not easy for the children of

'first generation Afro-Caribbeans and Asians.'

That will be 60p, please.

A bargain. There you are, Humpty, you sit there.

'A plate of fish and chips could take on great symbolic meaning.'

You join in with us, have some fish and chips too.

'Yasmin Hai grew up in north London.'

'There was another Asian girl who was as English as I was,'

and that obviously created problems,

because I was quite happy that there was someone who I felt my father

would really approve of, so I quite liked her,

but she really did not like me.

She would do everything to make sure I was marginalised

in any of the games we were playing.

'Then one day, Yasmin's friend moved in for the kill.'

# We all put salt On our fish and chips... #

'We were having school dinners, and even though I was

'trying to be brilliantly English,'

I made a cardinal sin of putting black pepper on my food,

which hinted at the fact that I ate spicy food.

As soon as she saw that, she ran in and said,

"You're a curry lover, you curry loving Asian."

And I was like, "No, I'm not.

"I eat fish and chips every day, my mum cooks it every day."

We had this bizarre fight, kind of slanging match,

with all our English girlfriends watching on,

not understanding what we were talking about.

We were trying to outdo each other

on who ate the most English dishes at home.

She had steak and kidney pie. I had fish and chips.

she had sausages and mash. I had rolypoly, whatever.

We would be making it up.

# You see, I am Wonder Mic and I like to say hello... #

But as the '80s began, a new black music and street culture

arrived in Britain that was inspirational

for Afro-Caribbean children - hip-hop.

Originating in the Bronx neighbourhood of New York,

it gave birth to a new cool -

breakdancing, rapping and DJs.

It gave a voice to the young black generation,

celebrating their culture

and protesting against the racism they faced.

The hip-hop scene was irresistible

for many young boys growing up in London.

They were often introduced to it

by older brothers, like 10-year-old Jonzi D.

I remember my brother playing me a track

by a group called the Sugarhill Gang.

When I heard this track...

# I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie, to the hip hip hop

# A you don't stop a rockin' to the bang bang boogie, say up jumped. #

..I could remember it.

The excitement that surrounded early New York hip-hop

and the breathtaking feats of the first breakdancers

inspired boys like Jonzi D

to develop and perfect their own routines.

We didn't have

that much access to quote unquote "real breakdancing technique".

We just got the little bits

that we got from things like Buffalo Gals,

which was a great video.

We'd all get little clips of it and practise together.

My personal specialist move, which was the backspin.

I just whipped the legs around, spi-i-i-in, freeze.

# I got chills, they're multiplyin'. #

Around this time, the American hit film Grease

also captured the imagination of British children,

with its celebration of the retro chic of the '50s teenager.

-# It's electrifyin'! #

-The most iconic scene,

when Sandy sexes up her image and wins Danny's heart,

was acted out in school playgrounds all over Britain.

# You better shape up

# Cos I need a man. #

Yasmin Hai's survival instincts were again pushed to the limit.

I wasn't allowed to see this film,

but I had to pretend to the other girls I had seen it.

In fact, I said I'd seen it three or four times.

This was a film which basically took over the playground.

Everyone was playing it.

You'd get into groups of girls and you'd act out a scene.

For some reason, I'd got it wrong and someone said,

"Actually, that's not how you do it." I said, "Yes, it is."

They said, "No, it's not,

"because actually she throws the cigarette down, then stubs it out."

She doesn't do whatever I'd done. And I felt so embarrassed,

"Oh, my God, I'm gonna be found out, this is it."

# The one that I want, you are the one I want, ooh-ooh-ooh. #

And then luckily, I dreamt that night that John Travolta and I

had walked down my road together arm-in-arm, and I felt so convinced

that I was really bold in my assertion.

I said, "No, this is what she did."

Because I sounded so forceful, everyone believed me.

# Friends

# How many of us have them? #

The hip-hop scene, with its home-grown bedroom DJs and raps,

spoke to black children

who had to grow up fast in a tough urban environment.

Improvised rapping gave boys a rare chance

to express intimate emotions on personal issues

that deeply affected them, like making and breaking friends.

# Friends

# Ones we can depend on. #

There was one track by a group called Houdini that was called Friends.

MIMICS TRACK # How many of us have them? #

I remember at the time, I fell out with a lot of friends of mine.

So that tune just rang so true to me. It really meant stuff, you know?

And I'd sing it and make my own little version of it.

# Friends

# How many of us have them?

# Let's be friends. # RAPS: I don't need them at all

Cos when they wanna play ball

I can't play because I am not good

But I don't care it's my neighbourhood!

Huh!

From the mid-70s onwards,

the influence of television was so pervasive,

children stayed up later to watch cult shows

like The New Avengers.

Secret Agent Purdey,

Joanna Lumley, became the new role model for fashionable young girls,

who all dreamt of having a Purdey haircut.

Dawn Bodey grew up in Warrington.

I remember just wanting that haircut.

I had to have that haircut.

"Mum, can I have my hair cut like her off the Avengers?"

Running in and getting that haircut.

I remember the woman saying to me,

"Do you want all that lovely hair cut off?"

I went, "Yeah."

And I had my lollipop, and I walked back down Prescot Road

and I saw my friend, Leslie Strettle.

She said to me,

"Your hair looks lovely." I said, "Do you want my lolly?"

Childhood became more commercialised as the toy industry used television

to target ever younger children

with dreams of a glamorous jet-set lifestyle.

Most popular for girls was the American fashion doll, Barbie.

ADVERT: 'What do you give Barbie? The glamorous star

'who has everything, who has a wardrobe of fabulous clothes.

'The girl who rides her own thoroughbred stallion called Dallas.'

With less opportunities for outside play,

children spent more time in their bedrooms playing fantasy games

inspired by their favourite television programmes.

This was doll's house heaven for Dawn Bodey

and her younger sister Michelle.

We would play with little Pippa dolls,

which are half the size of Barbies,

but we would invent other things. My mum might have an ornament,

so we would bring the ornaments in. We'd have a big den set up

on the floor and we'd make things out of bandages and plasters.

We had a little Fonz doll so he would be included.

Starsky and Hutch that my mum had knitted cardigans for.

We would play for hours.

I got like an apartment really,

and Dawn loved it. She thought it was fabulous.

Sometimes we'd sit for hours,

pretending that we was living in this apartment.

# 99 red balloons... #

But where they could, children still enjoyed running free,

letting off steam in playing fields and play spaces on the new estates.

The boys' heroes and the games they played remained quite traditional.

War games and football, amongst the most popular.

To be good at football was the easiest way to win respect

and popularity amongst a group of boys.

And one added bonus,

you got to be first pick when the teams were chosen.

Craig Livingstone grew up in Congleton.

One of the perks was you could pick the sides.

Or if somebody else was picking the sides,

they would be like, "If you're having Craig, I'm having him."

It was always nice to be picked up first.

You would be like, "Who should we get?" "Don't pick him. Pick him."

You know what I mean? You'd have an input.

Even though you weren't picking,

because you were like... "I'm having Craig." ..the first picked.

It'd be like a football manager.

"What do you reckon?" "Don't go for him. Pick him."

"Yeah, we'll have him."

# It started with a kiss. #

However, for girls to be popular,

you had to look good, or so it seemed to the children of the '80s.

The fashion industry was putting pressure on girls

to look ever more glamorous so that even 10-year-olds

couldn't always face the world without make-up.

I wouldn't go to the shop without my make-up on.

I wouldn't go anywhere without my mascara, my blusher.

And I'd go, "Yeah, I'll go to the shop now, Mum."

And the shop, literally, was 20 yards away.

I wouldn't go out without my make-up on.

I'd go in my pyjamas, as long as I had make-up on.

# Video killed the radio star... #

Girls couldn't wait to grow up.

The first bra was a symbol of sex appeal.

But boob size could also be a source of embarrassment and teasing

in the playground, as Michelle Bodey

and her older sister Dawn discovered.

The boys used to sing a song to Dawn and it went,

"She's got big tits you wanna see,

"You wanna know her name, it's Dawn Bodey."

Then I remember my friends singing, "She's got no tits,

"you don't wanna see, you wanna know her name, it's Michelle Bodey."

Then one day, Michelle thought she'd discovered

the secret of how to develop bigger boobs.

When I was 11 and I first went into high school,

I remember a girl in my form

had big boobs. I remember saying to her, "Why have you got big boobs?"

She said to me, "Because I put vinegar on them."

I remember going home, going into the kitchen cupboard,

looking around to make sure that Dawn wasn't around,

getting the vinegar out and actually putting vinegar on my boobs.

And the next day, waking up thinking, "Are they any bigger?"

One of the few new commercialised trends

of the television age that encouraged outdoor play

was the craze for BMX racing, which gripped the imagination

of boys in the '80s. Like so many other children's fashions,

it arrived from America.

The new lightweight performance bikes were the ultimate boy's toy

for 8 to 12-year-olds. Owning and racing a BMX bike

was like a coming of age ritual

for boys who wanted to prove their independence.

Soon as you got a bike, it was like you'd got a set of wings.

Because you'd go, "I'm going out on my bike, just around the corner."

You'd be gone, right to the far end of the estate,

meet up with such-and-such who's got a bike

and he'd pick such-and-such up.

Next thing, there'd be 20, 25 of you,

thrashing around on BMXs, going hell for leather.

# Boys don't cry... #

The BMX obsession created a thriving industry

of magazines and fashionable sportswear,

all designed to feed the macho fantasies of every young boy.

I remember when you got your pocket money,

you started thinking about buying BMX clothing.

You'd have your gloves and then your BMX racing suit

and you were whoever was the world BMX champion, that was you.

You were instantly transformed. It was like it gave you superpowers.

However, by the late '80s, watching TV had overtaken everything else

as children's most popular activity.

-Who watches Neighbours? ALL:

-Yeah!

Much of their viewing was cartoons and soaps.

-Who watches Ghostbusters?

-Yeah!

There was growing concern with the physical and psychological effects

of children's ever increasing daily diet of television viewing.

Healthy outdoor play was continuing to decrease,

but the biggest home entertainment for children was just beginning -

video games.

Manchester boy Nathan was hooked on Frogger,

one of the first iconic video games of the '80s.

Frogger was essentially like a very, very simple game. You get one frog

to the other side of the screen by dodging traffic

and logs that are swimming by and stuff,

and it was really simple, but really addictive,

and a lot of my childhood was spent just trying to make

this virtual frog just survive, basically, in this virtual world.

The interactive element which gave the players control

over their fantasy characters was new and exciting.

Early video games proved even more attractive and addictive than TV.

It was just a great way to escape, like, the mundane life

that I was leading at the time.

I say "mundane". It wasn't terrible,

but it was just like home life, there wasn't much else to do.

My mum always wanted to keep an eye on me,

what with her being a single mother and not wanting to, you know,

let me out of her sight so much, so this was the perfect partnership -

games and my mum, and then I'm in the house.

But for younger children, whose TV viewing was restricted

and who were encouraged to play outside,

there could be a very different fantasy world on their doorstep.

Even in back gardens,

there was a secret world of nature to be explored

which, for an imaginative child, could still conjure up

fantasies of a fairy kingdom. This was the fantasy playground

of Jennifer Breen. Her much older brother and sister

decided to make it even more amazing for her.

I believed in fairies, I used to play

with imaginary fairies in the garden and, um,

what my brother and my sister used to do,

every morning they'd say, "The fairies have come, Jen. "

So I'd be like, "Oh, my God, where? Where are they?"

So they'd take me out to the garden,

and they'd show me these white spots on leaves,

and they'd say, "Look, that's where they've been dancing."

I'd be like, "Oh, my God, the fairies love me, they've come to see me!"

And then one day I found a J written in white,

and the next day there was an E and next day an N, another N.

"They're spelling out my name, they want me to be an honorary fairy!"

And I kept all the leaves in this little box for years.

In the '90s, Britain's public schools

still provided the most secluded

and disciplined world of all in which children could grow up

free from what were regarded

as the contaminating influences of popular culture.

But this new middle-class generation, like their predecessors,

weren't going to miss out on a chance to break the rules.

For the most part, it was all good old-fashioned innocent fun.

Chris Sowerbutts went to Charterhouse.

I guess the whole point of a boarding school

is very much to have you all quite uniformly under control.

And so the most fun game was trying to break

that little bit of control, if you like,

sort of stretch the rules as far as you can without getting caught

and them having to call your parents

and say you've been a naughty boy or something like that.

9.29, right, one more minute. Good. Good night.

'You have all this fun

'during the day, and all these great experiences with your friends,

-'but it's really when the lights go down...'

-Good night.

-See you tomorrow.

-'..that's when the real fun happens.'

There was one guy who had a cricket bat,

and we had a very, very long corridor, so he would stand

at one end with the cricket bat, and we'd all sort of pop out

and throw a tennis ball down there, and he'd just whack it back at us,

and everyone's heads would be popping out,

and it was just silly fun like that.

But the pull of pop culture became irresistible for most boys and girls

from around the age of eight. Every year, a new boy band emerged

designed to cash in on the fantasies of pre-pubescent girls.

'90s heart-throbs Take That, with Robbie Williams,

were one of the most successful.

# We've said goodbye

# The taxi cab is waiting... #

Tweenagers were targeted by the fashion industry and encouraged

to keep up with the latest trends, helping to create a new

and cruel popularity contest in school playgrounds.

Things like pop stars

and clothes, stuff that I'd never even taking any notice of,

suddenly became everything.

There was lots of sly kind of conniving name-calling,

and codenames were used. Like when we were in the playground,

just playing, I remember one codename would be Pepsi.

So we'd all be standing in a circle, and they would say,

"Oh, I hate Pepsi. Pepsi's disgusting.

"Why would you drink Pepsi? It's so horrible!"

And you know that they'd be talking about you,

That was just their way of being able to openly bitch about you

but, you know, they were talking about Pepsi.

But one thing, I always used to do this, every single time, I'd be like,

"Oh, yeah, I hate Pepsi. Pepsi's rubbish, Pepsi's horrible."

That would be another reason for them to snigger and start laughing.

# I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want... #

The Spice Girls took children

to new levels of posing and fashion fantasy.

In 1996, they burst onto the British pop scene

with their first hit single, Wannabe.

Their mission was girl power,

to show that girls were every bit as good

or better than boys.

I remember walking to school,

and the girl I was walking to school with

said, "Have you heard that song, Wannabe?"

I was like, "Yeah, oh, my God, it's amazing."

It was just such a huge thing. It was like a sudden wave

over every girl of that age.

But girl power was much more about fashion than feminism,

and the emphasis on image and dress sense

was not always as empowering as they pretended.

Hi, I'm Scary Spice, Mel B.

Hi, I'm Sporty Spice, Mel C.

We were each one of the Spice Girls.

One of them was Scary, one was Posh, and I was Baby Spice.

So that was another of the codenames, they'd go,

"Oh, I hate Baby Spice. Why would you like Baby Spice?

"She's rubbish!" And I'd be sitting there going, "That's me!"

-ALL:

-Hi, we're the Junior Spice Girls,

and we're here to show YOU what girl power means to us.

The Spice Girls set the trend for the next decade with boys and girls,

both rich and poor, more conscious of their image than ever before.

The commercial interests that tried to turn children into consumers

continued to encourage them to see shopping as the best game of all.

Nevertheless, younger children's imagination

and their instinct to play, run free

and have fun remain as strong as ever.

ALL:# I went into a baker's shop To buy a loaf of bread

# Bread, bread He asked me what my name was... #

Laura Kerr grew up in London in the '90s.

We used to spend quite a lot of time in the playground

playing skipping games, and we had all those pat-a-cake games as well,

which came from different schools,

and different people had their own versions of it.

And one that I can remember,

because it's really weird, they do stay in your head.

# I went to a Chinese restaurant To buy a loaf of bread, bread, bread

# They wrapped it up in a £10 note

# And this is what they said, said, said

# My name is Elvis Presley, boys are sexy

# Sitting in the back seat, drinking Pepsi

# Have a baby, in the Navy

# Boys go kiss kiss, girls go whoo! #

And then the girls used to lift their skirts up.

# They're silly old men from China, ah-so! #

Despite fears that the old playground games were disappearing,

traditional children's play has survived into the digital age,

but it is children aged nine and under who are the main torchbearers

for the nation's centuries-old skipping and chasing games.

In an era of commercialisation that encourages boys and girls

to grow up ever faster, younger children

still proudly uphold the rich tradition

of Britain's outdoor play.

# Here we go Looby Loo all on a Saturday night. #

CHILDREN SING IN BACKGROUND

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd.

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