Thought for today:
" I remember as a young boy on the estate where I grew up during the 1950s, the games that boys and girls would innocently play during the evenings, to occupy the idle hours between the end of the school day and settling down in bed for the night. Armed with very little money, we used whatever imagination and skill we possessed, along with everyday items that could be found laying about the home or even covering the dustbin to facilitate our fun. Spinning tops, hopskotch, skipping ropes from washing lines, marbles, conkers, cricket against the lamp post, football in the street and kick can and hook it were but a few games I recall. Cowboys and Indians were enacted, aided by mother's brush handle that stood in as a sturdy steed as the boy ran astride it with a hankerchief covering their mouth as they played the part of a cowboy 'baddie'. Indeed, all it took to transform any snotty-nosed estate kid into Sitting Bull, Chief of the great Sioux nation was one chicken feather fastened around their head. A dustbin lid was often made to double as Ivanhoe's shield and mother's long-handled baking spoon or dad's bicycle pump as the knight's trusty sword. As we approached our teenage years, the more curious among us might persuade a few of the girls to play 'Post Man's Knock' where the reward was a kiss. It was only after one had played the more grown-up game of 'I will if you will' that one realised that childhood games had ended and work in the mill loomed on the horizon." William Forde: October 25th, 2012.
" I remember as a young boy on the estate where I grew up during the 1950s, the games that boys and girls would innocently play during the evenings, to occupy the idle hours between the end of the school day and settling down in bed for the night. Armed with very little money, we used whatever imagination and skill we possessed, along with everyday items that could be found laying about the home or even covering the dustbin to facilitate our fun. Spinning tops, hopskotch, skipping ropes from washing lines, marbles, conkers, cricket against the lamp post, football in the street and kick can and hook it were but a few games I recall. Cowboys and Indians were enacted, aided by mother's brush handle that stood in as a sturdy steed as the boy ran astride it with a hankerchief covering their mouth as they played the part of a cowboy 'baddie'. Indeed, all it took to transform any snotty-nosed estate kid into Sitting Bull, Chief of the great Sioux nation was one chicken feather fastened around their head. A dustbin lid was often made to double as Ivanhoe's shield and mother's long-handled baking spoon or dad's bicycle pump as the knight's trusty sword. As we approached our teenage years, the more curious among us might persuade a few of the girls to play 'Post Man's Knock' where the reward was a kiss. It was only after one had played the more grown-up game of 'I will if you will' that one realised that childhood games had ended and work in the mill loomed on the horizon." William Forde: October 25th, 2012.
