Playground games of the 1950's
We had great fun during playtimes at the little Church of England school in a Lancashire mill town. Most of the children lived close by on newly built council estates or in stone built terraced properties.
Ball games
The best time of the school day was playtime. In the middle of our school playground was a stone building without a roof. Inside and open to the elements were the school toilets. The outside walls were great to use for ball games. We played ball up against the walls with two balls, and three balls if you were clever. Children who found it difficult to make friends could always occupy themselves with a small rubber ball; in that way they did not stand out as loners as they would today. We also used the wall for handstands, and with dresses tucked into our knickers, we spent much of our time upside down!
One ball game which we played was: -
One, two, three, aleri,
Four, five, six, aleri,
Seven, eight, nine, aleri,
Ten aleri, catch the ball.
I think that the game was played with two balls against the wall but when you said ‘aleri’ one ball went under your leg. (I’m not sure whether ‘aleri’ is spelt correctly.) However, my sister thinks that we bounced the ball on the ground!
There were many different kinds of ball. If you were posh you might have a tennis ball, but if you were in the habit of losing your ball, a squashy thin rubber ball was all you could afford. They came in various colours; my favourite was royal blue. The only trouble with those balls, when we were playing near home, was that if dogs ran off with them, their teeth would pop them! The best ball was a sponge rubber ball, which was solid black right through. The pattern on the balls was lovely, with every colour of the rainbow forming a marbled effect. Once the ball was getting old you could pick the sponge off until you had no ball left.
We weren't allowed footballs in the playground but could play catching games with large rubber balls. Piggy in the Middle was a ball game for three or more. The one in the middle was the piggy and the other players would throw the ball to one another over piggy’s head until piggy caught the ball and the child who threw the ball became the pig.
