Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter - Seasonal games

We used to play games according to the season...

boys playing marbles

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/conker/conkers-and-ghosts/marbles.htm

At Easter it was skipping and hoops...
In those days scaffolding was tied together with very thick rope, if any of us had a dad in the building trade he used to bring us home two pieces of rope. It took at least five of us to play the Easter skipping game, we would cross the ropes with one girl at each end, two would stand on the opposite pavements, and two in the road. There was not much traffic about in those days; it was an event to see a car down our road. On the odd occasion when one did come down, it didn't go very fast, and we could always hear the horse and carts coming, and get out of their way in time.

We used to run in when the ropes were being turned and the others used to chant a rhyme, at the end of the rhyme we had to run out. If you happened to catch your foot in the rope as it turned, it gave you a nasty bruise across the back of your legs.

At Whitsun it was top and whip and marbles. The boys used to play marbles in the gutters, which were quite clean as the road sweeper used to come round every morning and sweep the gutters, and after him would come the water cart, even in the small side streets.

We always had new sandals at Whitsun...
They were leather tops with crepe soles. They cost two and eleven pence a pair, and were always bought half a size too big, as they had to last us all summer. It meant we had to have a sock in them when they were new. If we did wear them out before August we had to make do with a shilling pair of plimsols.

Before we went back to school after the August holiday we would have a new pair of black lace-up shoes that had to last us all winter. They were leather soles and uppers, and if they wore out the boot repairer would repair them in two hours unless he was very busy, then you might have to wait; but you always got them back the same day as you took them. He used to charge two and sixpence to repair a pair of men's boots or shoes, two shillings for ladies and one-and-six for children, and an extra threepence for boys. If they had what we used to call horse shoes on the heels (that was a piece of steel shaped like a horse shoe set into the heel) it saved the boys wearing the heels down so quickly. I used to envy the boys because they used to strike their heels on the pavement and make sparks.

We used to get six weeks holiday from school each year:
One week at Easter, one week at Christmas and four weeks in August, an odd half day in mid-term and one day on May Day. Not having a May pole we used to sling ropes over the arm of the lamp posts and dance round them. Most of our amuse-ments were home-made, for example four wheelers for the boys, consisted of a wooden soap box, a plank of wood, a piece of rope and four wheels off an old pram. The only ready-made amusements were the swings and slides on the Level. As soon as you were eight you joined the cubs if you were a boy or the brownies if you were a girl. You didn't have any choice, you were told to go by your parents and you went. You never thought of disobeying them.
L .Scarborough - Backyard Brighton

Other Seasons
Some games seemed to create their own season. Someone would produce a top and a whip, and for a few weeks it was the top season. This might be followed by the marble season. From the depths of a cupboard, or from some dark recess in the loft, a marble board was produced. This was a board with semi-circular holes cut out along one edge. Each hole was given a value. The board was propped up against a convenient door sill, each competitor given X number of marbles, and the one with the highest score was the winner.

Cigarette cards or 'tabs' were another doorstep game. Each player flipped his card, and when it fell on another card, that card became his.

Yet another game was hoops. Girls had wooden hoops, boys had steel hoops which we controlled with a hook, or as it was known, a skeeler. Sometimes the steel hoops would break and we would take them to Dodsons, the blacksmiths just to the north of the Bear Inn at the bottom of Bear Road, for repairs.
Don Carter - Just One Large Family