by Paul Feeney
Two young boys play football in the middle of a central London street in 1951. Note that there is no traffic or parked cars around.
You would start using trendy teenage words like ‘cool’, ‘cat’, and ‘square’. Instead of hanging-out with your mates on someone’s doorstep, you and your friends would be more likely to gather in the local coffee-bar and listen to the latest records on the jukebox, sharing one bottle of Coca-Cola between five! You might go to the local church youth club to play table tennis and listen to records. You would even find yourself listening with more interest to the doorstep banter between grown-ups. It was a confusing time when you were sort of playing at being a teenager.
It was a time for trying new grown-up things. Sadly, it was often at the tender age of just ten or eleven that many kids were tempted to try their first puff on a cigarette. A lot were sick and never touched a fag again, but for many it was their first step to a lifetime of smoking. Smoking was advertised as a cool and sophisticated thing to do. There was never any mention of it being unhealthy!
Whereas you used just to shovel food into your mouth to fill your empty stomach and boost your energy levels, you began to develop a taste for food and even enjoy the experience of eating your favourite dishes. There were few takeaway food shops back then but there were plenty of places in the high streets and marketplaces where you could savour your best-loved local dishes. From traditional Lancashire hotpot to Welsh cawl, to Londoners’ pie and mash with liquor, tripe and onions, and jellied eels – we all had our personal favourite.
Boys frequently took more interest in supporting their local football team and going to the matches with their dad. All of a sudden, you found that you were growing up and fast approaching your teenage years, and the onset of all those hormonal issues.
Four
GAMES, HOBBIES AND PASTIMES
Kids of every generation suffer boredom if they are not kept occupied. In the 1950s, although all the best fun was reserved for outside the house, there was a host of tried and tested pastimes to keep you busy at home in the evenings.
Everyone had his or her own favourite indoor hobby, and many children got drawn into collecting something or other. Stamp collecting was very popular and was usually a shared interest between friends, who would swap stamps between each other to make up sets or get rid of ones they already had. There was always the thrill of seeing an unusual stamp and the anticipation that it could be valuable. Someone always seemed to know someone else’s dad that had a Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue to check if a stamp was rare or not. Most kids were very aware of what their stamp collection was worth, usually only a few shillings. Often the stamp-collecting book was worth more than the collection it held, but collecting was addictive and interesting, and once you started you were hooked. Children often learned more about the geography of the world from stamp collecting than they did through schoolwork.
With limited access to telephones, picture postcards were still regularly sent though the post to pass messages between friends and family. Postcard collecting was a cost-free hobby that many children took up. From Matchbox and Dinky Toys to marbles, there were loads of things to collect and swap with your mates.
Most children had a secret box of treasures in which they kept all their most valued little possessions. Usually a small wooden or tin box, preferably one of those black tin moneyboxes with a key so that it could be safely locked up. You would inspect its contents as often as you could, just to make sure that everything was still there, and possibly add another unique piece to your treasure trove of collectables: an old bus ticket, a favourite coloured marble, your membership card for The Biggles Club, a small picture of Doris Day from a discarded newspaper, a cigarette picture card of Stanley Matthews, a small unknown key, and perhaps some old Halfpenny or Farthing coins. Worthless junk they might be, but these were often the prized possessions of a young child.
This 1958 magazine advert for Croid glue captures a 1950s family scene with each member of the family enjoying a hobby. Typically, dad is dressed in shirt and tie and smoking a pipe, but at least he has rolled his sleeves up to appear casual.
Model making was very popular and children usually didn’t need any encouragement to make things out of whatever materials were to hand. Depending on how well off your parents were, you could mould something with plasticine for next to nothing, or you could buy the latest Airfix model or Meccano construction kit. Mind you, Airfix and Meccano were usually only of interest to the boys, as were toy soldiers and messing around with chemistry sets. Girls were much more inclined to mimic their mum’s activities, and mums were usually keen to teach them skills like sewing, knitting, embroidery and baking cakes. These were all jobs that were considered to be essential for girls to learn for when they grew up and became homemakers, but they were also very popular hobbies, and girls were very keen students.
This crystal radio kit advert from 1950 is aimed at young boys, but the kit is not cheap at 15/- (15 shillings), equivalent to about £19 at today’s values based on the retail price index.
This magazine advert from 1950 offers the Subbuteo table soccer game, with miniature players in the colours of any football league club, at a price of 10/7 (ten shillings and seven pence), equivalent to about £14 at today’s values based on the retail price index.
Children were very good at finding things to do for free, like scrap-booking, tracing and drawing pictures. A few sheets of old newspaper could be made into all sorts of shapes and objects, and pretty soon you would become something of an origami expert. It wasn’t unusual for a child to sit alone at a table and play games for long periods at a time. A jigsaw puzzle, bagatelle, perhaps a card game like Patience, or even a couple of small magnets could keep a child busy for ages. Young ones occupied themselves by playing at being grown-ups, using such things as toy tea sets and miniature toolboxes. Of course, there was always plenty of time for girls to play with their dolls and the doll’s house that was probably made by dad. Not forgetting all the dressing-up games, complete with make-up and mum’s frock and high heels.
All the boys wanted to have a Hornby Dublo electric train set, but to most it was just a dream and you had to make do with the more primitive and less expensive wind-up toy train. Girls weren’t allowed near electric train sets; these were definitely within the boys’ domain. Then again, even boys sometimes struggled to get control of their Hornby train set if dad was around!
There were many indoor hobbies and pastimes that were equally popular with both boys and girls. Lots of children had pen pals that they would regularly write to. Newspapers, magazines and comics would often have pen pal columns listing children that were looking for pen pals living in certain areas. You could have a pen pal that lived in another city or county, or even in another country! As with stamp collecting, this was a great way to learn geography as well as gaining knowledge of how people lived in other places.
There were loads of children’s books, annuals and comics to read; favourite books included anything by Enid Blyton or Beatrix Potter, and other books like Heidi, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Winnie-the-Pooh and The Chronicles of Narnia. Boys were keen readers of Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, Just William, and the Biggles series of books. Everyone equally enjoyed reading Enid Blyton’s adventures of The Famous Five.
The most popular comics and annuals included The Beano, The Dandy, Topper, Eagle, Wizard, Beezer, Tiger (including ‘Roy of The Rovers’), Hotspur, Lion, Girl and Bunty. Some of the favourite comic strips included ‘The Bash Street Kids’, ‘Lord Snooty’, ‘Keyhole Kate’ and ‘Dan Dare’. There were so many comics around that you would normally only buy one or two and then swap with your mates so that you could keep up with all your comic strip heroes. Many of the comics produced a large annual each year, and one or two of these would usually find their way onto your Christmas wish list. While everyone enjoyed the Rupert Bear annuals, essential reading for the girls was the School Friend Annual and the Girls’ Crystal Annual.
Whole families would often wile away the evening playing card games like Snap, Old Maid, Fish, Rummy and Pontoon (sometimes called Twenty-one). Board games were also very popular, with favourites like Monopoly, Cluedo, Snakes and Ladders, Scrabble and Lotto (sometimes called Housey Housey), which was similar to Bingo. Dominoes and Crib (Cribbage) were also regularly played, as were games that enabled you to pit your wits against one other person, like Noughts and Crosses, Battleships, Draughts and Chess. These were all well-liked and encouraged by mum and dad because they kept you quiet – that is, until someone cheated!
When you got bored with all this mental activity, you could always suggest that mum and dad join you in a game of hide and seek. Do you remember carefully hiding yourself in the back of that cupboard for what seemed like ages, and then that awful feeling when you realised they had forgotten you? You eventually came out to find mum and dad dozing in front of the fire, and they hadn’t been looking for you at all!
In good weather, you would often play board games outside, either on a patch of grass or on one another’s doorsteps. You steadily progressed from Tiddlywinks to Monopoly, which was always a firm favourite with kids. Card games like Brag, Cheat, Cribbage, Pontoon, Rummy, Snap and Whist were also regularly played on doorsteps or in passageways. Football and cricket were forever being played in the street, in open spaces or bomb ruins, but there were loads of other cost-free street games and activities to keep you occupied. Many of these were group games, and before you could start playing, you had to choose someone to be ‘it’!
In street games, ‘it’ was the term used to describe the person who was designated to seek out, find, chase or catch the other kids in the game. If someone suggested playing a hide-and-seek or chase game then he or she would own that one game for its duration. A lot of these games required someone to be ‘it’. To pick who would be ‘it’, the person that suggested the game would recite the words of a rhyme while ‘dipping’ (pointing at each person in turn). The long version of this would eliminate people one by one until there was only one person left, and that person would then be ‘it’. In the short version it would simply be the person pointed to on the last word of the rhyme that would be ‘it’. There were loads of different rhymes, with lots of rude and politically incorrect versions. Here are a couple of the innocent ones:
Ip-dip sky-blue who’s-it? Not you!
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo!
Catch a tiger by the toe!
If he hollers let him go!
Eeny, Meeny. Miny, Mo!
You’re It!
There were hundreds of street games with all sorts of variations being played in different parts of the country. Here are a few to jog the memory and remind you of all those times you crossed your fingers and shouted ‘fainites!’ when playing these games.
Blind Man’s Buff: One person was chosen to be ‘it’, and he or she was then blindfolded and turned around three times to disorientate him or her. The player who was ‘it’ then tried to catch hold of one of the players and guess who it was by touching their face and hair. If ‘it’ couldn’t guess who it was, then he or she would let go of that player and try to catch another player, repeating the process until a player’s name was guessed and then that player became ‘it’.
Children’s books, magazines and games kept children occupied on cold winter evenings in the 1950s.
Boatman Boatman, Farmer Farmer (the younger kids’ version of British Bulldogs): One person was chosen to be ‘it’ and became the boatman. The boatman stood in the middle of a pre-agreed play area and all the other players stood on a line at one edge. The players then chanted, ‘Boatman, Boatman, can we cross the river?’ The boatman replied, ‘You can only cross the river if you are wearing (name of a colour).’ Any player wearing something of that colour then crossed freely to the other side of the play area. The players that were not wearing the required colour had to run to the other side without being caught by the boatman. Any players that were caught then joined the boatman as catchers, and the game was repeated until there was only one uncaught player left and he or she was the winner.
British Bulldogs, Bulldog, Bullies, Red Rover, Runno: Any number of boys and girls would join in to play this, but it was not for the faint-hearted; this game would usually result in a few injuries, particularly when played on a hard surface or if played by mixed age groups. The favoured places to play this were in fields and on bomb ruin sites. To start with, one or two players were selected to be bulldogs and they were made to stand in the middle of the field. There were two safe areas on opposite side edges of the field. All of the non-bulldogs gathered in one of these safe areas. The main objective of the game was for the non-bulldogs to run across the field from one safe area to the other without being caught by the bulldogs. The game started with one of the bulldogs naming a player that was to be the first to attempt the run from one side to the other, and the bulldogs would then attempt to catch the runner. If he or she was caught by a bulldog then the bulldog had to hold onto the failed runner and shout ‘British Bulldog; one, two, three!’ The caught runner then became a bulldog. If he or she did reach the other side without being caught then they were deemed to be in the safe area and could not be caught. Once the runner had either been caught or reached the safe area then all the other non-bulldogs had to immediately attempt to cross the playing area themselves (this was called the ‘rush’ or ‘bullrush’), with the bulldogs trying to catch as many as possible using the same rules as before. Once all the surviving non-bulldogs had reached the ‘safe’ area on the other side of the field, the rush began again to get across the field in the opposite direction, avoiding the bulldogs. The game continued until all the players had become bulldogs, and the winner was the last person to be caught. It was quite difficult to catch someone and hold onto them for enough time to shout ‘British Bulldog; one, two, three!’ It usually needed some tough rugby tackling, which resulted in grubby and torn clothes, and countless bruises, cuts and grazes. As with other games, various versions were played around the country with other local names being used to describe it.
Bumps: Not so much a game as an endurance test or punishment on your birthday. It could be quite dangerous and so it was usually only performed on boys. Girls sometimes did their own gentle version. It entailed the birthday boy or girl being held spread-eagle by their arms and legs, and lifted up and down in the air whilst their mates counted the number of birthday years, hitting or bumping their bum against the floor, once for each year.
Cartwheels: This activity was mostly done by girls, but boys enjoyed it too. It involved the girl first standing upright and throwing herself sideways onto one outstretched arm; then the other until her whole body had turned a full 360 degrees and she was back on her feet again. In motion, the arms and legs took the shape of a cartwheel’s spokes. Any opportunity to show the boys those navy blue knickers!
Children would sometimes build up collections of favourite comics and books.
Cat’s Cradle: A game for two people, usually girls, to create a series of patterns, including the ‘cat’s cradle’, out of a loop of string wrapped around the fingers and wrists. Individual girls, sometimes with the use of their teeth, fashioned simpler creations, like a ‘cup and saucer’.
Conkers: The game was played by two children, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string or an old shoelace. One player would let the conker dangle on the full length of the string while the other player swung their conker to hit it. The players took turns to strike each other’s conker until one broke. Sometimes it was the attacking conker that broke. The conkers were given names to identify their worth; a new conker was called a ‘none-er’, and when a ‘none-er’ broke another ‘none-er’ it became a ‘one-er’, then a ‘two-er’, ‘three-er’, and so on. The winning conker inherited the previous score of the losing conker as well as gaining the score from that particular game. So if a ‘two-er’ beat a ‘three-er’ then the winning conker became a ‘six-er’. The hardest conkers usually won
but there was a lot of cheating, with players using various methods to aid the hardening of their conkers, including soaking them in vinegar overnight, baking them in the oven for a short time, and seasoning them by keeping them for a year before use.
Egg, Egga, Bad Egg (played with a tennis ball): The person who was ‘it’ would give the players a subject like colours or football teams to choose a name from. The players would huddle together to whisper and choose names. One of the players would then call out loud all of the names chosen by the players. The person who was ‘it’ would then throw the ball high into the air or against a wall and shout out one of the names (i.e. blue or Arsenal), and the player that had chosen that name would have to catch or retrieve the ball while the others ran away. Once the person had retrieved the ball, he or she would shout ‘Stop!’ or ‘Egg!’, or something similar, and the players would have to stand still. The person with the ball could then take up to three giant steps towards any of the scattered players, and throw the ball at that person. If the ball hit the target then he or she would become ‘it’ and a new game would begin. If the thrower missed then he would be ‘it’.