[speaker001:] And like you just do ordinary skipping and you jump in the middle and it's H P W R. Then H P W R and if it lands on P you have to go really fast. The first person has to start skipping in the middle and everybody says H P W R and if it landed on P the next person would have to skip fast.
[speaker002:] And what if it lands on any of the others?
[speaker001:] You just have to do what it means like. H you can do higher hopping and P fast and R round you gotta turn around with a skipping rope and W waives. And hot chocolate.
[speaker002:] What's hot chocolate?
[speaker001:] Well somebody sa and they stand facing the wall and they shut their eyes and there're people at the end and they have to try and get to the other side without the other person seeing them. And them erm when everybody's been caught by the person who's at the person sat saying things like hot bananas hot milk and then when they say hot chocolate the you've got to run back. And they've got to try and catch nobody. And if nobody's caught the person who was it is it again. And we do tinker taylor. How much money they're gonna have and how much presents you're gonna get at the wedding and how many guests you're gonna get. And when the wedding's gonna be and what you're gonna wear and what you're going to go there in and how many children you're gonna have and how many years you're gonna be married.
[speaker003:] And like a lot like the guests you're gonna have at the wedding and the presents and the money and the children there's just numbers. Like the children I think it's something like two four six eight two four six eight just keep going like that.
[speaker002:] And what about where you're gonna live?
[speaker001:] Big house little house pigsty barn.... There isn't very many soldiers that grew up at this school any more.
[speaker003:] We went a trip and there was two lasses and the class Heather and and they were playing soldiers on the way back.
[speaker001:] Well it was like the two soldiers and the one person just holds it the other person just tried and knock the head off. We do that at me granny's cos there's lots of soldiers there.
[speaker004:] Soldiers was a game played with grass where each was armed with a stem and little head of the plant and by heading one's opponent soldier try to knock off his head. There were two kinds of soldiers. The brown headed ones were tough and could stand any amount of thrashing and the head would hang on quite a while by a mere thread. Sometimes when it got worn like that it would twine round the other soldier so that his head could be pulled off. They other kind of soldier was black with little white florets growing out from the head. The stem of this one was easily broken and often the head would fly off at the first stroke.
[speaker005:] I wonder if they're counting out rhymes of our school playtimes are still remembered like. Itty pitty penny pie hoppum lorrum linkum chinkum chie. Wood stands though there by. Or another where the leader chanted, As I went through a chinese town I met a chinese lady. Players then asked, What colour was she dressed in? Whereupon the leader decided on a colour for example brown. The countdown went on then, [spelling] B R O W N [] spells brown and [spelling] O U T [] spells out. Till the one we called the donor was selected. The stems of mare's tails with their jointed stalks were disjointed to provide a little guessing game as to which joint was the broken one. The bulky leaves of ribwort planting were pulled apart to reveal the green leaf stalks. By the number of leaf stalks revealed it was discovered how many lies a friend had told that day and a long stalk indicated a big lie. For all I know these little games may have had their origins hidden in long tradition. The tinker taylor soldier game was played by plucking the parts from rye grass stems. Further lines we had were as to where future homes would be chanting, A big house a biggie house a pigsty a barn. Or with regard to the wedding plays, silk satin cotton rags or even if the offspring would be boy lass twins triplets or what these babies were to be rocked in. A cradle a ladle a pot supply your own adjective or a pen.... [recording ends]