LONDON
STREET GAMES
There’s not much for us to do, down our way—in the way of sports, I mean. Nothing at all, in fact. When we come home from work we generally go straight indoors and have a lay-down, and a cup of tea and a pipe; or else we go out and watch a match somewhere. There’s always the “Three Swans”, of course....
But the youngsters get on all right—seem to, at all events. Some of them have got bats and stumps or footballs, and off they go into the park; and some of the girls have got shuttlecocks, and off they go. But most of them haven’t, you know; so they just lark about where they are. Paper-chase and ROUNDERS, for instance; you know those? They’re plain sailing. But some of these games, like EGG-IN-CAP (also called EGGET), are rather complicated; and as to MONDAY-TUESDAY (or NUMBERS; another kind of egg-in-cap)—it would take me till next Saturday week to explain it. Perhaps you can make it out from this description:
“After clipping the throer calls out the name of the day in the weke and the chap whats taken that day has to catch if he misses it they all run away and shout no Egg if I move—becose if they dont the throer can say a egg if you move—& that helps to make the quantity of the Eggs. The Misser of the ball throes it at one of the player and if he misses it is a egg to him and if he hits its a egg to the one he hit. After the throer has hit his man—the man has to throw it up again. If one of the player catch the Ball they throw it up again and call out the name, the total of egg to get you out is three. After the game is over the winner has clockwork on the Losers; they each stand up against a wall wile the winner throes at their heads with the ball. They can also claim 3 Hard throes or six soft ones.”
Now you know how it’s done.
Then there’s QUEENIE, which is really a girls’ game. One boy stands on the kerbstone with his back to the street, and they call him Queenie. He throws a ball backwards over his shoulders into the street, where four others are standing to catch it. As soon as one of them has it, they all hold their hands behind their backs, and then Queenie has to turn round and face them and guess who has the ball. If he guesses right, he goes on being Queenie; if not, the boy who has the ball takes his place.
Why they call it QUEENIE? Because that happens to be its name. Aunt Eliza, who has travelled all over the place and can explain mostly everything (or thinks she can) tells me that QUEENIE is a Chinese game and that she has seen it played there and that it must have come to London over the docks. I daresay it did. But the worst of Aunt Eliza is that you never know whether—
There are other ball-games, such as HOT RICE and FRENCH CRICKET and FOOTBALL-CRICKET and FIDDLE-DE-DEE and PALM OVER (a rough game) and CATCH (also called TEASER), which goes not as you think it does, but like this—
“Two boys stand at each side of the road and one in the middle, that’s Hee. One of them tries to get the ball over middle’s head for the other to get it but if middle gets it the throer goes Hee”—
and WALL-BOUNCING and KING and MISSINGS OUT and FRENCH FOOT and KNOCKING UP THREE CATCHERS and SWOLO (rather like hockey) and DAYS OF THE YEAR and PUNCH-BALL and BOUNCE-BALL and TOUCH IT RUN and HUNDRED WINS (where you knock bricks out of a ring with a ball) and ONE-TWO-THREE-AND-A-LAIRY (I wish I knew what a-lairy meant) and ALONG THE ROW and UNDER THE ROW and ACROSS THE ROW and RABBIT IN THE HUTCH and FIVE-TEN and BASE (or DOLL) and WALLIE (because played against a wall) and STRIKE UP KNOCK DOWN and IN THE HAT and DUSTHOLES, and no doubt many more. But however many I might tell you, there are not nearly as many as there ought to be.