|
To contact us: |
|
Amusement/Entertainment During the day, after school, and at weekends, the boys and girls of the village amused themselves by playing a wide range of games including: skipping, rounders, marbles, jackstones, hopscotch. One of the most popular games during the season when the Horse Chestnuts were dropping their seed was Conkers, we used to try everything to dry them out and make them hard, from soaking in vinegar for several days, to drying them slowly on the range so that they wouldn't crack. A really hard one could last several weeks before it shattered.
Girls would also play with their dolls and the boys would play at cowboys and Indians. In the evenings when it was too dark to play outside card games were very popular, shove halfpenny, bagatelle, hookey, darts. If you ran out of these there was always the back stop of "Eye Spy" or singing nursery rhymes or rounds. The adults played darts, skittles or cards.
Saturday nights was always looked forward too because you could go into Rushden to the pictures. Pictures in those days wasn't just one film that you get now, but a combination. First you would have a Walt Disney cartoon, followed by a Cowboy film with either Roy Rogers, Hop-a-Long Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickok, Gene Autry or the Cisco Kid. An Interval would follow then a news reel, another short film such as the Dead End Kids and finally the major film. Entry was 3d [1p].
After the pictures we always went and had fish and chips, doused in vinegar and salt, and wrapped up in newspaper. Many was the time I missed the bus and had to walk home because there was a long queue in the fish and chip shop. Never thought anything about it, I doubt if you could do that now.
The photograph below is of me with a group of the village boys, for the life of me a cannot remember their names, maybe some of the older residents of the village may be able to name them? Somebody coined the phrase "king of the kids" for me; if ever anybody wanted to find me they always looked for a group of boys and nine times out of ten I would be in the middle. Looking back I always seemed to be a leader, somehow it just came naturally.
The other attachment is self evident, I had a boy soprano voice and sang in both the school and church choirs, joining the church choir in 1946, mostly as a solo voice.
Current suggestions for the lads are (from left to right) - Kenny Smith, Paddy (the dog), Bob Bridge, Ken Allan, Cliff (Tyke) Saddington (back), Alan Parton (front) and either Dennis Conquest or Tony Dunnett. |
|
Games & Gangs |
