Playing School

From a very early age I wanted to be a teacher.  I guess it must have started after I actually went to school, but I know that a lot of my games revolved around teaching my dolls.  I was in 7th Heaven when Maisie and Harold Fullarton moved into Livingstone Street.  Harold was a policeman, and he boarded with us for a few months when he was first stationed at Morwell.  His wife Maisie was a teacher, and she joined him, at the end of the year I suppose and they moved into a house further down our street.  I used to visit Maisie all the time to talk about teaching.  She showed me what a teacher's Work Program looked like, and I used to write up my own programs just the same.
The playhouse was the perfect place to play school.

I only briefly thought about being anything other than a teacher - when John was talking about going into the Navy I thought that sounded rather exciting too.  I was in Form 4 at the time, and seriously investigated the Navy as an option.  But I also applied for a Teaching Bursary and decided that if I got a bursary I would be a teacher, if I didn't I would join the Navy.  Needless to say I got a bursary for Form 5, and another for Form 6 so I went to Teachers' College.

As a bursary recipient I was obliged to apply for each and every course that would lead to a teaching career.  In those days, Primary Teachers went to teachers' College, while those aspiring to be Secondary Teachers went to University.  There was no way I wanted to be a Secondary Teacher, nor got to Uni, so I only applied for a place at Teachers' Colleges.  I figured that if my marks weren't good enough to get me my first preferences then they wouldn't be good enough to get me a Uni place anyway, so why waste time (and money?? can't remember if there was any cost involved) applying for Uni places.

I obtained a place at Geelong Teachers' College - but that is for another post.

Games People Played

Thinking about primary school made me think about some of the games we played.  One I particularly remember was called "Two Ball".  It basically involved juggling two tennis balls in a series of manouvres.  You also required a flat vertical surface.  The inside of the 'shelter shed' at school was ideal because the wall was divided into perfectly sized spaces by the frame.  It was a game you could play by yourself, or in competition with others.  If in competition it was your turn until you dropped a ball or made some other mistake.  The idea was to see who got to the end of the sequence first.  Let's see if I can remember it:
10 = underhand throws
9 = overhand throws
8 = under / over
7 = up
6 = up / under
5 = up / over
4 = hmm - that's about as far as I can go, and 5 might not be correct.
Strange thing is, I NEVER met anyone else who had played it.  I did find a reference to it on the internet one day, but a search just now has failed to turn up any reference, except a wikipaedia page that has since been removed.  But I know I even added to the information I found so it was some sort of forum.
Aha -  I just found this:

Two Ball is a very good game. You sing a rhyme as you throw two balls against a wall.

Here is the rhyme:

   Please miss, mother miss,          

   Come to tell you this miss,        

   I miss, won't miss,                

   Be at school tomorrow miss. 

The rules are that you are throwing the balls in a sort of juggling way and if you drop one, then you are out till it is your go again.  You can have any number of people playing but it is wise to have 3 as a maximum.    

This from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-516000-294000/page/15      

We never sang a rhyme that I remember.

Real Knucklebones

Plastic Knucklebones

Another favourite was Knuckle Bones, or Jacks.  We often used real knuckle bones from the roast lamb, but you could also buy a set of plastic knuckles which came in five different colours.

The plastic ones I had were the same size as real ones, but later versions were smaller and had less weight.

 Knuckle Bones

The other favourite schoolyard pastimes were skippy, hoppy and swap cards. 

 

I had quite a large collection of swap cards - some had even been my mother's when she was at school.  I know I had (still got them in a cupboard somewhere!) the middle top card, and the bottom right card in my collection. I still regret swapping some of the cards that were my mother's.

Skippy was played with either a short individual rope, or one or two long ropes.  Most skipping games had rhymes that went with them.

Hopscotch was NEVER called by that grand name - it was always Hoppy we played.  Usually the grid was drawn onto the path or asphalt with chalk, but at school there was a favourite grid that had been deeply scored into the clay at the top of the oval.  There was always a race to get to it first.