Childhood

What games did you play as a child?

Gwen Croad (born 1931)

We had to make our own fun as children, we played hide and seek, rounders, climbed trees, played hopscotch and skipping.

Alan Smith (born 1943)

We played outside a lot as a children. One of my favorite games was Cowboys and Indians. I also liked reading cowboy books.

Peggy O’ Rourke (born 1920)

Well I had two brothers, they liked football so we all played football. Yes, and cricket in the summer. I was reasonably good at sports. I won’t say I was very good. Reasonably good at tennis. I was very good at netball. I had a very good eye and I used to get the ball in without any problem at all. Hockey was another one. That was quite good except you could get hurt with a cricket ball.

John Sandell (born 1929)

Well my father would have games with me up in the attic. We had battles with lead soldiers and we threw corks and such like to try and knock out the opposite side. Then we had Hornby electric train which we built our own lines and shot it round (laughs). I don’t remember much else that we had as games.....My father had this sailing boat with an engine inside so he could take the sailing boat out onto the Solent and sail it there. Stop the engine and put the sails up. It’s called ‘The Wild Duck’ but he was very keen. He even slept in it sometimes, go for a weekend down to where the sand pit was and slept down there.

Ted Busbridge (born 1928)

Two village boys who were close friends of mine: Jeff and Graham were often to be seen around the village. We were known as "The gang ". I remember so clearly the things we used to do and the games we played. Village life was never dull. Climbing trees to swing on the branches was natural to us.....We made our own bows and arrows and played happily for hours. We made catapults, kites, go carts and all kind of things depending on the current craze brought about by the stories we read. The countryside of Birling seemed to be set out especially for us with plenty of open parkland, lots of woodland, a large, shallow lake and an old ruined Manor House. All this was free for us to explore which we certainly did. We played conkers as well. We would make log rafts and sail the lake, playing heroes and pirates, Cowboys and Indians on the prairies, hide and seek in the woodland and countless other inventions that took our fancy. Roller skating and cycling was good fun too........Indoor games were mainly draughts, ludo, hide and seek and reading comics, listening to the wireless was another pastime. The wireless set was a new invention in the 1930s.

What were your favourite foods when you were a child?

Madeleine Wray (born 1940)

When I was growing up my favourite foods were rabbit, stews, suet puddings, jam roly poly, rice pudding, apple pie and rock cakes.

Did you have any favourite books?

Madeleine Wray (born 1940)

I remember my favourite books as a girl were Little Women and What Katy Did.

What kind of things did you used to listen to on the radio?

Alan Smith (born 1943)

Radio programmes I enjoyed as a child were Dick Barton’s Special Agent and Jet Morgan’s Journey into Space.

Gwen Croad (born 1931)

Oh golly! ‘In Town Tonight’, ‘Children’s Hour’, five o’clock Children’s Hour wasn’t it?....Children’s stories, plays, poetry I think it was. It was a whole hour especially for children between five and six in the day.

What fun did you have as children?

Madeleine Wray (born 1940)

Oh penny for the Guy. We used to do that. Well every November, you know the 5th of November, we used to make a big bonfire....so we used to have an old Guy, dressed up in old rags …and it would be put onto the bonfire ....before that we used to stand outside, I can’t remember where, outside a shop somewhere. Any passers-by we used to say, “Have you got a penny for the Guy please?” and then you’d take the money to buy fireworks. You had to dress them up, you know in an old raincoat, jumper, scarf and make a funny face out of it .

Did you have pets when you were young?

Madeleine Wray (born 1940)

Yes we did. A black cat called Timmy and we had a dog and later on we had a budgie...My father....he was very fond of Joey and he taught it to talk.

Did you have pocket money?

John Sandell (born 1929)

My grandfather sometimes gave me half a crown....I used to keep it possibly for the Fun Fair that used to come at Easter, but I’d go up to the Fun Fair. I think it would be tuppence or a penny to have a go on the roundabout and that sort of thing. It was a travelling fun fair that came up on the Common in Southampton and they had one or two roundabouts, bumper cars. I’m talking about 1936....There were these steam engines at one side that supplied the electricity to run the roundabouts. It was a lovely smell though, hot oil, oh beautiful!.....My grandfather when he gave me the money to go, and he said, “As long as you bring me back a doughnut .”

Did you get sweets and chocolates as a child?

John Peace (born 1947)

Sweets … funny enough I got caught out eating sweets. We always … Friday afternoon or Friday lunchtime, going back to school we had sports mixtures … you know sports mixtures in these bags now. Well they used to sell five different sports mixture for an old penny which is …. 240 old pennys to a pound, so you used to buy a couple of pence worth of those and take them with you.

George Lyons (born 1923)

Well we had … in those days there used to be they called a farthing. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of them. There were a farthing which were like a half penny and when you went for any sweets, with a halfpenny, you maybe got five sweets, you know. Just depends whether your parents could afford to give you a penny or half a penny but in many times you know it were half and when we used to run errands and that they used to give us a half a penny for running errands which was spent on chocolate or, well on sweets. Anything that lasted, you know, pear drops or anything like that lasted.

Ken Lawrence (born 1934)

They were the last thing to come off the ration, about a year after the War finished. ‘Cos I remember we went in this sweet shop, Maynards, and there was a window, and there wasn’t a sweet in it. Everybody went mad. Chocolates in the window and there was nothing there. That didn’t last long but even, I mean, rationing, the last things, I think it was sweets, it was 1954 which is nine years after the War finished. Oh yes, you can say the good old days, but there was nothing good about them. People were more closer and more helpful to each other in those days, you know, people would help each other.

Peggy O’Rourke (born 1920)

Oh, now you’ve got me going. When we came down to live in the town, about 10 minutes walk I should think from the house where we lived, was a little old lady. Now she really was a little old lady and had a bun on the top of her head and she sold everything from paraffin to butter. You name it, she had it the shop, but she also had a window, an ordinary house it was, this window was full of sweets.We were given six pence a week and we used to go up there and buy gobstopper, soda fountain, liquorice strips, something else, did I say soda fountains? There was something else. I think it was a creamy chocolate bar and we used to go and buy our six penny worth of sweets a week. That was it!

Did you ever have Annuals or comics?

John Sandell (born 1929)

Dandy, yes they were … I can’t remember the names of them. I wanted to keep some but I think I lost them. Micky Mouse and Walt Disney or something.

Do you remember going to the cinema as a child?

John Sandell (born 1929)

Yes I remember Charlie Chaplin! I didn’t go to see the nasty films, I was just taken to ones that suited children.

John Wright (born 1935)

I used to get the bus into Leicester to watch films, there were four or five cinemas in the city then. I loved the music and the singing and dancing. I was only about 9 or 10 years old but I’ll never forget one time I had a penny ha’penny and I went and bought an ice-cream in the cinema as well as my ticket and then I had no money for the bus to get home! I has to ask a stranger for a penny and that got me home.

Did you have a teddy bear?

Jo Scott (born 1936)

My baby Ted...I had him when I was nine months old, but he’s only a little fellow, very scruffy, but he’s filled with straw. Well that wouldn’t be allowed now would it? He’s been everywhere with me....He went with me to college, to the schools I’ve worked in, he’s been on holidays, he’s been all over the world. My Pink Ted I had when I was four. He’s a bit bigger but he … when he… you know when you have a teddy bear , he normally growls. You tip him up and he growls. Mine plays a tune. In cuddling, not so much when pressing his tummy with your hands, you’re supposed to cuddle him and he plays a tune called ‘D’ye ken John Peel’....And he plays that in a musical box inside his tummy, and he still plays … he’s missing one or two notes now after all these years, but he still plays ...

What kind of clothes did you wear when you were little?

Jo Scott (born 1936)

Well, as you can see I was always dressed in dresses. You didn’t dress little girls in trousers, except I obviously must have had a play pair of trousers or shots on there. I bet they were somebody else’s hand-me-downs, I bet they were. Oh, that’s a point. Oh, that dress was one. My auntie’s husband was chauffeur to J B Priestley when they lived at Billingham and therefore some of J B Priestley’s daughter’s dresses came my way and that was one of them. ...Yes, that was … it was handed down to my cousin and then when my cousins had finished with it, it was handed down to me and I had another one which I never had a photograph of me in it. It was pink silk with frills and edged with blue ribbon and I loved that dress.

Did you ever go ice skating?

Kathleen Simmonds (born 1923)

Well I borrowed, I didn’t own any but they were like that, yes, and I was never very good at it. I’d only just about learnt how to not hold onto the side (laughs). I wasn’t adept but I did enjoy going skating in London and then they closed the hall, the rink, and it was necessary to go elsewhere so I enjoyed it and made the skirt especially to go there but it was of those with pleats all round like a gymslip.

Did you go swimming when you were young?

Kathleen Simmonds (born 1923)

No. No, we didn’t go with the school. There was a big swimming pool, well in fact there were two swimming … there were two pools there, maybe even three. We used to go on a Saturday morning and my favourite story was about jumping off the top board when I was seven! I could just about swim and I was a daredevil really, climbing trees and that sort of stuff and went up on there, took a look down … AAAh!

Did you have a favourite toy?

Madeleine Wray (born 1940)

When I was a girl I had my dolls, I loved my dolls, they were called pot dolls, not china dolls then, they were hard to get, a lot of girls had rag dolls.

Did you learn to play an instrument when you were young?

Peggy O’Rourke (born 1920)

Piano but it was terrible. We always had some dogs in the house and the great thing was to get the dogs to sit on the mat outside the drawing room where the piano was and you go in there and you play and the dogs didn’t like it at all so ‘oooowwh’. Somebody would come out and say, “For heaven’s sake, stop that noise.”

Were you in the scouts when you were young?

Mike Wood (born 1939)