Skipping down Memory Lane

THANK you for saving a bit of history. No, not a painting or an ancient monument but something in its way, just as important - childhood games.

We asked, just as an afterthought really, if anyone could remember those rhymes children used for skipping and playing ball in the days before non-stop television and computer games. The rhymes are dying out, in danger of being lost forever.

In some parts of the country it's got so bad that grannies have been drafted into primary schools, not just to teach the children the old rhymes, but to remind them how to play.

Here, thanks to our more mature readers, we do our bit and print just some of those you've sent in.

SKIPPING

SOME of these rhymes work with individual skipping ropes, but for most of them you need a long rope twirled by two people. We used to use old washing lines. Tricky in the days of tumble driers...

The twirlers never stopped turning the rope. It was up to those taking part to time their entrance perfectly. As well as jumping IN and OUT on the cues in the words, a lot of rhymes have added actions too, to be done while skipping. To be really good took a lot of practice, so we start with the simple ones...

Mother was in the kitchen

Doing a bit of stitching

In came a bogeyman

And scared her Out.

Frances Metcalfe, Northallerton and others

House to rent

Apply Within

As I move out

Sue moves in

Josie Collins, Darlington; Sylvia Cooper, Barnard Castle.

Sylvia says that the skipper chose the next one in. "The idea was to keep you on your toes as you didn't know when your name would be called."

On the mountain

Stands a lady.

Who she is, I do not know.

All she wants is gold and silver

All she gets is a nice young man

So call in Sue as out I go.

Mrs Gallimore, Coxhoe; Val Matthews, Castleton and others. This was the rhyme quoted by most people, although with a number of minor variations

Two little dickie birds sitting on a wall

One called Peter. One called Paul.

Fly away Peter. Fly away Paul.

Come back Peter. Come back Paul

Mrs Merrington, Norton

One, two, three, mother caught a flea

Put it in the teapot and made a cup of tea.

The flea jumped out, Mother gave a shout,

In came Father with his shirt hanging out

Jane Goodson, Darlington and others.

I'm a little girl guide dressed in blue

These are the things that I must do

Salute to the king and bow to the queen

And turn my back on the sewing machine.

Rosa Good, Neasham

Charlie Chaplin went to France

To teach the people how to dance

And this is what he taught them -

Heel, toe, over we go

Salute to the king, bow to the queen

And turn your back on the Kaiser.

Mrs Margaret Blyth, 97, who presumably sang that in the First World War

Jelly on the plate

Jelly on the plate

Wibbly, wobbly

Jelly on the plate.

Sausage in the pan...

Turn it over...

Baby on the floor..

Pick it up...

Carol Hamison, Bedale

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn around

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch the ground

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear climb the stairs

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say your prayers

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn out the light

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say Goodnight

Audrey Easton, Whitby and others

1,2,3,4,5,6,7

All good children go to Heaven

Penny on the water, tuppence on the sea

Threepence on the railway

Out goes she!

Mrs Brenda Davies and others

Mother, mother I am sick

Send for the doctor quick, quick, quick.

In comes the doctor

In comes the nurse

In comes the lady with the alligator purse

Jenny Watson, Durham

BALL GAMES

ALL these were pretty much variations of the same but I am baffled. Nearly everyone remembers singing "One, two, three eleri" or something similar. Why "Eleri?" or a-lairy? In Wales Eleri is a girl's name and that's what I thought I was saying, but there must be another reason.

1,2,3 a-lairy

4,5,6 a-lairy

7,8,9 a-lairy

10 a-lairy - catch the ball.

Mrs Johnson of Washington doesn't know what a-lairy meant either, but at 87, she can still remember that you bounced the ball and after the third, sixth and ninth bounces you lifted your leg over it. Rosa Good remembers that each time there was a different variation - right leg, left leg, from the back, from the front.

Mrs Dunn of Crook and others remember variations that went

1,2,3 a-lara

I saw Aunty Clara

Sitting on the lavatara

Eating chocolate biscuits

Some versions have Aunty Mary, sitting on the lavatary. Some, more respectably, have her sitting on a chair-alairy. There was a great ritual of different ways of catching or throwing a ball. If you dropped it, you had to go back to the beginning.

Audrey Easton lists

Plainey - up to the wall

Clappy - clap hands

Rolly - rolls hands over each other

Backy - clap hands behind back

Touchy - head, then toes, then ground

Turn around.

Rosa Good remembers Sixer - a series of six different ways of catching the balls. "Straight bounce, back bounce, through the legs, throwing round to the left to catch with your right, then vice versa and lastly throwing it straight at the wall and rotating hands as often as possible before catching the ball."

Many versions of the rhymes were used to play Two Ballie - for hours and hours and hours. Carol Hamison remembers a rhyme where at the end of each line, on the word "Sir" she threw one ball overhand and the other underhand. Further variations became impossibly complicated. But you can try.

Have a cigarette, Sir

No Sir. Why Sir?

'Cos I've got a cold, Sir

Where did you get your cold, Sir?

From the North Pole, Sir

What were you doing there, Sir?

Catching polar bears, Sir.

How many did you catch, Sir?

One, Sir, Two, Sir, Three, Sir.

The great experts in the traditions of childhood, Iona and Peter Opie, collected many rhymes and games in the 1950s. Many of them, they said, were little changed over hundreds of years. It would be a shame if they died out now. But at least we've kept a few of them going a bit longer. Many thanks to all those who wrote in, I'm just sorry we couldn't use them all.