A BIT like Uncle Albert, in Only Fools and Horses, my 91-year-old mum likes to talk about the war at every opportunity.

She was seven when the war broke out in 1939, and the games she played as a child, while growing up during The Blitz, are often upper-most in her mind.

I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s told me that one of her favourite childhood pastimes was competing with other kids to collect shrapnel after bombing raids on London. “The quicker you got out in the morning, the bigger the bits you’d find,” she explained, excitedly.

The best discoveries were kept like trophies, in large jars, on a shelf in the kitchen. Once, while out shrapnel-hunting, she found a postcard, with German writing on it, and a cartoon showing Hitler booting Churchill and other British bigwigs out of an air-raid shelter.

“It must have been dropped out of one of the German planes to wind us up,” she suggested.

Long before computer games had been imagined, other wartime fun activities were simple affairs. Skipping ropes were popular, including ‘All Girls In’ when as many as possible joined in under the rope. Spinning tops were a common sight, and many an hour was also passed by throwing a couple of tennis balls against a wall in a variety of ways to score points.

Oh, and then there was hopscotch. All you needed was a bit of chalk, a stone, and the ability to jump on one foot.

“We had a lot of fun really, even though we got bombed out of our house a couple of times, and ended up being evacuated,” she added, matter-of-factly.

Eighty-four years on from the start of the war, my mum came over to our house at the weekend for a family gathering. It was a joint celebration: the 26th birthday of our youngest, Max, plus the chance to toast his older brother, Jack, and girlfriend, Kitty, who’ve just announced their engagement.

After lunch, the newest addition to our family – six-year-old granddaughter, Chloe – decided she wanted to play hopscotch. A grid with 14 squares was drawn with coloured chalks on the pavement outside, a stone unearthed from the garden, and she proceeded to show us all how it was done.

“Whose turn is it now?” asked Chloe.

“Me!” came the immediate response from ‘Great Margaret’ – the name Chloe invented because she found ‘Great-Grandma’ a bit confusing when she was smaller. We’ve all called her Great Margaret ever since because it’s a perfect fit for someone who remains full of life at such a grand old age and does exercises every morning.

Great Margaret threw the stone, hopped along to the Number 8 square to bend down and pick it up, before carrying on to Number 14 without losing her balance, although she did touch the lines.

“Well done, Great Margaret,” said the six-year-old, impressed but not in the least surprised that the 91-year-old had completed the course.

It’s a good job we hadn’t booked a bouncy castle, or she’d have been on that too!

Making up the rules…

SHE may be only six, but Chloe’s already adept at bending the rules.

For example, take a game she likes to play, called ‘Doggy Spotting’. It was simple to begin with – the first to spot a dog around the village gets a point, and the winner is the one who spots the most dogs before the destination’s reached.

One day, Chloe was staring defeat in the face because her Daddy was one point ahead.

“Doggy!”  she joyfully announced in the nick of time, pointing to a pooch across the road.

“OK, it’s a draw,” Daddy conceded.

“No, Daddy,” came the reply. “Dalmatians are worth five points. I win.”

Later that week, another game of Doggy Spotting was underway, and her Daddy was the first to see the same Dalmatian.

“Doggy!” he cried, only for the moment of triumph to be swiftly stamped on. “Sorry, Daddy,” he was told. “Dalmatians don’t count after sunset."

THEN there was the time she was in the car with my wife and an ambulance whizzed by with lights flashing and siren blaring.

“Let’s play ‘Spot The Amblience, Ganma,” Chloe declared.

As they came to a roundabout, Ganma spotted one in the traffic ahead.

“Amblience!” she shouted.

“Sorry, Ganma,” came the reply. “It only counts if you see them from the front.”