skipping rhymes

I wasn't born until my Mum was 37, she only married when she was 30. Thankfully I had my children when I was young otherwise my parents would not have had any time with their grandchildren, I was the only one who had children.

Here's another dredged up from the memory store!

Little fatty doctor
How's your wife?
Very well thank you
That's alright
Can't eat a bit of fish
Or a stick of liquorice
O U T spells out

and another

House to let
Apply within
When I move out
Mrs (name of next girl) moves in

Skipping seemed to be seasonal along with other communal games. We had whip and top in Spring and coloured the tops of the tops with chalk patterns - anyone remember those? Then hopscotch with a bit of shiny tile to slide up the grid pattern chalked on the pavement or playground. I feel sorry for children today - they miss out on all those simple but hugely enjoyable games we played.

Gagagran, I feel sorry for children today too although even when I was at school the boys' playground games (mainly football) seemed very boring compared to the girls' ones.

Did anyone else skip with "bumps ropes"? They were lengths of plastic-coated washing line and turned much faster than the normal skipping ropes. The rhymes were different too.

Plastic coated washing line ? don't think it existed when I was a child. Grossi are you just in your 40s ?

Thank you to all you Grans who responded to my query. I have laughed at all the memories these rhymes conjour up. One teeny question though, posed by my son as I drilled my granddaughter with the skipping rhymes.. is skipping still allowed in school playgrounds? He has a point - Health and Safety and all that madness

Why have you called yourself specki4eyes ? Does this mean you wear glasses? If so, then you should be more sensitive to the feelings of glasses-wearers. 4eyes is what glasses wearing children get called in the playground. I know this from experience. It is a rude word worse, to my mind, than a conventional swear word. Its use implies prejudice against someone who is different. Sight impairment is not funny.

grossi we used to skip with plastic coated lines to Salt and Pepper Salt and Pepper Pepper Pepper Pepper where you had to skip really fast or be out.

specki my DGD still plays skipping games at her junior school so maybe the "elf & safety" have not caught up with this bit of enjoyment yet ?

Oh dear! I do think that was uncalled-for, carboncareful. Specki can call herself what she likes - this isn't the children's playground.

She may mean "specky for eyes" carbon implying that she likes wearing glasses so much that she has several pairs! I'd love to have lots of different pairs to ring the changes. Anyway, I personally don't see this an an insult, I wear glasses and it wouldn't bother me if people call me 4 eyes.

Let us not rise to carboncareful's comment about my user name which, I might add, had GNHQ approval. If we do, it will spoil this happy and amusing thread.

I'm so glad to hear that skipping is still allowed in school playgrounds! I haven't lived in the UK for 8 years, so I'm not sure what is still acceptable.

Schools often supply baskets of ropes, quoits & hoops in the playground for each year group. Not the plastic coated ropes though(and THEY were ace!) Last summer term I taught the children French skipping and it ended up with most of the boys and half the boys all queing for a turn!! (I was on duty; the playtime overran with three cheers from the other staff!)

eGJ isn't it fun doing yard duty with the children alot of them don't know the games we played when we where young,their parents are so busy at work they have no time to show them

there came duke a riding, a riding, a riding
there came a duke a riding
tissem a tassem a teaser

what are you riding here for, here for, here for
what are you riding here for
tissem a tassem a teaser

i'm riding here to marry... (and so on)
who are you going to marry... (and so on)
i'm gong to marry [name]

this wasn't a skipping game. it was a game where two rows of girls skipped (without ropes, the 'other' skipping!) towards each other then skipped backwards away.. then forward again. one girl was the duke. she chose the next person (the one she would 'marry') and together then chose children...

again from my gran, so it was in playgrounds around the first world war, and resurrected in the early sixties.

By the way, should have said, thank you anagram and yogagran for your support over that little niggle.

This discussion has just come in useful!! DD sent emergency email last night; GS needs 50s playground games TODAY do I know any. Well of course I could remember some, but copy & paste from GN was quicker

Skipping happens in schools today as it did when I was at school.. seems to come and go in seasons! We always provided skipping ropes for the children at the schools where I was working & they could bring them in from home too. DGD (6yrs) takes hers to school.
We really got all the kids skipping when a dad, a huge big man who was a boxer, came in to demonstrate his brilliant light footed skipping skills! We then got a skipping demo group in to show the kids..double skipping , ins and outs etc etc..was amazing Skipping happened in every inch of the playground for the rest of that term and no major accidents!

I have read a few reports of skipping being banned on 'elf 'n safety' grounds. When I was a child in the 1940's in the back streets of Salford, there was alway skipping going on - either individually or as a team game with people taking turns to hold the ends of the rope. Wonderful exercise and good fun.
WE also had lots of team games involving running, such as Rally Oh! and Farmer, farmer, may I cross your water? Note the perfect grammar!
Mums, aunts and grannies would sit outside on summer evenings and watch us.
Nostalgia is not what it used to be!

One skipping rhyme was:
House to let, apply within,
When I go out (name) comes in.

Thanks Greatnan I'd forgotten Farmer Farmer may I cross your field! Must email DD right now..............just remembered "What's the Time MR WOLF?"!!
GS took my Coronation spoon into school on Monday and the WHOLE school got to admire it!

Has anyone mentioned the farmers in his den?

A god source is the lore and language of schoolchildren by the opies

Not to be confused with the sexual life of savages which makes an excellent doorstop or bed foot elevator!

jeni !

How lovely to be reminded of these rhymes, and the wonderful play-times spent with a line of girls on one side, gradually going in one by one as we sang "All in Together Girls". Not so easy to come out, though!
Glad some of you also recall those ball games. Used to play alone (poor, only child boo hoo!) with two old rubber balls and a game called Sevens, different action with each number, usually becoming harder. Does anyone know where I can buy a set of Jacks, another game very popular during the 50's. We seemed to have a "craze" for certain games, which in time would fade away to be replaced by another favourite, going in cycles.
Hopscotch is played in my granddaughters' school playground, but does anyone remember a game called London to York, which we preferred, with the numbers marked on paving stones but different rules? Used to get told off for marking the pavement, but it came off in the rain!
All those ball games came in handy, I can still impress the young ones with my juggling skills.

Oh, yes, Jacks was a very popular craze at my primary school, dahlia!
I was actually very good at it (unlike skipping!). And two-balls, as we used to call it.