Win a Roberts radio and a copy of The Double Dangerous Book for Boys *NOW CLOSED*

We always loved Monopoly which we played with my Great Aunt Doris every summer when she came to stay. She always entered into the spirit of it and was great fun.

So many favourite games but I have fond memories of running around outside with friends playing hide and seek, cannon and all those high energy games.

I loved playing “elastics” .
All we needed was a long length of good knicker elastic joined up to make a circle. We played as a group quite often with two friends holding the elastic behind their legs at each end of the loop. Then we had a serious of jumps and twists in the elastic which got progressively higher until a mistake was made in the routine then you were out .
I even played this by myself using the water butt and dust bin in our garden as stand ins .
Happy hours spent in the long school holidays and all for price of knicker elastic ?

Camping with the Girl Guides, making all the equipment was ready, practice pitching the tents, learning knots, planning the menus, and making tripods, Welly Bob stands, washing up tables and the like from gathered wood. Dad showed me the best way to pack a kitbag & sleep warmly, all remembered from his Army days.

Riding on the combined harvester with my dad and then sharing his lunchtime sandwiches. Looking for Conkers with mum and soaking them in vinegar and baking them in the oven to harden the case. Very un-PC these days but perfectly acceptable back then. Hopscotch with my sister again un-PC these days because nobody wants chalk outside their homes. What a shame everything is so different now, I have lovely memories of my childhood.

Just thought of something else…listening to the shipping forecast on the radio – dad was a farmer, but he still liked to listen and so did. The announcer had such a posh voice and talked about magical sounding places like Tyne, Dogger, Forth, Cromarty it sounded like poetry to me.

I always loved skipping (or jump rope as I think some people called it). One at either end to turn the rope, then one or two of you jumping in.

Hopscotch and playing houses with old pots and pans in the local woods

I loved playing with my brother. He would deliver furniture in his Dinky lorries to my dolls house and out again when the dolls moved. We'd play for hours.

Making buttercup chains in the local woodland and skipping games with friends in the street and school playground. Happy days!!

In the late 60s early 70s we used to play outside with all our friends, chase, building dens, hide and seek. Lots of fun and so much freedom, as long as we were home at meal times and before dark.

Foraging for seeds, branches,mud and leaves and mixing into a bowl to make food (inedible but great fun)

Collecting scraps (coloured pictures on paper or card) and swapping with my friends. I’d save my pocket money to buy sheets of them. I still have them now 65 years later.

Cowboys, used play with a friend who lived down the road from my family's farm with lots of hiding places.

Hopscotch. Drawing on the pavement using our fancy coloured chalk. When others got bored, I just carried on.

Playing hockey on roller skates in my cul-de-sac street with the rest of the kids in the street - no hockey sticks just bits of wood!

I don't know the proper name for it but we used to call it elastic or french skipping. We would buy a couple of yards of elastic make it into a loop a girl would stand at each end of the loop with the elastic round our ankles while the other girl skipped in and out of it making differnt shapes. I don't think children do it these days.

Jacks with my brother

Going down to the local canal with a garden cane , string, bent pin and a jam jar and fishing for sticklebacks. happy days!

French skipping, whips and tops, and just the freedom we had to take ourselves off with friends down to the park or into nearby countryside for hours at a time.

I loved learning card games - as a small child it was just fun but as I got older I really started to appreciate the other skills I was picking up - strategy, planning, teamwork, sportsmanship (to be gracious when losing and not to boast when winning etc). I used to love it when we'd put a blanket on the lawn and play cards and have a sort of mini picnic - usually lots of laughter when the dog would pinch something or run off with something! I also loved Scrabble, taking the dog for walks and chestnut gathering in the woods, going swimming with my sister and/or friends and days down the coast (again having a naughty dog that would run off with other people's belongings, and kept us kids fit chasing him to retrieve things!) I used to love watching mum and nan sewing and was always amazed when a bit of cloth was turned into clothing or other useful household items - a skill I sadly lack!

Chess !! My younger cousin taught me how to play over a summer spent with him and his mother when I was about ten ... I never did win him , but have won my husband a couple of times since

The most fondly I look back is on hopscotch games I used to play with my friends on school playgrounds or after school, near home, in quiet cul- de-sac. I have so many of fond memoires when playing this game, making a new friends or having fun.

Playing with my Spirograph to make pretty pictures!

Dolls and dolls houses.
I learned to knit, knitting simple clothes for my doll and I had a simple sewing machine

Scrap Books. You could get scraps with lovely old fashioned pictures of fairies and nursery rhyme characters.