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Authors: Norman Jacobs
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everyone they could, trying to knock them over. In self-defence you and a friend would form a bash-up of your own. This game was very much frowned upon by the teachers, who stopped it whenever they saw it happening.
There were a number of quieter games as well that seemed to appear seasonally. These were games like conkers, marbles, gobs and ciggies. There was, of course, a good reason why conkers should be seasonal, but why the others came and went on regular cycles Iâm not really sure. Getting hold of conkers wasnât that difficult as there were a few horse chestnut trees around Millfields. The trick was to pick the best ones â usually small hard ones â soak them in vinegar and then bake them for no longer than two minutes. This, so it was said, would make them really hard and almost unbreakable.
Marbles were always made of glass and some had quite intricate coloured patterns inside. There were a number of different games we would play with marbles; most commonly, the first player would flick a marble along a few feet, then the next player would flick his marble and try to hit the first one. If he missed, the first player would go again. This would continue until one of the players hit one of his opponentâs marbles. He would then win all the marbles that had been played. For some reason I was quite good at this game. I started off with just one marble that I borrowed from another boy and finished up with a sizeable collection.
Ciggies was a game where you could win a large collection ofcigarette cards. There were two variations of this game, dropsies and flicksies. In dropsies the participants would stand up and the first boy would just drop his âciggieâ (cigarette card) to the ground. The next to go would drop his and if it covered the first one he won them both. This was more difficult than it sounds since ciggies were usually very light and floated in the wind, so very rarely just fell straight.
The more popular game, though, was flicksies. In this, any number could join in and you had to hold your ciggie between your index and middle finger and flick it at the wall. Whoever had the ciggie that finished nearest the wall won all the others; this too was more difficult than it sounds as you had to be careful not to flick so hard that the ciggie hit the wall and bounced back a long way. There was a fine judgement in getting it just right. For both this and dropsies, the thicker the card the better and sometimes two cards were stuck together for that very reason. Some cards were even sold with gummed backs.
After a while, I wasnât too keen on this game since I didnât want to lose my cigarette cards as I found the information on the back of some of them very interesting. Two sets I can still remember well were a âKings and Queensâ set, from which I learnt a lot about the history of British Kings and Queens, and âCoach Companiesâ, which featured such companies as Premier Blue, Empireâs Best and Midland Red. There were also many sets of footballers and cricketers, which I collected. I used to buy my cigarette cards from a really tiny shop on the corner of Rushmore Road and Glyn Road, called The Cabin. As the name suggests, it was the size of a small shed and adults had to duck to get into it. The shop sold mixed packets of six cigarette cards costing 1d.
The other seasonal game, gobs, was played with five small cubes like dice, only without any numbers on the sides. There were two main variants of this game as well. The simplest consisted of tossing up one gob from the back of the hand and picking up one or more of the others from the ground while it was in the air and catching the tossed gob and so on until all five stones were picked up. The other was tossing up first one stone, then two, then three and so on from the palm of the hand, and catching them on the back of the hand. The winner was the first player to successfully complete whichever variant
There were a number of quieter games as well that seemed to appear seasonally. These were games like conkers, marbles, gobs and ciggies. There was, of course, a good reason why conkers should be seasonal, but why the others came and went on regular cycles Iâm not really sure. Getting hold of conkers wasnât that difficult as there were a few horse chestnut trees around Millfields. The trick was to pick the best ones â usually small hard ones â soak them in vinegar and then bake them for no longer than two minutes. This, so it was said, would make them really hard and almost unbreakable.
Marbles were always made of glass and some had quite intricate coloured patterns inside. There were a number of different games we would play with marbles; most commonly, the first player would flick a marble along a few feet, then the next player would flick his marble and try to hit the first one. If he missed, the first player would go again. This would continue until one of the players hit one of his opponentâs marbles. He would then win all the marbles that had been played. For some reason I was quite good at this game. I started off with just one marble that I borrowed from another boy and finished up with a sizeable collection.
Ciggies was a game where you could win a large collection ofcigarette cards. There were two variations of this game, dropsies and flicksies. In dropsies the participants would stand up and the first boy would just drop his âciggieâ (cigarette card) to the ground. The next to go would drop his and if it covered the first one he won them both. This was more difficult than it sounds since ciggies were usually very light and floated in the wind, so very rarely just fell straight.
The more popular game, though, was flicksies. In this, any number could join in and you had to hold your ciggie between your index and middle finger and flick it at the wall. Whoever had the ciggie that finished nearest the wall won all the others; this too was more difficult than it sounds as you had to be careful not to flick so hard that the ciggie hit the wall and bounced back a long way. There was a fine judgement in getting it just right. For both this and dropsies, the thicker the card the better and sometimes two cards were stuck together for that very reason. Some cards were even sold with gummed backs.
After a while, I wasnât too keen on this game since I didnât want to lose my cigarette cards as I found the information on the back of some of them very interesting. Two sets I can still remember well were a âKings and Queensâ set, from which I learnt a lot about the history of British Kings and Queens, and âCoach Companiesâ, which featured such companies as Premier Blue, Empireâs Best and Midland Red. There were also many sets of footballers and cricketers, which I collected. I used to buy my cigarette cards from a really tiny shop on the corner of Rushmore Road and Glyn Road, called The Cabin. As the name suggests, it was the size of a small shed and adults had to duck to get into it. The shop sold mixed packets of six cigarette cards costing 1d.
The other seasonal game, gobs, was played with five small cubes like dice, only without any numbers on the sides. There were two main variants of this game as well. The simplest consisted of tossing up one gob from the back of the hand and picking up one or more of the others from the ground while it was in the air and catching the tossed gob and so on until all five stones were picked up. The other was tossing up first one stone, then two, then three and so on from the palm of the hand, and catching them on the back of the hand. The winner was the first player to successfully complete whichever variant
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