h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This was a real girls game that left you with scuffed knees and sorted the men from the boys (so to speak). You needed precision jumping skills and supreme concentration to excel at this game, and those who achieved the highest levels had serious respect in the playground.

To play you needed a *really* long piece of knicker elastic - the kind that's about 5mm wide - or, more likely, several pieces that you'd scrounged from your mum's sewing basket all tied together to make a big loop of elastic. A good size for playing with three people would be about 3 metres.

To play properly, you'd need a minimum of three players, but at a pinch you could play with 2 and a bin (or in extreme desperation one person and two stools). All players but one would stand inside the loop so they were stretching it relatively taught around their collective ankles.

The remaining player would then perform a series of jumping moves to ensure that after each maneouvre their feet would be in specified positions in relation to the gaps of elastic between each player. They went in the following order:

- Both feet under the elastic
- Both feet on top of the elastic
- One on top, one under
- One on top, one under, swap feet before moving to the next stretch of elastic (known as 'swopsies').

After a round of all the jump types above had been completed successfully the height of the elastic would be raised (obviously increasing the difficulty of the jumps) to 'kneesies', then 'thighsies' before 'waistsies' and then the ultimate challenge, which was 'chestsies'.

If the current player failed to execute the correct jump their turn was over and play would pass to one of the people inside the circle of elastic, who would then try to outdo the previous player. There was no winner as such (especially as playtime was often over before everyone had a turn), but the best players had major kudos in school.

--
Talith

Talith - thanks for the memories!
I think that we may have called this French skipping or another version - american skipping. We sometimes bought a bag of rubber bands and looped them, one onto the next to make the size of band you were talking of.

I remeber kneesies and chesties - and I also recall spending hours practicing it at home, using chair legs to support the band. I'm trying to recall whether we had some kind of skipping songs or chants which went with this - but I think my memory is fading....

Here in the US I recall this game being played under the name of Chinese Jumprope. I didn't play it much; not very good. But jumprope on many different forms was a good pastime. Double Dutch is a difficult one, involving 2 ropes, and lots of fancy chants to go along with the jumping.

We sang

'England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales
Inside, outside, inside, ON!'

At which point we would have to jump and land with both feet exactly on the elastic.
As similar game it seems, and we also called it French skipping.

I remember the England, Ireland version.

There was also
1.Banana Splits

THINK the rhyme went
Banana Splits, Banana Splits, Ibble, Obble, Chocolate Bobble, Banana Splits.
Please correct this if it is wrong as I've a feeling I'm mixing songs.

2.Jack be Nimble

Jack be Nimble (one foot on 1st cord, second between the two)
Jack be Quick (one foot on 1st cord, second on the other cord)
Jack jump over the Candlestick (jump both feet over both cords)

This one is simple on the lower levels but gets very hard futher on.

Will try and see if my sister remembers any more.

SallyM

I think we may all have to rush out and buy some elastic to have a go!
That should bring back the memories - but my joints might creak a bit.

All my friends seem to be taller so I'll have to jump higher! Wait a minute, I'm taller too

SallyM