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

I've got a couple of entries in PR about things we used to play with in the 1970s

Space Hopper

Clackers

and the PR thread is beginning to drift into other 70s playthings so I thought I'd bring it here.

My Mum's old tights used to get cut up - a tennis ball in the toe and the other end tied around my ankle and I'd play skip-ball....
among other things ......

What *toys* did you play with in the 70s.

Were the clackers those two ball thingys with a string attached and if you got it wrong it really hurt!

How about that gooey stuff and I remember glow in the dark paint!

Yes, clackers - A29141372 brought a tear to many an eye - my own included.

I didn't have gooey stuff, but I did have Crazy Foam, which was like shaving foam to squirt at each other.

We used to play 'gummitwist' - a large rubber band of the varitey that keeps your knickers in place, two more girls (boys rarley played it, except for my brother, who had no choice ), or one more person and a lamppost. Started at ankle's height, then moved to knee's height, then waist height, and if that wasn't high enough, even to neck height.
And we did a lot of rope skipping - with a long rope turned by two persons, and one or two doing the skipping.

We played that elastic thing too Bel only we had loads of little bands joined together and we called it German Jumps


We skipped as well ..... but we also played 'under the moon and over the stars' which was sort of running through the rope as it was turning.

Oh yes, we did that, too.
We had all sorts odf games that involved a lot of running, and we usually played in the street in front of the house. There was a playground, too, but grass wasn't just good for German jumps or rope skipping.

We also tied rope around the lamp at the end of the street and swung around it .... it was great fun - and quite dangerous if a car appeared.

Kerby .... I enjoyed kerby where you threw the ball at a kerbstone - double points if you caught it on the rebound.

Ooh, and we played with marbles. Different colours, different sizes and prices. The most valuable ones were called 'Leckies' - they were - different.

we did the ball in the tights thing, and as well as skipping with them we did the bashing it against the wall thing (for those not in the know: you'd stand with your back to the wall and bounce the ball from one side of your body to the other, chanting a rhyme, and sometimes over your head and on the wall between your straddled legs) One of the songs was inky-pinky-ponky

and we did the elastic thing too (raided my mum's sewing box for that - sorry, mum) but we called it French Skipping. In fact, Gruesome #2 was given a shop-bought one for her birthday once but she never played it because nobody could work out what to do with it

I loved my clackers too

lemme think what else we played with...

I just found a wonderful site with photos of marbles.

http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://hometown.aol.de/murmelwelt/Crockery2k.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.murmelwelt.de/crockery1.html&h=450&w=450&sz=14&hl=de&start=73&tbnid=eLKIb0-jxAh6dM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmurmeln%26start%3D60%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Dde%26sa%3DN

the photo at the bottom, they were 'Leckies'

No, wrong link. If you click that link, then click on 'Neue Murmeln' on the left, then it's the pic at the bottom of the first page.

I tied my sister to a tree with such rubber band thingy and then built a small fire at her feet ... but that's another story.

If that isn't illegal - it should be

Did you thow a Tomahawk at her, too?

*throw*

We used to collect "diamonds" a great deal of me mums dodgy jewellery became precious gems to take to school, wrapped in cotton wool and kept in old baccy tins. We would spend play time swapping our loot and just looking at it.

Ooohh! That reminds me...



The Button box...

Heaven!

I bet kids today don't even know what one of those is!



MMF

My grandma had a button box ... or tin. That really was a treasure ...

Mine had two. One was some sort of Royal Jubilee tin, full of white and mother-of-pearl buttons, while the other was full of coloured buttons.

Used to sort them into colours, or shapes, or numbers, or sizes... hours of fun.

Then if I went to a family friend, she had three, one of which was full of special buttons, like wooden ones, glass, patterned. There were four that were shaped just like a bouquet of flowers... They were my favourites, and were always put to one side so they weren't damaged.

I occassionally wonder what happened to them!

MMF

It would nowadays have a big sign on it - Beware! Not for children under 3 - choke danger!!

Funny ... I believe our tin (which probably was thrown out) was also some sort of jubilee or coronation, too.