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

I have a button tin. It's a Thornton's Toffee tin. My Gruesomes love playing with the buttons

Tying sisters to trees, tomahawks, fires? you were recreating the Pastille Picking Mama ad (fruit pastilles)

Or they nicked it from me?

Blimey, we'll be onto Spirograph and sticklebricks next!

And only the black fruit pastilles were worth eating... Better than wine-gums.

MMF

>>The Button box...

Heaven!

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

I'm 4 or 5 years older than you MMF - and I don't know, either! (apart from the obvious thing of the stash of buttons that mam's used to cut off old shirts and things)

How did that figure in the games of our generation?

If it was an aid to learn counting, I missed out - I was too busy playing poker with me da, or learning how to make rollies with grandad

no you were right
it was a box full of buttons to use when buttons came off things - or for when you knitted cardigans or something.

Oh fiddle, my son (aged 5) even knows how to use a rolling machine, Evadne (not *my* idea, I hasten to add)

Button boxes were common (at least in the North of England) during the seventies. We had one, as did my aunts.

I've not even thought about French skipping for many a year. I now know what those elasticated ropey things are in equipment cupboard are at school. Can anyone tell (remind ) me how we used to play with 'em so I can teach the childer? I remember starting at the ankle, going to the knee and then up to the thighs and it involved some sort of jumping?

As far as I can remember French skipping, it involved jumping on, over or between the strands to start with, a bit like a static sort of hopscotch) with some sort of rhyme, and then, if you didn't fall over, or twang the elastic bands. (Or both) you got another go and did convoluted leaps with the elastic cutting you circulation off at ankle height, to begin with, knee height and finally thigh height, if you were a real show off.


I preferred kiss chase. I'd make damned sure I fell over and got caught, too

There's a bit about French Skipping at A569982

It was played in Australia too

Oh yes the button box, full of treasures, I can close my eyes and see mum's old button tin. In the same area as the buttons and jewels my dad kept some old Players Cigarette packets with cards in them. When I think now they were probably worth a fortune but I don't even know what happened to them. Mum also had some egg cups which were her treasures and when she was at work and I was left to entertain myself during the school hols. I used to play with them, I can see the pattern of the carpet as I pushed these little cups around, one was a car, one a policeman.