Childrens games 1920s

Irlam and Cadishead Advertiser 1980s

Life in Lancashire during the 1920s.

 

I know a man with a cauliflower ear who never did anything more violent than pull a Christmas cracker and even then, he did it at arms length. I saw him having a quiet pint in the local the other night when I overheard someone asking him how he came to acquire such a lovely 'cauly'. He paused momentarily as he raised the glass to his lips and said "Thrust"!

 

The stranger, thinking this was a new addition to the usual pub toasts of 'Cheers', 'Down the hatch', 'It's time tha' paid', and so on, raised his glass and replied 'Aye, and Thrust to thee too'! and emptied his glass. Our thick-eared friend spluttered as he unsuccessfully tried to laugh and drink a pint at the same time. I would have loved to have heard the outcome, but I had to leave in a hurry - I'm sure some of these traffic wardens have watches which are constantly fast.

 

You know what he meant didn't you? Of course you did; the enquirer must have been a real ignoramus not to know how the ear became flattened at 'Thrust'! It got a clog iron in it!

 

For the edification of those who like the man in the pub, do not know what 'Thrust' is (although they must be in a minority), it is merely another name for 'Jump-a-backs'.

 

In case it had another name as well, let me make it perfectly plain once and for all. It was a polular game in the school playground long before such establishments had school dinners and sex lessons.

 

Lads would form two teams of four, five, or six. One group would lean against the school wall, snake like, so as to form one long back onto which the others would in turn jump one on top of the other. The team that collapsed lost. As your opponent came hurtling on to your shoulders, it was wise to get your head tucked well down and protect your ears, by your elbows, otherwise you could get a brass-capped wooden-soled iron shod clog in your earhole. Our friend in the pub obviously forgot!!

 

Gets you thinking, doesn't it? What happened to games like 'Thrust!'; what about the others of that era? Gone and almost forgotten? Perhaps we adults in our wisdom have given them something better - like watching television, youth clubs, discotheques, or doing away with evening recreation altogether by substituting English for excersice and Theorems for 'Thrust' in a frantic effort to pass the G.C.E. examinations.

 

The long summer evenings and the short winter nights will come and go and I feel sorry for them. The kids will have lost hours of fun which can never be recaptured. I would be the first to agree that many of the games we played, if not criminally delinquent, did not subscribe to the peace and tranquility of unsuspecting house holders.

 

Take 'Caplatch' for example. Most doors had the old-fashioned latch - usually brass and highly polished. The first two priorities in house cleanliness were - 1. the doorstep and 2. the latch (in that order).

 

A street would be selected with long rows of latches. Starting at the first door, we would doff our caps, get to our marks, and then run like the clappers, 'batting' our caps on each latch, and one by one, men and women would open their doors to their unexpected visitors, only to see and hear pairs of clogs going like the bats of hell up the street to safety.

 

My! my! what some of those people shouted! They'd even make a TV play producer blush!!

 

TATHAM'S; Cadishead and Irlam Guardian Advert 1920.

Done