LL-L "Games" 2003.06.06 (03) [E/S]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 06.JUN.2003 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Pat Reynolds <pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Games" 2003.06.05 (02) [E]

Oh dear, I have been deleting LL posts without reading in an attempt to
get more thesis written ... and now realise that the 'games' thread' is
something which (very, very, tangentially) interests me.  In Hillier and
Hanson's seminal work on the organization of space, _The Social Logic of
Space_, they describe a game of hide-and-seek which puzzled me at the
time I read it because it wasn't the rules I learned ... So many thanks
for reminding me that diversity is the norm!

The main reason for writing was to ask if Edward A. Snow's 'Inside
Breugel: The Play of Images in Children's Games' (1997) has been
discussed already?  I have heard two very divergent opinions of this
work, both from art-historical perspectives, so I'd particularly like
other's opinions (linguists, archaeologists, material culturalists,
sociologists, etc.)

Best wishes to all,

Pat
(trying to give up feeling guilty about owed emails - hoping that 2007
won't be too late for a reply)
--
Pat Reynolds
pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk
   "It might look a bit messy now,
                    but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Pratchett)

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From: Thomas <t.mcrae at uq.net.au>
Subject: Street Games Final

THE TENEMENT TORMENTORS Part 3
In Glorious Battle and Post War Fun
  While our fathers did their bit fighting against Hitler, Mussolini,
etc we
kids fought our own campaigns against other street gangs. Sir Walter
Scott
wrote about such combats in his time and they probably persist to this
day.
Worst battles were fought with stones as weapons and many¹s the boy who
needed stitches after one split his scalp open.
  Divots, lumps of turf with earth attached were somewhat safer and
many's a
time gangs have attacked each other in barrages of those.  A few days
prior
to writing this article my cousin in South Africa rang, he told me he
had
revisited the scene of our battles and was most upset that a particular
lamppost had been removed from its location. Seems he still bore the
scars
of running into it during a turf fight around 1947.
Anderson¹s Cubby Houses
  Nowadays lucky children have their own cubby houses, during my
childhood
the British Government supplied them free of charge. Anderson Shelters,
made
from corrugated steel and covered with turf, were erected in the back
greens
from around 1941. These were seldom used as air raid shelters in my part
of
Edinburgh but they became Gang Huts for kids in the adjacent tenements.
In
our games they¹d become battleships or even German U-Boats and during
winter
snows the little mounds were great for the wee bairns to sledge down on
coal
shovels or tin trays.
    After the war ended the shelters were dismantled and the corrugated
steel sections  piled up in one location. The Big Boys quickly worked
out
how to use them to create a dangerous slide. Strategically stacked they
formed a steep hill on which another curved section was placed as a
sled.
We¹d all pile on and  slide down the slope at very high speed. Good fun
but
some of us received minor injuries when the structure collapsed.
    With the advent of winter a couple of the curved sections were taken
to
the local sledge run, loaded with children they outran everything else
on
the slopes. Och it was a sad day when workmen finally got round to
taking
the things away. I wonder whatever happened to them?
Bonefires and Bangers
    The day WW2 ended the first Bonefire¹s (sic) in many years were lit
in
the middle of streets all over the City. While ours blazed up I saw my
first
fireworks exploding, soon they became commonplace and we would light Œ
penny
bangers¹ and throw them at one another. Bins supplied for food waste to
feed
pigs were also favourite targets, a good banger in  one of those could
blow
the lid sky high.
 Occasionally some really bad big boys would steal raiway detonators and
explode them by dashing huge rocks on them The resultant bang and flash
were
most spectacular. Calcium carbide mixed with water in a tightly sealed
soft
drink bottle was used by the real loonies to make a loud bang. A very
dangerous practice.
    Empire Day, which replaced Victoria Day on the same date, was for
some
reason the occasion for a bonefire. For weeks beforehand kids combed the
streets knocking on doors requesting suitable combustibles. These were
returned to appropriate street caches by children singing...
³Ell Oh, Ell Oh, Bonefire Wid²
   It was customary for kids to raid the caches of rival streets, fierce
battles erupted usually terminated by irate mothers whose yells of ŒAh¹
ll
gie Yew it !¹ scattered the combatants. At last the pyre would be built
in
the middle of the road and  ignited. Fireworks were set off with great
effect as the night progressed and many¹s the banger  went off in some
poor
boy¹s hand. Not as bad as it sounds as usually all it did was make your
hand
go numb, I write from experience.
  You could always tell where a bonefire had been lit for ages
afterwards by
the melted tarmac and burn marks. Local fire brigades did their best to
extinguish them but their activities were confined mainly to the Inner
City.
I believe the Victoria Day bonefires persist to the present day.
   The years passed and those simple games of our childhood were largely
rejected by our more sophisticated successors. Nowadays with video
games,
computers, and TV, along with high levels of traffic where it was rare
before. street games are probably dying out. It is good to know that
some,
at least, persist but  it¹s a miracle that so many of my generation
survived
unscathed to pass on tales of the wild days of our Youth.

Regards
Tom
Tom Mc Rae PSOC
Brisbane Australia
"The masonnis suld mak housis stark and rude,
To keep the pepill frome the stormes strang,
And he that fals, the craft it gois all wrang."
>From 15th century Scots Poem 'The Buke of the Chess'

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Games

Tom,

Thank you very much for the terrific series!  I am sure I am not the
only one who got a lot out of it and will reread it.  I hope you have
considered publishing something of the sort, if you have not already
done so.

A truelins rare quair tae be presered an treisured -- an it first cam o
be furthset on Lowlands-L, fowk!

Reinhard/Ron

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