My primary school years being over forty years ago, it was obviously a time where electronics of any sort were unknown in terms of being used for entertainment. Obvious exceptions being tv and radio but these things weren’t something kids took to school and even if we’d wanted to, they were generally expensive or just too big. Miniaturisation was not a by-word in those days.
Anyway, anything we did in terms of entertainment outside of lessons normally consisted of standing round talking or playing physical games. We played the obvious games like football and other ball games but there were some games we played in groups that I doubt are played much anymore, if at all. One of these was called “British Bulldog” and though it may go by other names (and I have no real idea as to why we called it what we did), it basically involved a line of kids attempting to run from one end of the playground to the other without getting caught by “catchers” as they attempted to do so. It started with only one “catcher” who would call out a kids name. That kid would then attempt to run solo from one side to the other. If the kid was caught, he or she became a catcher and another name would be called out. If however the kid made it to the other side, then all the kids would now try to run to the other side. This was repeated each time and each time some kid would be caught and therefore the ratio of catchers to runners would increase in favour of catchers until the “winner” would be the only person left as a runner.
A simple game maybe and with no real purpose other than being fun but I believe it was so much better then than today where too many kids spend the free time in school “texting” or trying hard to become one of the “in-crowd”, whatever that may mean to each group of kids, rather than just having fun because they can.I’m sure there were games you also played in school that aren’t played any more.
The early years-Primary School(#9)
