Playground games & Kiddy Rhymes

We had to say "ally ally ox in free" when we gave up on a game. What an ox had to do with anything i don't know. We Must have taken it from something else and garbled the words.

can't remember the beginning of the rhyme:

.......
melodion legs
umberella feet
went to the pictures
couldn't get a seat
when the picture started
......farted


Liar, liar, your pants are on fi-re

Lexicographer wrote: »

I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life,
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.

Ohmigod! I've been trying to remember that for ages!

Did you learn it from a Mrs Valentine by any chance??!

poppyvally wrote: »

Chinese government, black man's daughter
Tra la la was a very good scholar
The wind blows high...........that's all i remember. Anyone ever heard of it?

That's a new one on me. Never heard it before .... sorry I can't help.

Where you going, Bob?
Down the road, Bob.
For what, Bob?
For rhubard.
Can I go, Bob?
No, Bob.
Why, Bob?
Cos you don't like rhubarb!

We used this rhyme as a ball game, two tennis balls against a wall!!! Hours of fun.

anewme wrote: »

Loved Kerbs.

We had a game which we called sticky relivio - which was kind of the same thing that you called ralivo.

Red Rover - Red Rover, Red Rover we call Johnny over.......

There was another game we called it Plaineyio= where the person who was "on" threw a tennis ball backwards over their head and those behind had to scurry to catch it and hide it somewhere on their person. When the ball was suitably hidden, the group sang "plaineyio who has the ball, is he big or his he small, is he fat or is he thin, or is he hit with a rolling pin. The person then quizzed everyone "splits" etc to see if they could guess who had the ball.

Bulldog - Bulldogs charge!!

There was another game "Giant Steps".....Paddy, you take 2 baby steps (someone you did not like)........John, take a train to london.......

Also did the elastics thing - we just called it elastics - "Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, inside outside inside, scales, inside outside, across the sea and back again, make a gun and shoot yourself, outside, across the sea, make a diamond, one, two three!"

Other things I remember playing were "Swingball" and a "Mr. Turtle Pool" here's the add from 1977 - I still remember all the words.

We said Queenieio instead of Plaineyio

And our giant steps/baby steps game was called "Mother May I".

the_syco wrote: »

Also, 21 (I think it was called). You count to 21, and everyone hides. You then say where they were hiding (or running towards the pole) whilst one hand was on the central pole. One trick was to just go home without anyone seeing you go, and everyone thinking you were in some awesome place :pac:

We called this Tip the Can, and I know it was called Kick the Can in other areas.

I hope it's not bad form to necro this thread, but I find these things fascinating!

We had "kerbs" under that name - for the record, I'll out myself as perhaps not quuuuite being an oulwan, so I hope you'll forgive me - playing in Waterford in the mid-90s. Same game - tossing the ball to hit the kerbs and catch it, with or without tricks.

Also had olly-olly-oxenfree, although I don't remember it staying around long.

British Bulldog - think it's been called Bulldogs earlier in the thread.

Mother May I - the steps game.

What's the Time, Mister Wolf

Duck, Duck, Goose

Red Letter - was never that popular though. You could absolutely clean up with a couple of long middle names!

40, 40, Home - Probably that 21 game, just counting to forty. Also known as "Den" in other parts of the country.

Ooh, something about a frog on a wall, or possibly in a well. We'd all stand on - a bench in the schoolyard in our case, arms linked, and the counter would say the rhyme while pointing down the row until they got to the "froggie", and would then try to pull them out of the linked line. Game ended when a) one person was left standing, b) the entire line fell off or, most commonly, c) when a teacher heard the chant and came and yelled at us for playing a banned game

((Aha! I found it! "Down in the valley of blankety-blank, there lived two frogs sitting back to back, singing zoom, zam, zoom-zam-zay, down in the valley of ker-PLUNK!" - On the plunk, you'd pounce))

Red Rover - That one got banned.

Wall fights - Got banned LOTS. Two people would stand facing each other on a wall and try to bash each other off it using their bodies. Most variants of it, you couldn't use hands, arms folded in front of you, sometimes hopping along the wall (it was a short wall, with grass on both sides!)

Apparently it is!

Mother May I...I can't quite remember how that goes either. I think it was "Mother" at one side of the road and the rest at the other, and there was some rhyme about Mother May I cross the road? Whoever is On says that X may take two baby steps or one large step, etc. until one gets to her.

What's the Time Mister Wolf is almost the opposite in that no-one wants to get too close, as the Wolf will say X o' clock on most turns, meaning people have to take X number of steps, and end up with "time to eat you all!" and chase them back across the road until s/he catches one, who is then the Wolf, I think.

I think Down in the Valley (the frog game) and wall-fights were things that we came up with ourselves, although I don't know where the frog song came from! Although there does seem to be a skipping rhyme that starts the same

Down in the valley
Where the green grass grows,
There sat X (X jumps in)
Sweet as a rose.
Along came (Might be a second person jumping in, might not, not sure)
And kissed her on the cheek.
How many kisses
Did she get this week?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

Played so of those games when i a kid anyone remember ringaring a rosie.

And we all fell down!

We played that one too a bit, but it tended to be a game that we got told to play rather than one we played ourselves.

I heard a tape (or bits of it) on...eh, must have been a documentary of Dublin in the 50s-70s; lots of small kids chanting these rhymes. Hearing Ring-a-ring-a-roses chanted by lots of small children on a crackling tape isn't cute, it's really creepy... O.O Given how often it appears in horror movies, I can't be the only one to think so?

Ah, my favourite game, a multi-player game - Relievi-eye-o!

Two teams, you caught a prisoner by catching them, and they went into your teams den. Your team could have a good few caught when a sly free member of the other team got up to your den and shouted "Relieve-eee- eye-oh!" and set them all free. Oh mayhem!


There was also 'skipping' (within the chalk boxes, kicking a shoe-polish tin full of earth around, in various formations while reciting various rhymes); and French skipping (making various patterns by lifting elastic bands tied together in ropes over each other with your feet, while jumping) - there was probably a rhyme or two involved.

Then there was games like London Bridge is Falling Down.



Mother May I, and Grandmothers Footsteps, and so on, I only know because my children learned them at nursery. There were no children playing in the street anymore then, in the early 90s.


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Antone remember a game played with a long stick and a small piece of stick, several inches long? The short stick was placed on a lowish wall with the end projecting. Then with the long stick, you had to hit the projecting piece upwards (i.e. from underneath) and then, while it was in the air you had to hit it as far from the wall as possible. (now, the mind fades and I'm not sure how the game continued) Probably your opponent had to get the short piece back to the base of the wall by hitting and end of it making it jump into the air and while up, you hit it back towards the wall. I think the number of hits to get it back was counted.

There was something repeated before the the small stick was hit away from the wall but I fail to remember that. A name springs to mind - possibly Kitty out? It used to be played a lot at school but that was over 60 years ago!