It's a constantly repeated battle cry of those who do not realise that the world turns and changes that children don't play enough outside any more and that the old games and past-times were so much better than any electronic pollution which young people feed themselves these days.
But we can leave the 'old days were better days' arguments aside and still have a look at bygone games, rhymes and other amusements without fear of drowning in self-satisfied nostalgia. Many games and rhymes in Scotland were found in some form up and down the country. Anyone wishing to dive into further study should immediately consult Robert Chamber's 19th century classic (and it is a classic) The Popular Rhymes of Scotland.
Here's a simple old rhyme that one echoed through the black-and-white, long ago lanes of Forfar:
The website Tobar an Dualchais, Kist O'Riches, is a repository of oral tradition and once of its contributors is Forfar lady Jean Rodger, whose 1976 remembrance of a rhyme concerning the tripe shop-owner Mary Grubb can be heard on the website (the link is here). Local girl's incorporated this local character into their skipping and counting games:
Mary, whose surname, extended as 'grubbie' was suitable to her appearance, was famous for her sayings, the most famous of which was, 'I wish I wis deid so I wid get peace to live.'
Jean Rodger also recalled the ghost which haunted the South School at Forfar. Never seen, it was obviously pathetically under nourished, for it issued the plaintive cry:
(Jean's anecdote can be heard here)
We finish a little further north of Forfar with this tongue twister, in two versions:
But we can leave the 'old days were better days' arguments aside and still have a look at bygone games, rhymes and other amusements without fear of drowning in self-satisfied nostalgia. Many games and rhymes in Scotland were found in some form up and down the country. Anyone wishing to dive into further study should immediately consult Robert Chamber's 19th century classic (and it is a classic) The Popular Rhymes of Scotland.
Games
The following recollection of Victorian games, now all long extinct, are detailed in Arbroath, Past and Present by James McBain (1887):
Kirk The Gussie
This was a ball and stick game, a little like miniature golf, except the 'ball' (probably a stone, had to find its way into a number of holes in its course, as well as reaching a final goal.
Docker
A small stone was placed on a boulder and aimed at by the player who had to shout 'docker', and he score one point if he dislodged it. But, if he failed to say the word, his opponents broke in and said it and earned the point.
Kick, Bonnetie, Kick
The person who was 'it' guarded his bonnet, placed on the ground, and the others tried to grab it. Anyone who got caught during the attempted snatch was the new 'it'.
Memories of the '45?
In the 19th century there was a regrettable habit of folklorists to ascribe ancient and significant meaning to the most mundane of children's games. So, Ring-A-Roses, for instance, was said to be a distorted memory of the great plague. Experts now think this is not the case. But the following, again from Arbroath, possibly remembers the stationing of Hessian troops in the town, there to support the Hanoverian government during the Jacobite insurgency.
This girls' game had two teams. The first one addressed the other:
Have you any bread and wine,
Bread and wine, bread and wine?
Have you any bread and wine?
Can a teerie, arrie ma torry.
The second team responds:
Yes, we have some bread and wine,
Bread and wine, bread and wine,
Yes, we have some bread and wine,
Cam a teerie, arrie ma torry.
First Side - We shall have a glass of it, etc.
Answer - One glass of it you shall not get, etc.
First side - We are King George's loyal men.
Loyal men, loyal men;
We are King George's loyal men,
Cam a teerie, arrie ma torrie.
Answer - What care we for King George's men,
King George's men, King George's men;
What care we for King George's men;
Cam a teerie, arrie ma torrie.
The game then ended in a mock scrummage or battle.
Old Forfar Rhymes
Mrs Greenie lost her peenie
On the Farfar washing greenie.
One, two, three and hop, Mary Grubbie's tripe shop!
Mary, whose surname, extended as 'grubbie' was suitable to her appearance, was famous for her sayings, the most famous of which was, 'I wish I wis deid so I wid get peace to live.'
Jean Rodger also recalled the ghost which haunted the South School at Forfar. Never seen, it was obviously pathetically under nourished, for it issued the plaintive cry:
Pea soup, pea soup, I'm braking my hert for pea soup!
(Jean's anecdote can be heard here)
A Tongue Twister
The black backit pairtrick
Flew ower the Kirk o' Cortachy.
Twa pairtricks flew ower
the kirk o' Cortachy the nicht.
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