The Games we Played
John Prysky
Do any of you remember playing a game called Jimmy Jimmy Knacker, played in the playground where one team lined up from the wall bent over as if in a long rugby scrum, and a second team ran and jumped on top of them until they collapsed, and then they changed with the other team, and did the same, until they collapsed. The team with the most boys on top was the winner. Many a boy got injured and I wonder if it was still played in later years or stopped for health and safety reasons.
Quote from http://strange-games.blogspot.com [well worth a visit - ed]
A playground game of uncertain origin but it was played in playgrounds in the 1960s and 70’s and goes under a variety of names but it is maybe best known as High Jimmy Knacker.
Two teams of players are selected, sizes of 5 to 10 work well. One team is selected to be the ‘horse’. To do this the first player stands upright with his back to a tree. The second team member faces him then bends so that the top of his head is against the leaders stomach and his arms go around his waist. Successive team members then join the line by adopting a similar position: head between the player in front’s thighs, arms around his legs. Like this the human horse is created.
It is now time for the action. One by one the opposing team must run and leapfrog over the tail of the horse trying to land as far up towards the head as possible. Once they land on the backs (with a leg either side, not on knees) they must remain in that position. The aim of the jumping team is to leapfrog all its members onto the horse and then hope the horse will collapse or break at some point. If that occurs then the jumping team has won and it is their turn to jump again. If they fail to get all team members onto the horse then they lose and form the horse themselves next time. If they all get on but the horse remains standing for a set time (twenty seconds or so) then they again lose and must form the next horse.
An excellent game that is both stupid and occasionally dangerous but one that has been a source of constant employment for a generation of Osteopaths.
James Sanderson
My father, born 1907, introduced me to this game around 1958 and we all played it in Lewis Buildings. Best part was the girls joined in as well. After coming back from South Africa where his dad, who was an M. P. in the Army, was stationed, they settled in Earlsfield, south west London and he probably played it at his school, which makes me wonder when the game was first recorded?
John Prysky
Yes. That’s the game exactly. It use to be THE game in the playground with every boy trying to get into a team. It use to have a big audience with the rest of the boys watching. God knows how many boys got good hidings when they got home for having torn and dirty clothes from playing.
Tony Alger
Yes we did take some chances with all sorts didn’t we and as you say some didn’t go to plan with regrettable consequences. Take my brother Ken trying to help my Dad who wanted to get rid of a Television Tube he had removed from our old black and white TV after upgrading it to receive ITV. Ken decide whilst my Dad was at work to smash it with a hammer whilst holding it in his left hand. It promptly imploded sending him flying up the garden with his only injury being the 1st finger on his left hand having the flesh ripped off right down to his knuckle …the hospital (The Royal Free) managed to sew the flap back on with minor long term damage cause …..how lucky can you be? Did he ever show you it or tell you the story?
Paul Lomas
No, Ken never showed me his finger injury but it did not stop him playing darts and snooker he was very good and always beating me at matches, I have a photo somewhere in my loft, if I remember correctly he purchased a snooker table and could not get the right angle because off the staircase banister so what did Ken do saw it off :)
Barry Page
Hello Tony and welcome on board. Good to hear from you and thanks for your story(ies).
How did we ever survive playing on the bomb sites? Lobbing half-bricks at one another in our makeshift, make-believe 'forts' of rubble. Firing cane arrows from our bamboo bows (I got hit by one below the eye, and a subsequent bollicking from the old man).
However, my main dice with death surrounded making explosive charges. Yes, a real right Sinn Féin type without knowing it. My mate, Kenny Pratley and I used to buy from Nicholl's shop in Holloway Road packets of "Jetex" fuel pellets. These cylindrical pellets consisted of compressed combustive chemicals for use in powering model planes, boats, etc. Broken down, however, the compound became a very unstable explosive. So Kenny and I used Ken's ceramic pestle and mortar to grind down the pellets for inserting into aluminium cigar tubes then burying them with a length of fuse. When lit, it was 'retire immediately' and wait for the explosion. We used to play battlefields with model soldiers and Dinky Toys army equipment in Kenny's front garden in Crane Grove. At the end of our explosive escapades, the front garden looked like the Somme!
Anyhow, one day, we decided to increase the explosive power of our 'bombs' and add another chemical – rat poison. When we were grinding the "Jetex" pellet and adding the other component, an enormous explosion occurred. The mortar shattered into a thousand fragments, nearly blinding Kenny and sending us both into shell-shock. I still suffer from tinnitus as a subsequence. That put paid to our bomb making escapades.
James Sanderson
I lived in Lewis Buildings in the Liverpool Road where there were so many kids born at and after the end of the war we never had a problem raising two football teams or steaming over the Highbury Corner bomb sites enjoying ourselves. [if it was sunny then read Highbury swimming pool]
One long summer holiday we bought catapults from Tiny Tots, the toy shop near to John Dory’s fish and chip shop in Upper Street, bottom of Park Street. Then we went over to the bombsite at Highbury Corner, Station Road side, because they had derelict houses still standing and we could play "English and Germans” fighting World War 2 all over again. I was high on the wall, top of the faggot and peas pie shop, side-facing the back row of the gutted, empty houses. Loaded and ready to fire. I watched as a little head gingerly poked out of one of the windows, looking, searching. Very carefully watching. Seeing no one and feeling safe the head poked out a little further. Thank you Nobby, trust it to be you. I fired and I could not repeat the shot in a hundred years. The stone sped true, hit and bounced off the top of his head. I can still "see" it to this day. You have never seen a head disappear so fast. When I think about it now - I realise how dangerous it was. At the time, well.. I jumped off the wall and ran round to see how he was. Dazed, hurt, but what the hell, it was all part of the fun. And no, he didn’t go to hospital either.
Side Note. Nobby was the clown of our little gang. Trouble would find him - even when he played ‘long-leg’ in a cricket match. He’d be on the boundary, day-dreaming and sure enough, a mighty swipe of the bat, and the hard ball would be heading his way where it would either hit him or alerted by the shouts of his team, he would be too late to catch the ball.
The catapults didn't last much longer. A few days later we were at the same bomb-site playing and my back was to the main road (Highbury Corner). All of a sudden the gang ran off, leaving me standing there. I was slow to react, thinking they were pissing around. I eventually turned round to face the local constabulary striding towards me. My catapult was confiscated as apparently it was against the law for them to be sold to someone my age. What did I know? I had to give him the name of the shop where I bought them and after a bollocking I was told to go home and behave myself. Fun times, eh?
Do any of you remember playing a game called Jimmy Jimmy Knacker, played in the playground where one team lined up from the wall bent over as if in a long rugby scrum, and a second team ran and jumped on top of them until they collapsed, and then they changed with the other team, and did the same, until they collapsed. The team with the most boys on top was the winner. Many a boy got injured and I wonder if it was still played in later years or stopped for health and safety reasons.
Quote from http://strange-games.blogspot.com [well worth a visit - ed]
A playground game of uncertain origin but it was played in playgrounds in the 1960s and 70’s and goes under a variety of names but it is maybe best known as High Jimmy Knacker.
Two teams of players are selected, sizes of 5 to 10 work well. One team is selected to be the ‘horse’. To do this the first player stands upright with his back to a tree. The second team member faces him then bends so that the top of his head is against the leaders stomach and his arms go around his waist. Successive team members then join the line by adopting a similar position: head between the player in front’s thighs, arms around his legs. Like this the human horse is created.
It is now time for the action. One by one the opposing team must run and leapfrog over the tail of the horse trying to land as far up towards the head as possible. Once they land on the backs (with a leg either side, not on knees) they must remain in that position. The aim of the jumping team is to leapfrog all its members onto the horse and then hope the horse will collapse or break at some point. If that occurs then the jumping team has won and it is their turn to jump again. If they fail to get all team members onto the horse then they lose and form the horse themselves next time. If they all get on but the horse remains standing for a set time (twenty seconds or so) then they again lose and must form the next horse.
An excellent game that is both stupid and occasionally dangerous but one that has been a source of constant employment for a generation of Osteopaths.
James Sanderson
My father, born 1907, introduced me to this game around 1958 and we all played it in Lewis Buildings. Best part was the girls joined in as well. After coming back from South Africa where his dad, who was an M. P. in the Army, was stationed, they settled in Earlsfield, south west London and he probably played it at his school, which makes me wonder when the game was first recorded?
John Prysky
Yes. That’s the game exactly. It use to be THE game in the playground with every boy trying to get into a team. It use to have a big audience with the rest of the boys watching. God knows how many boys got good hidings when they got home for having torn and dirty clothes from playing.
Tony Alger
Yes we did take some chances with all sorts didn’t we and as you say some didn’t go to plan with regrettable consequences. Take my brother Ken trying to help my Dad who wanted to get rid of a Television Tube he had removed from our old black and white TV after upgrading it to receive ITV. Ken decide whilst my Dad was at work to smash it with a hammer whilst holding it in his left hand. It promptly imploded sending him flying up the garden with his only injury being the 1st finger on his left hand having the flesh ripped off right down to his knuckle …the hospital (The Royal Free) managed to sew the flap back on with minor long term damage cause …..how lucky can you be? Did he ever show you it or tell you the story?
Paul Lomas
No, Ken never showed me his finger injury but it did not stop him playing darts and snooker he was very good and always beating me at matches, I have a photo somewhere in my loft, if I remember correctly he purchased a snooker table and could not get the right angle because off the staircase banister so what did Ken do saw it off :)
Barry Page
Hello Tony and welcome on board. Good to hear from you and thanks for your story(ies).
How did we ever survive playing on the bomb sites? Lobbing half-bricks at one another in our makeshift, make-believe 'forts' of rubble. Firing cane arrows from our bamboo bows (I got hit by one below the eye, and a subsequent bollicking from the old man).
However, my main dice with death surrounded making explosive charges. Yes, a real right Sinn Féin type without knowing it. My mate, Kenny Pratley and I used to buy from Nicholl's shop in Holloway Road packets of "Jetex" fuel pellets. These cylindrical pellets consisted of compressed combustive chemicals for use in powering model planes, boats, etc. Broken down, however, the compound became a very unstable explosive. So Kenny and I used Ken's ceramic pestle and mortar to grind down the pellets for inserting into aluminium cigar tubes then burying them with a length of fuse. When lit, it was 'retire immediately' and wait for the explosion. We used to play battlefields with model soldiers and Dinky Toys army equipment in Kenny's front garden in Crane Grove. At the end of our explosive escapades, the front garden looked like the Somme!
Anyhow, one day, we decided to increase the explosive power of our 'bombs' and add another chemical – rat poison. When we were grinding the "Jetex" pellet and adding the other component, an enormous explosion occurred. The mortar shattered into a thousand fragments, nearly blinding Kenny and sending us both into shell-shock. I still suffer from tinnitus as a subsequence. That put paid to our bomb making escapades.
James Sanderson
I lived in Lewis Buildings in the Liverpool Road where there were so many kids born at and after the end of the war we never had a problem raising two football teams or steaming over the Highbury Corner bomb sites enjoying ourselves. [if it was sunny then read Highbury swimming pool]
One long summer holiday we bought catapults from Tiny Tots, the toy shop near to John Dory’s fish and chip shop in Upper Street, bottom of Park Street. Then we went over to the bombsite at Highbury Corner, Station Road side, because they had derelict houses still standing and we could play "English and Germans” fighting World War 2 all over again. I was high on the wall, top of the faggot and peas pie shop, side-facing the back row of the gutted, empty houses. Loaded and ready to fire. I watched as a little head gingerly poked out of one of the windows, looking, searching. Very carefully watching. Seeing no one and feeling safe the head poked out a little further. Thank you Nobby, trust it to be you. I fired and I could not repeat the shot in a hundred years. The stone sped true, hit and bounced off the top of his head. I can still "see" it to this day. You have never seen a head disappear so fast. When I think about it now - I realise how dangerous it was. At the time, well.. I jumped off the wall and ran round to see how he was. Dazed, hurt, but what the hell, it was all part of the fun. And no, he didn’t go to hospital either.
Side Note. Nobby was the clown of our little gang. Trouble would find him - even when he played ‘long-leg’ in a cricket match. He’d be on the boundary, day-dreaming and sure enough, a mighty swipe of the bat, and the hard ball would be heading his way where it would either hit him or alerted by the shouts of his team, he would be too late to catch the ball.
The catapults didn't last much longer. A few days later we were at the same bomb-site playing and my back was to the main road (Highbury Corner). All of a sudden the gang ran off, leaving me standing there. I was slow to react, thinking they were pissing around. I eventually turned round to face the local constabulary striding towards me. My catapult was confiscated as apparently it was against the law for them to be sold to someone my age. What did I know? I had to give him the name of the shop where I bought them and after a bollocking I was told to go home and behave myself. Fun times, eh?
John Tythe
Reading of Barry's dice with death, reminded me of my IED in the late 1950's, whilst at primary school. We were coached in writing in italic, with nibs on a short stick, for dipping in the inkwells sunk into the desks. Ink was made from a blue-black powder, which was mixed with water by the class Ink Monitor - Me! This powder came in a tubular cardboard container, about two inches in height and about an inch & a half in diameter, with a glued in steel base and a steel push on cap. It occurred to me, that these containers, if filled with the gunpowder from penny bangers, might make a goodly 'BANG' if let off.
It must have been October, as fireworks were on sale and the proceeds of 'Penny for the Guy' were used to procure bangers. I made a hole in the cardboard tube and inserted a fuse from one of the bangers and sellotaped it in place. I then filled the container to the brim with the contents of a large number of bangers. The cap was replaced and taped on.
I placed my big banger by the side of a concrete bollard in Provence Street, alongside Cluse Court flats, and then I lit the blue touch paper and retired a safe distance (to the other side of the street). Fizz went the fuse, then there was the loudest bang I had ever heard. It made me jump and I knew it was coming!
There was nothing left of the container, and the lid went as high as the top of the flats and fell to the ground much distorted. Housewives came out onto their balconies asking each other if they had heard 'that explosion?' I wandered off, giving the occasional look back at the puzzled women.
I didn't do it again.
Reading of Barry's dice with death, reminded me of my IED in the late 1950's, whilst at primary school. We were coached in writing in italic, with nibs on a short stick, for dipping in the inkwells sunk into the desks. Ink was made from a blue-black powder, which was mixed with water by the class Ink Monitor - Me! This powder came in a tubular cardboard container, about two inches in height and about an inch & a half in diameter, with a glued in steel base and a steel push on cap. It occurred to me, that these containers, if filled with the gunpowder from penny bangers, might make a goodly 'BANG' if let off.
It must have been October, as fireworks were on sale and the proceeds of 'Penny for the Guy' were used to procure bangers. I made a hole in the cardboard tube and inserted a fuse from one of the bangers and sellotaped it in place. I then filled the container to the brim with the contents of a large number of bangers. The cap was replaced and taped on.
I placed my big banger by the side of a concrete bollard in Provence Street, alongside Cluse Court flats, and then I lit the blue touch paper and retired a safe distance (to the other side of the street). Fizz went the fuse, then there was the loudest bang I had ever heard. It made me jump and I knew it was coming!
There was nothing left of the container, and the lid went as high as the top of the flats and fell to the ground much distorted. Housewives came out onto their balconies asking each other if they had heard 'that explosion?' I wandered off, giving the occasional look back at the puzzled women.
I didn't do it again.
James Sanderson
John's tale reminded me of my clever (not) episode when I was nearly eleven. At the time I would walk round Lewis Buildings on the morning after Fireworks Night and collect all the unexploded ones of which there were plenty.
I didn't do school dinners, I went home and my Nan cooked me a meal (gave me hangups for years after and I knew the day of the week by what was served up). Anyway, in the 'Big Shed' I would either let the fireworks off individually or as I did on this occasion, empty out the gunpowder in one big pile. Watched on by my mates I struck a match and put it as close as I dared. Nothing happened so of course, I put it closer. Whoosh! it flared up with a bang, sending me back on my haunches and burning my fingers and hand. What an idiot. Ran upstairs to my Nan who sent me off to the medical place (can't remember what it was called) in Thornhill Road at the top of Barnsbury Park. On my own. She was a hard woman. There they cleaned me up and bandaged my wounds and sent me back to school. Don't know why, I couldn't hold a pen.
John's tale reminded me of my clever (not) episode when I was nearly eleven. At the time I would walk round Lewis Buildings on the morning after Fireworks Night and collect all the unexploded ones of which there were plenty.
I didn't do school dinners, I went home and my Nan cooked me a meal (gave me hangups for years after and I knew the day of the week by what was served up). Anyway, in the 'Big Shed' I would either let the fireworks off individually or as I did on this occasion, empty out the gunpowder in one big pile. Watched on by my mates I struck a match and put it as close as I dared. Nothing happened so of course, I put it closer. Whoosh! it flared up with a bang, sending me back on my haunches and burning my fingers and hand. What an idiot. Ran upstairs to my Nan who sent me off to the medical place (can't remember what it was called) in Thornhill Road at the top of Barnsbury Park. On my own. She was a hard woman. There they cleaned me up and bandaged my wounds and sent me back to school. Don't know why, I couldn't hold a pen.