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Games We Used To Play

We were so lucky to have that rough field, it had a large deep brook running through it - we built dams, and dared each other to jump the brook, and often fell in.
One other game we played was to stand on a bridge and drop sticks in the brook to see who's stick went fastest and farthest.
 
We used to play Shove Ha'penny on holiday if it rained. A couple of weeks ago at a car boot sale I bought a proper Shove Ha'penny board for 50p.....no-one knew what it was!!

I have got some old halfpennies but the rules on the internet say that one side must be polished flat, I don't want to be that serious about it though. We only played for the fun of it.

rosie.
 
My mum played tip cat too, and we also played pirates. My friend broke her leg when she came off the mushroom. It was a big metal 'mushroom' with bars underneath the 'cap' and you spun round it like a roundabout and hung underneath off the bars. In my teens I went to a 21st fancy dress brthday party. They had dug up the roundabouts swings & slide etc and moved them for a rehab. Me and my mate forgot and we fell in the hole in the pitch black, drunk and dressed as the ugly sisters. Thanks for making me remember that.
 
We used to play Shove Ha'penny on holiday if it rained. A couple of weeks ago at a car boot sale I bought a proper Shove Ha'penny board for 50p.....no-one knew what it was!!

I have got some old halfpennies but the rules on the internet say that one side must be polished flat, I don't want to be that serious about it though. We only played for the fun of it.

rosie.
Do you know what shuffle board is Rosie?
 
hi guys
the main games we wpould play is tracking around the ladywood area king edwards rd and spring field street and stour street
and cope street there wopuld be about twenty of us as these nick nacs covered all those streets
there was out lets and alley ways all through to those street by just going into one of them
best wishes astonian;
 
We were so lucky to have that rough field, it had a large deep brook running through it - we built dams, and dared each other to jump the brook, and often fell in.
One other game we played was to stand on a bridge and drop sticks in the brook to see who's stick went fastest and farthest.
My memories of the brook include the tree at the side of it which we tied a rope to one of the branches and used to swing out over the water and the jump off back onto dry land. This was fine until one day on my second swing another lad jumped on the rope with me and of course all momentum was lost and we ended up in the brook. I'm ashamed to say that in my temper when we were back on the bank I shoved the other lad (name escapes me) into some stingers. His howling didn't make me dry however!
 
My memories of the brook include the tree at the side of it which we tied a rope to one of the branches and used to swing out over the water and the jump off back onto dry land. This was fine until one day on my second swing another lad jumped on the rope with me and of course all momentum was lost and we ended up in the brook. I'm ashamed to say that in my temper when we were back on the bank I shoved the other lad (name escapes me) into some stingers. His howling didn't make me dry however!
Hi Dimmy - Regarding our playfield, maybe you remember when they built prefabs on half it.
On the 1945 aerial view shown below ....
The letter 'A' marks the prefabs.
The letter 'B' marks roughly where the tree was which you fell off !
The bowling green of the Beeches Pub is quite noticeable.
Slighty off topic and although the resolution of the pic is not good, the view of Bradfield Road seems to show gaps in the house layouts which may have been where the bombs fell. However, maybe the houses had been rebuilt by 1945 when this pic was taken.
Some forum links relative to the playfield are below.
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=9266&p=290858#post290858
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=9266&p=416741#post416741
Beeches_1945.JPG
 
In the past I have landed in charter flights coming in to Brum and I always saw this maze of streets with a circular street in the middle . Would this be it?
 
Do indeed Phil, trouble is I now want to know how far we used to walk alongside the brook over Hassop Road over Beeches Road and where then, was it the sandpits and beyond to St.Margarets where the toads were where you used to shoot at them with your webley? On another link you mention our unbelievable stupidity
(I call it risk taking) of playing on the ice in the sandpits quarry which we were warned by our teachers not to. A similar dice with death was the canal accessed down the Aldridge Road just past the allotments where we used to walk on the ice until we heard it crack and then we would dash back. That's probably why I can't win the lottery.
 
Hi Dimmy - I never got as far as St Margarets but played often in 'the woods' next to the school which were very boggy where we collected frog spawn etc. I did fall through some ice in that other marvelous big park we had namely 'Sutton Park' which has a big thread on the forum. I mentioned my 'ice mishap' in a post click/here.
 
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