The schoolyard games of our youth – A fond reminiscence

Memory can be a fickle mistress, yet the passage of decades has thus far failed to dim the joyful recollection of the games we played during the breaks in our school day.

Come the sound of the bell over the crackling PA we would rush out into the courtyards and playgrounds of our government compounds to enjoy a wide variety of wondrous playtime activities, their sheer gaiety enhanced by the sweet innocence of our youth.

Most prominent among these was a magical game called British Bulldogs.

In this delightful frolic, boys would line up on one side of a defined expanse of grass but for one lad, who would stand in the middle.

At a given signal everyone would run to the other side, the object being for the boy in the middle to grab someone, lift them off the ground and exclaim “British Bulldogs!”.

The captive would then join in catching another boy at the next charge, the process repeating until there was but one person left who was not allowed to claim victory until he had successfully made it through the throng to the other side.

On occasion the game would be played on concrete or bitumen, and sometimes in the teacher’s carpark or in the middle of the road outside school grounds, resulting in many bruised thighs and scrapped knees, considered by the participants as survival trophies.

Equally inclusive was a jest called Brandy.

This involved a boy brandishing a bald tennis ball and throwing it as hard as possible at the nearest player with such ferocity as to “brand” them with a welt that would last them the rest of their lives.

The marked boy would then join in throwing the ball until everyone had been branded or, as sometimes happened, hospitalised.

An even more intense version of Brandy involved throwing the ball at boys lined up against a wall, firing squad-style.

Should the ball miss it would bounce back to the thrower.

If it hit they would join in tossing the ball, always with the force of a rocket-propelled grenade. The last boy in line was declared the winner.

Improvisation played a big part in many of these spirited recreations.

One such jaunt was called Stacks On the Mill and involved somebody randomly yelling “stacks on the mill!” whereupon everybody within earshot would immediately jump onto one unwary victim, forming a picturesque pile of uniformed bodies beneath which lay a boy who had been targeted for reasons unknown.

The general rule was that the pile would remain in place until the next bell sounded or the boy at the bottom of the heap stopped breathing.

Another randomly generated amusement was known simply as Swing Jump wherein boys would take to the playground swings with the intent of first swinging as high as they could before leaping off into the vacuum of space, their hard landing on the ground being clearly marked by others for the next boy to beat.

Sometimes boys landed on their feet. Often they didn’t. This occasioned regular emergency visits to the school infirmary with complaints of cracked spines, snapped ankles, skull fractures and, most painful of all, bruises on the bum.

The issue of teacher supervision was never pressing.

Even though staff members were usually given fair warning that a tournament of British Bulldogs or a round of Brandy was about to take place, teachers were rarely assigned to watch over the schoolboy gameplay, and those who were could be seen laying odds on the likely outcome.

As for girls – they never participated in these joyous larks, preferring such lame games as elastics, four square and tag.

What fun was that compared to our gladiatorial quests in the schoolyard?

Chickens, all of them.