The story of one house in Lausanne Road number 40 ............... "I can see Bognor"

The story of one house in Peckham over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*

Today 50 or more years on I have no idea where “I can see Bognor” came from.

All I do know was that we were on some swings somewhere and as the swings went higher and higher that was what we shouted.

But why Bognor is now lost in time.

And those  playground cries were pretty common back then.

Some like Bognor were instantly made up while others were more complicated and inventive.

Of these there was the playground rhyme which told a story using the titles and characters of popular TV Westerns.  It may well have been inspired by that 1959 song Delaware which had references to fifteen states of the United States, beginning with the question “Oh what did Della wear boy? and offering the answer “She wore a bran new Jersey.”

Our TV version may have been a skipping rhyme appropriated by us lads, but as hard as I try I can’t remember any of it.

I have on firmer ground with the games we played which ranged from “fag cards” to marbles and cap bombs.

Most of these had seasons of which conkers was the obvious but marbles and cap bombs and even hoola hoops  seemed to have their moment in the year.

Of course some were tied to that part of the year when it was dry and sunny but most I suspect were dependant on a new delivery from Hong Kong.

Once in the shops they played out their time until they were either broken or replaced with a new fad.

Now of all of these it was “fag cards” that I was most ambivalent about.  It took me time to master the skill but even then I was never that good at flicking them or managing to hit the card which rested on the wall so I tended to lose more than I won.

Added to which I never saw the attraction in collecting the dog eared and grubby cards that had been in half dozen pockets and the subject of endless playground games.

I preferred collecting them as brand new items  and going in for the occasional deal to swap one rare card for another.

I say fag cards but by the 1950s they were mostly from boxes of tea or like Flags of the World bought over the counter from our newsagents on Mona Road.

I can’t remember how much but it was probably a penny for which you got the card and a slice of pink bubble gum.

All very simple activities and ones I tried introducing to my lads when they were young which pretty much made them the only kids growing up in the 1980s and 90s to have lived the 50s.

It worked, although I have to say it ranked a little lower than the fads of the 1980s which saw a certain toy reappear in the 1990s and again just a few years ago.  So like their dad my three have already begun revisiting their youth.

But they were lucky even I drew the line at Bognor.

Pictures; Flags of the World, courtesy of Flags of the World,http://www.deanscards.com/c/716/1956-Topps-Flags-of-the-World, cap bombs taken from http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/CapBombs.html,  and the model of Raphael, Ninja Mutant Turtle from the collection of Josh Simpson

*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road