This will be the last foray into those pennies, half pennies, farthings and shillings which were part of my growing up.*
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| Half Penny, 1951 |
And if you were born before 1971 they will have been part of how you paid for things, what you got as pocket money and more recently kept as mementos of your youth.
Most of the ones in my collection came from our Stella and last week I brought them out for a bit of fresh air prompting a series of stories about them, ranging from what a history lesson they offer up to that childhood practice of cleaning them with brick dust and a hankie.
And it was that last story of brick dust, and a hankie which prompted David O’Reilly to comment “Re your brick dust penny blog. Alternatively, you could leave a coin in vinegar over night? Or use a cloth to rub the coin with a mixture of HP sauce and salt !
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| Queen Victoria, 1865 |
As for childhood games and rhymes……. don’t get me started!
I have the Iona and Peter Opie books and made a lifetime study of it whenever I was on ‘yard duty’."
Now vinegar, HP sauce, and salt were all new to me, and on reflection I wish I had come across them back in 1959 which would have saved my fingers and mum’s handkerchief from the damaging effect of brick dust, not to mention the holes in the walls of Edmund Waller School.
The alternatives remind me also of the questionable practices engaged in to harden conkers before the all-important contests in the playground and in the street from September onto November.
That aside David also reminded me of the work of Iona and Peter Opie who explored the rhymes and games of children played out in school yards and on the streets.**
Unlike David I never bought into the books although I knew of their work and now, I wish I had.
My own childhood games pretty much centred on playing fag cards which I was never that good at, and the odd game of football and cricket which I was equally lack lustre at, which pretty much left just mooching around.
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| Edward VII, 1909 |
If I am honest I don’t remember many traditional kid’s rhymes which may be because we were from south east London and grew up in the 1950s when those songs and rhymes were on the decline.
The only one that stands out pitched a large number of American television stars of Westerns into a rhyming story using their names set against a series of adventures.
It was in its way a kid’s version of of that 1959 song “Delaware” by Irving Gordan and made popular by Perry Commo which referenced 15 US States in the form of puns, "like Della wear, new jersey, Calla 'phone ya, how ar' ya, Missus sip, mini-soda, Ora gone, I'll ask 'er, taxes, Wiscon sin, new brass key, Arkan saw, Tenne see, Flora die and misery".***
I have tried remembering the kid’s version but it has long since been lost from my memory, although if I am honest I was rubbish remembering all the connections back then.
The best I can offer are a selection of children's songs sung by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, along with some more about Charlie Chaplin by the Oldham Tinkers.
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| Kids playing on the streets, Hulme, Moss Side circa 1970s |
It would have been just three years after the Clancy's and Tommy Makem recorded their melody at Carnegie Hall that I first heard those children's songs and a little later the Oldham Tinkers with a collection of songs about Charlie Chaplin.
And both have stayed with me
And that is about it. I await the memories of others.
Location; the 1950s
Pictures; coins from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 1865-1951 and Kids playing on the streets, Hulme, Moss Side circa 1970s, courtesy of Roger Shelley
*Coins, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Coins
** The Iona and Peter Opie Archive, https://www.opiearchive.org/
***Delaware, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_(song)
****Children's Medody Live at Carnegie at Nall, November 1963, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5R03zuaRy4
*****Charlie Chaplin, The Oldham Tinkers, Oldham's Burning Sands, 1974, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHm-b99-ER4
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