“Cow muck,” “no more school” and “Cowboy Joe” ........ lost playground chants no 4

Now as you would expect memories of playground chants and songs have bubbled up in response to the first ones I posted, and here are some more.  

Andy Robertson reminded me of that old favourite,

“No more days of school
No more days of sorrow
No more days in this old dump
We'll be home tomorrow”

While Margaret chimed in with one about her rival primary school, “Christ church bulldogs sittin' on a wall, eatin' cowmuck penny a ball" adding “we used to sing a similar song about other rival primary schools.”

And from Judy Wilson came

“I remember skipping on the long rope, a kid turning at each end of the rope, to Cowboy Joe from Mexico, hands up, stick 'em up, drop your guns and pick them up, out you go. And in would go the next kid to skip.” And “some others that come to mind of group games in the playground. The wind, the wind blows high and In and out the Scottish bluebells.”

Location; the playground

Picture; Oswald Road School, 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson

We’re off, we’re off, we’re off in a motor car, ........ lost playground chants no 3

More playground chants and songs for long journeys.

I can't claim I collected any of them ....... they come from an LP by the Oldham Tinkers and if you go looking there are books  that record many more.

“We’re off, we’re off, we’re off in a motor car,
Sixty bobbies are after us an’ we don’t know where we are.”

“Th’night wer dark an’ stormy, t’ rain fell down in lumps,
Th’ tram wer on its journey from Hollinwood to Mumps,
A dog ran in the tram lines, the driver rang his bell,
T’ dog didn’t here the signal, now he’s on his way to Halifax.”

“Mi father wer an ‘ero, ‘is bravery made me blush,
They wer givin’ free beer up at t’ Roebuck, an’ mi dad got killed in t’ crush.”

More tomorrow

Picture; from the collection of Ron Stubley

*The Oldham Tinkers, Oldham’s Burning Sands   TOPIC TSDL206 STEREO, 1971

Charlie Chaplin in Oldham .......... playground chants and songs for long journeys no 2

Now I first heard this collection on an LP by the Oldham Tinkers.

"About 40 years ago the Oldham Tinkers strung together all the songs they could remember being sung about Charlie Chaplin and punctuated them with a chorus which in its present form has its roots buried in the trenches of the Great War."*

All of which makes it perfect for the series playground chants and songs for long journeys.

"The moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin
His boots are crackin’ for want of blackin‘
And his owd fusty coat is wanting mending
Until they send him to the Dardenelles

Charlie Chaplin had no sense.
He bought a fiddle for eighteen pence.
The only tune that he could play
Was tarara boomdiay.

Charlie Chaplin meek and mild,
Swiped a sausage from a child.
When the child began to cry
Charlie socked him in the eye.

Charlie Chaplin went to France
To teach the ladies how to dance;
'First you heel, then you toe;
Lift up your skirts and round you go'.

Charlie Charlie Chuck Chuck Chuck
Went to bed with three white ducks.
One died. Charlie cried.
Charlie Charlie Chuck Chuck Chuck.

One, two three, a lera,
I saw my auntie Sarah
Standing at the door, a lera
Kissing Charlie Chaplin.

The moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin    
His boots are crackin’ for want of blackin‘
And his owd fusty coat is wanting mending
Until they send him to the Dardenelles"

Location; the early 20th century

Picture; soldiers on Oldham, date unknown from the collection of David Harrop

*Charlie Chaplin, the Oldham Tinkers, http://www.oldhamtinkers.com/charlie-chaplin.html

Beavers Bulldogs sittin’ on a wall, ........ lost playground chants no 1

“Beavers Bulldogs sittin’ on a wall,
Sellin’ ‘orsemuck penny a ball”

“A wer standin’ on the corner eatin’ apple pie,
A policeman asked for a skinny bit so I poked him in the eye.
He went an’ told mi mother, mi mother wouldn’t come,
So I went an’ got a lollypop an’ stuck it up his bum.”

Now when I was a kid one of the most popular playground chants revolved around  popular TV westerns, where Rawhide, Laramie and the Cisco Kid were thrown together and the story played out using their names set against impossible things they did.

I don’t remember any of them anymore, but still repeat for the amusement of our grown up lads some that date back into the early 20th century.

I would like to pretend I had collected them in the "field" but in fact I heard them on an LP by the Oldham Tinkers in the early 1970s.*

They made me laugh then and still do today.

For some the expressions may seem odd, and you will have to affect an Oldham accent to do justice to them and that I suppose is a bit of the challenge.

Stick with it and you are back in the early decades of the last century somewhere in the North.

That said I bet the same chants could be heard in the playgrounds of South east London, and as far away as Belfast and Devon.

More tomorrow

Pictures; from the collection of Ron Stubley

*The Oldham Tinkers, Oldham’s Burning Sands   TOPIC TSDL206 STEREO, 1971