Street Life: Rain, rain go away…

In the olden days there was imagination. ‘Creativity’ was yet to be invented (possibly by Blue Peter). Indoor play took place in living rooms, consequently adults preferred activities that kept us sitting quietly at the table.

Many people have fond memories of Meccano, but mine are of Bayko. The construction set was the brain child of Charles Plimpton, and took its name from Bakelite, an early form of plastic, patented by Dr. Baekeland in 1907. Due to manufacturing difficulties, shades of brown were all that could be achieved initially, but by the 1950s the colours of Bayko’s miniature architecture were as bright as could be wished for.Buildings were created by sliding the modular brick tiles, windows and doors between metal rods inserted into a base. The only down side was that our creations had to be dismantled when the table was needed for meals.

Austerity was gradually receding and games like draughts, bagatelle and blow football were appearing in the shops again, as was the most prized of all – a compendium of games. Those games required at least two players, so a solitary child complaining about being bored, might receive the suggestion ‘go and find that lovely scrapbook Auntie Doris gave you’. Dutifully cutting up old greetings cards or coloured pictures from magazines, we stuck them in with flour-and-water paste.

Wartime paper shortages had put an end to cigarette cards but, in the 50s, Brooke Bond satisfied our collecting fever with their colourful tea cards. My favourite set was ‘Birds of the British Isles’, the dilemma was how to display them? To stick the cards in ‘that lovely scrapbook’ meant losing the description on the reverse. The alternative was buying a postal order to send away for the official album. This was a significant purchase when ‘poundage’, equivalent to a week’s sweet money, was added to the cost of a postal order’s face value.

Felt tips were things of the future and drawing or even scrap paper was rarely available. To us, crayoning and painting was simply filling in the outlines of a colouring book. Our paints came in a flat tin box containing small blocks of solid colour with names such as Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna. Despite their exotic names the colours were disappointingly insipid, as were the chalks used on our slates and blackboards.

Possibly my most favourite presents ever were two McCall ‘Make It’ books. For many years I had to be content to simply read about the mysterious ingredients necessary for making a chemical garden. The stamp pads, glue, felt and glitter demanded for other McCall projects were less exotic, but they were still not common in our utilitarian world.Kids used to being feral soon tired of sedentary pastimes and brought scaled-down versions of outdoor games inside. In true wartime ‘make do and mend’ style we used our family’s laundry basket, a wooden crate with sturdy rope handles which normally lived under the kitchen table. On rainy days it could be transformed into a pirate ship or stagecoach under attack from ‘red Indians’, or anything else our imagination conjured up.

Two chairs and a blanket made a tent, and with milk and a few biscuits we were happy for a while. A table covered with the ubiquitous chenille cloth made a fine den. Sometimes adults forgot we were there and would discuss subjects not normally considered suitable for ‘little pigs with big ears’.

Every house had a button-box whose contents could be raided for games of shop and the like. We also used buttons to play a sort of tiddlywinks game. Each player chose a button to propel other, usually smaller, ones along the floor. The winner was the person whose buttons got to the edge of the carpet in the fewest number of ‘flips’.

Airfix kits were a popular pastime, but a cheaper way of making models was the cut-out books available in local newsagents. There was a whole range of these roughly A4-size publications containing brightly coloured things to make. They ranged from model vehicles to ‘dressing up’ dolls.Time and patience was required for the fiddly cutting out in those pre-sellotape days, when a slip of the scissors could spell disaster. The figures came printed on thin card and the paper outfits had small tabs which folded around the doll to keep them in place. My sister and I often combined forces to act out plays with our dolls as the characters.

Such ephemera ought to be long gone but my daughter, aged 47, is now the custodian of the family collection of cut-out dolls, complete with repairs done with 50’s sticking plaster or ancient sellotape.

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Summer’s not over yet

So much going on this summer it’s been crazy. Back in July I went to see Dogfight at NWTAC (North West Theatre Arts Company) in Moston.Dogfight is set in 1963 against a backdrop that includes Beatlemania, the US civil rights movement, JF Kennedy and the Vietnam War. The story concentrates on 3 US marines and what they get up to on their last evening before being shipped across the world to Vietnam.

The characters are naïve, rough, inexperienced, young. They’re alive today and expect to stay that way. The night is all about having fun. They bet on who can ‘make it’ with the ugliest girl. They get tattoos, get drunk, get laid. Inevitably, not quite everything goes to plan but off they set the next day to meet their fate and broken hearts are left behind.

Music and lyrics were written by the same duo as The Greatest Showman but the similarities end there. This wasn’t a fluffy fancy but a story that reflects the reality of war and its impact on young lives.

I loved the production. The attention to detail was typical of all NTWAC’s performances. From the costumes, the lighting, the atmosphere, souvenir programmes to the fabulous vocals and dance routines. All excellent.

The American accents of the young performers were f…ing impressive (believe me, you had to be there). The musical numbers carried you through the emotions of the story and the dreadful sadness of the whole situation.

A few days later I learned that some of the cast would be leaving the company for various universities and performing arts establishments. All that talent going out into the big wide world. Damn! I want it to stay here in Moston. How dare they leave!

Prab Singh (MD along with Mark Beaumont) would laugh at me because that’s the point: they’re supposed move on to bigger things, it’s what the North West Stage School prepares them for. His dream is to see their dreams come true. So all I can say is “be like me”, make the most of it while they’re here.

It’s 10 years since NWTAC was formed and celebrations are in hand. Featuring hits from a decade of performances, the next concert in October promises to be more popular than ever so book early. In fact, sign up for the newsletter on the website so you never miss out.In addition to the stage school, the company delivers a range of professional productions and runs workshops and classes that go out to schools aka ‘Theatre in Education’. They also operate a hire service sending costumes and sets countrywide and support various activities across Manchester and beyond.

Located on Lightbowne Road in Moston the ‘hub’ includes a dance school (North West School of Dance) with classes for any age, from 3 years upwards, and on Saturdays a youth theatre (NWYT) for just a £1 a session.

I’m out of breath. There’s so much going on and summer’s not over yet.

 

Full details about North West Theatre Arts Company and all they have to offer can be found on their website here or follow them on Facebook. North West School 0f Dance have their own website, just click here for information.

 

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Street Life: Coming Out, Ready or Not

The built environment was a big factor in the games we played. For instance, ‘thunder and lightning’ or ‘knock and run’ was a torment particularly reserved for the residents of terraced houses – too much chance of getting spotted running away where there were gardens.

The terrace gable end was also a favoured spot to accommodate a couple of girls playing ‘two balls’ side by side. But the constant thump, thump of the balls was guaranteed to fetch out a large woman, typically wearing a wrap-around overall, who would bellow ‘go and play in your own street’.In the summer these same gable ends had cricket stumps chalked or painted on them. But when too many strikes from a ‘corkie’ thudded against the brickwork, the street cricketers received the same admonition from the flowery pinny brigade.

The council houses where I lived were built around two grassed areas we called ‘greens’. The road bisected them and on our side the green had a fine gravel path, ideal for bikes and scooters. The smooth surface around the other green was perfect for whip and top, and might account for why its popularity lasted so long with us.

Boys used ‘the greens’ for football and ‘split the kipper’, a game that was played with a penknife or other sharp blade.Flagged pavements were good for hopscotch and skipping where our preference was for a rope long enough to accommodate half a dozen girls.

Some of the rhymes we chanted were a little out dated but stayed popular because their actions called for timing and agility. One such was ‘I’m an ATS girl dressed in green’. As far as I know, The ATS wore khaki but it didn’t bother us when we were touching the ground, turning around and doing ‘the kicks and splits’ which the rhyme dictated. Other rhymes featured film stars such as Betty Grable and Charlie Chaplin who were old hat by the 1950s.Our junior schools were single sex, so I suppose that was the reason girls and boys rarely played together. Marbles, or ‘alleys’ as we knew them, was a ‘mixed’ game, and we sometimes joined forces for chasing games such as ralivo, kick can or hide and seek. Firmly defined boundary restrictions were imposed to make sure the games didn’t go on indefinitely.Readers of The Perishers cartoon strip might recognise another mostly male activity which involved a vehicle the Daily Mirror called a carte. Variously called soapboxes or trolleys, in Manchester the homemade contraptions were known as bogies or guiders. These gravity racers required a sturdy wooden soap or apple box, old pram wheels or sometimes roller skates. The frame had a rope fixed to the ends of a steerable bar at the front.

Our fairly quiet street sloped down towards Church Lane which was a main road. Consequently Honister Road was adopted as an ad hoc race track where the idea was to perform a sharp right turn at the bottom. But only the most sophisticated vehicles had a brake. So to prevent the basic model guider from shooting out into the main road, a driver had to rely on a boot sole scuffed along the pavement.I don’t recall any fatalities, but I expect some poor car drivers lost years off their lives when a guider, travelling at high speed, shot across their bows after failing to make the turn.

Boys and girls both created dens. Ours were for playing ‘house’ or ‘shop’ while the sole purpose of a boy’s den seemed to be a secluded place where they could build a fire.

‘Den’ was also the word for the base in a game of hide and seek or similar. We called out ‘bounce’ or ‘kickstone 1 2 3’, to signal getting back without capture. I can’t recall the Moston word chasers used when someone’s hiding place was spotted, but according to my mother it was ‘whip’ in Collyhurst. In a chasing game, a halt for a loose shoelace or ‘stitch’ was achieved with a cry of ‘ballies’ while holding up both thumbs.Playing shop

When we moved to New Moston, our playground was the middle of three interlinked ‘frying pan’ cul-de-sacs. The narrowness of the roads and the almost complete absence of traffic lent itself to ‘Grandmother’s footsteps’, ‘What time is it Mr. Wolf?’ and ‘Farmer, farmer may I cross your golden river?’ – games not usually played in Moston’s streets.

There were also seasonal factors to some of our games. Conkers or sticky bud (burdock) fights were autumnal, and snowballing and sliding obviously required a good freeze. On dark winter nights we raided the wood stocks other kids had assiduously ‘logged’ for their own bonfire. But natural seasons aside, how did we know when to make the change from skipping to hopscotch? If there was some mysterious formula, I was never in on the secret.

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