Things we did During Break time

[Alfred Boehme]

Andrew and myself where chatting in our tea room, I asked him, I wander if the children today still play Marbles, Spinning tops and Yoyo's during school break. I remember wall outside the art class, between the Old Auditorium and cricket field there where slight indentations in the tar-mac used to make it tough trying to through those marbles.
Tricks the children used to do with there Spinning tops and Yoyo's.

[Bertie Horak]

Great memories!  Yes that piece of tar-mac you're talking about was the main marble field for us, especially the long-distance ones.  Cant remember what we called it - maybe you can remind me?  When you had two marbles next to each other up for grabs, the guy throwing to hit them had to stand two steps away, three for three, four for four, etc.  You called out something like... "...Two-man-shy..." or something to that effect. You remember?

[Paul (Pepe) Freemantle]

Hi Bertie, spot on man. If it was 2 marbles it was called a 2 man shy. We used to go for the big ones like 15 man shy etc. Come home with a pocket full of marbles or Bust LOL.

[Bertie Horak]

Thanx Pepe, so the memory's not too bad after all...  I remember with the bigger ones, like the 15-man-shy, you would line them up in a long row, with only the last two marbles placed next to each other.  What were the translucent marbles called? They had double value.?

[Ricky Barron (RIP)]

Hi Bertie,
Things must have changed a bit since I played, we used to make pyramids of the larger numbers (from 10 up) and called the translucent marbles "Beauties"

[Patricia Lotte]

I remember rushing home with all the marbles I had won and filling my large Ricoffy container with them. You would then count how many arlies, goonies, etc you had (not too sure about the different names anymore). Thos marble collections were worth a fortune for us. We also did the skipping stuff during breaks.

But what about 'silkworm season'? One person would bring silkworms in and by the time the school bell went, half the school had it's own silkworm and was rushing through town to find 'mulberry leaves'.

[Bertie Horak]

@ Ricky, I remember pyramids as well, but cant remember the rules about them.  I might be mistaken, but I think we called the more "solid" (opaque) whitish ones with stripes like marble (the rock), "beauties".  Long time ago, hey...

@ Patricia - Yes, remember the silkworms as well.  I always had boxes full.  Fortunately we had a mulberry tree - if I think about it, I could have sold the leaves...
The skipping - yes, also a phase every year or so, and then what about those rubber bands? Mostly girls' pastime - two girls used to hold the rubber band around their ankles, and a third would do funny jumps and maneuvers over/in it.  The band was moved higher after each "routine"...   What did you call that?  I remember my sister did that too, so maybe Diana knows more about this since they are about the same age.

[Michael Alexander]

What was the name of those wooden gates with numbers above that we made for rolling our arlies into.....?

[Bertie Horak]

Oh yes, I remember those, Mike. Maybe somebody will remember what it was called...

[Alfred Boehme]

and now I've got that gray matter working!

the wooden boards would have little door ways smaller to bigger getting more marbles for the smaller doors

[Mike Voden (RIP)]

Alfie, I thought you were expelled from OPS before you even started there...............   

[pam spackman]

 

I remember when the girls silkworms changed into moths!!!

[Barbara Eia (Brownless)]

Bertie...it was called french skipping, we used to play it at home aswell but because there was only two of us we used to put one end on a chair...mad..but we enjoyed it.

[Alfred Boehme]

No Mike it was in my final year at OPS that I had the issues with my Maths teacher

[Andrew Darné]

The mid 80's generation would remember the game skalulu I think it was called. A cross between Running Red rover and stingers. Must have been a local (Omund) game with a variety of rules. It was played on the grass area between the new classes and the street that runs from the old soccer field up to the town pool. That area is now a parking area.