Have children really forgotten how to play? (Part 2)
. . . ARTICLE CONTINUED FROM HERE . . .
Yet by the time the Opies began their survey in the 1950s - by writing to The Sunday Times seeking suggestions - there was little sign that such traditions had been lost. Indeed, the Opies collected so much material directly from children that they organised it into almost 200 rigid categories - from "Finding Sweetheart's Name" in skipping jumps ("'Black currant, red currant, gooseberry jam,/ Tell me the name of your young man ...") to mildly erotic rhymes about contemporary film stars ("Betty Grable/ Sitting on a table/ Showing off her legs/ To Clark Gable ...").
Now 81, Iona Opie still has a thick folder labelled "Games Disappearing", chronicling hand-wringing warnings of the tradition's imminent demise that go back as far as 1664. As today, it is technology that has generally shouldered the blame - from the arrival of railways and the gramophone to threats from the wireless and the cinema. "Of course, technology won't kill that insuppressible drive to play," a delightfully opinionated Opie says impatiently in the book-lined dining-room of her rambling Victorian house in Liss, Hampshire. "The latest arguments about television are just another bogie, yet more media scaremongering. The truth is, it's instinctive to exert your own personality."
Iona Opie remains remarkably alert if rather deaf, her large headmistressly hands tending to an unwell bantam, one of 50 she keeps for company (Peter died in 1982), which, as she speaks, is defecating freely on the dining-room table. The Opies' obsessive inquiries brought them in contact with more than 20,000 children for a series of books that have sold more than a million copies over four decades. And although Iona has long wanted to "move on" - "To be honest, I'm very bored with it," she admits - she remains Britain's foremost expert on children's lore, interrupting this very conversation to take a telephone call from an American researcher.
"You'll find some things have nearly disappeared," she says afterwards, happy to offer advice for the journey ahead. "The group singing games, for instance, which used to be sung for courtship by young adults all over Europe. The old games that people are mourning were needed at the time. But this is a living lore that's changing all the time. So if some of the words of the old singing games have lost their function, they'll be changed to produce much more active, combative games."
She reflects that children will always need such ritualised means of confronting social anxieties, affirming their growing independence, or simply channelling their aggression or sexual curiosity. "The fun is making your own mark on a song, by putting in slightly different words," she continues, suddenly animated. "I just adore hearing the words of the old games being modified, corrupted and turned into a sort of surrealist poetry.
"We underestimate children all the time," she sighs. "When I've talked to teachers doing playground duty, they tell me firmly that children don't play games any more. I'd ignore that if I were you. They're playing them all around them, and just as able to think up their own entertainments today as they ever were. You'll get masses of material."
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"I'm afraid play here has been quite a passive activity for a while," John Corn, the deputy head of Ingrow School, in West Yorkshire, explains jovially in his office. "When I was a kid, we'd go fishing, explore the countryside, play conkers." He smiles good-humouredly, and makes an apologetic shrug. "There were no PCs or GameBoys around then. It's not that our children don't play," he adds cautiously, "but they do so in, well, quite a robust way." He arches his eyebrows. "Pushing each other around, say, rather than the structured, creative, inventive sort of play."
It is a rainy Friday morning, and Ingrow, a large primary in the suburb of Keighley, has been kind enough to spare small groups of Year 5s and 6s who would otherwise be learning maths. They arrive excitedly four at a time, nine- to 11-year-olds, to sit in the absent headteacher's office and explain to the newspaper man (and his MiniDisc recorder) what they have lately been playing. Also present is Mavis Curtis, a researcher and writer specialising in children's oral traditions, who has been collecting material at Ingrow since 1992. Even over the past dozen years, she explains, she has noticed how rhymes have vividly reflected cultural changes - with "Will You Marry Me" skipping songs, for instance, nowadays counting out the number of expected divorces as well as kisses and weddings.
. . . ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE . . .
Yet by the time the Opies began their survey in the 1950s - by writing to The Sunday Times seeking suggestions - there was little sign that such traditions had been lost. Indeed, the Opies collected so much material directly from children that they organised it into almost 200 rigid categories - from "Finding Sweetheart's Name" in skipping jumps ("'Black currant, red currant, gooseberry jam,/ Tell me the name of your young man ...") to mildly erotic rhymes about contemporary film stars ("Betty Grable/ Sitting on a table/ Showing off her legs/ To Clark Gable ...").
Now 81, Iona Opie still has a thick folder labelled "Games Disappearing", chronicling hand-wringing warnings of the tradition's imminent demise that go back as far as 1664. As today, it is technology that has generally shouldered the blame - from the arrival of railways and the gramophone to threats from the wireless and the cinema. "Of course, technology won't kill that insuppressible drive to play," a delightfully opinionated Opie says impatiently in the book-lined dining-room of her rambling Victorian house in Liss, Hampshire. "The latest arguments about television are just another bogie, yet more media scaremongering. The truth is, it's instinctive to exert your own personality."
Iona Opie remains remarkably alert if rather deaf, her large headmistressly hands tending to an unwell bantam, one of 50 she keeps for company (Peter died in 1982), which, as she speaks, is defecating freely on the dining-room table. The Opies' obsessive inquiries brought them in contact with more than 20,000 children for a series of books that have sold more than a million copies over four decades. And although Iona has long wanted to "move on" - "To be honest, I'm very bored with it," she admits - she remains Britain's foremost expert on children's lore, interrupting this very conversation to take a telephone call from an American researcher.
"You'll find some things have nearly disappeared," she says afterwards, happy to offer advice for the journey ahead. "The group singing games, for instance, which used to be sung for courtship by young adults all over Europe. The old games that people are mourning were needed at the time. But this is a living lore that's changing all the time. So if some of the words of the old singing games have lost their function, they'll be changed to produce much more active, combative games."
She reflects that children will always need such ritualised means of confronting social anxieties, affirming their growing independence, or simply channelling their aggression or sexual curiosity. "The fun is making your own mark on a song, by putting in slightly different words," she continues, suddenly animated. "I just adore hearing the words of the old games being modified, corrupted and turned into a sort of surrealist poetry.
"We underestimate children all the time," she sighs. "When I've talked to teachers doing playground duty, they tell me firmly that children don't play games any more. I'd ignore that if I were you. They're playing them all around them, and just as able to think up their own entertainments today as they ever were. You'll get masses of material."
++++
"I'm afraid play here has been quite a passive activity for a while," John Corn, the deputy head of Ingrow School, in West Yorkshire, explains jovially in his office. "When I was a kid, we'd go fishing, explore the countryside, play conkers." He smiles good-humouredly, and makes an apologetic shrug. "There were no PCs or GameBoys around then. It's not that our children don't play," he adds cautiously, "but they do so in, well, quite a robust way." He arches his eyebrows. "Pushing each other around, say, rather than the structured, creative, inventive sort of play."
It is a rainy Friday morning, and Ingrow, a large primary in the suburb of Keighley, has been kind enough to spare small groups of Year 5s and 6s who would otherwise be learning maths. They arrive excitedly four at a time, nine- to 11-year-olds, to sit in the absent headteacher's office and explain to the newspaper man (and his MiniDisc recorder) what they have lately been playing. Also present is Mavis Curtis, a researcher and writer specialising in children's oral traditions, who has been collecting material at Ingrow since 1992. Even over the past dozen years, she explains, she has noticed how rhymes have vividly reflected cultural changes - with "Will You Marry Me" skipping songs, for instance, nowadays counting out the number of expected divorces as well as kisses and weddings.
. . . ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE . . .
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