Howway...

[venta]

A quick survey about junior school games, for those who can remember that far back.

Yesterday, with half an eye on the rugby, I commented that parts of it were pretty much indistinguishable from an extended game of Pile On.

The basic principle of which is, you push someone over, shout "Pile On!" and then pile as many people on them as possible. onebyone fixed me with his special "you're a weird Northerner" gaze, and told me that the game was, and always has been, called Bundle.

Any offers? I suspect I may be relying on jiggery_pokery to back me up here.

My mum agrees that it was definitely Pile On in her day, my dad appears to have gone to too refined a school to do such things. They did comment, however, on there being a big regional variation on what you say when you're playing some game like Tiggy[*] and for some reason, such as injury, require not to be tiggable for a while.

Round our way saying "kings" (and crossing your fingers) rendered you untouchable... for a while. Anyone suspected of overusing it probably got Piled On. I'm sure someone's probably done proper etymological research into all this, but how could it possibly be better than the answers of a self-selecting LJ readership?

[*] or Tag, if you're a southern jessy.

Oh, and my Designated Hero for the Week (DHW) this week is also onebyone. Though I'm ashamed to admit I've completely forgotten why. I quite like the idea of a DHW, I shall try and keep it up.

Comments

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I think we did have Polio. Mother May I is vaguely similar, but so much more boring. 'Mother' stands at one wall, back to the others. The others line up against the other wall. Mother calls out criteria and actions, eg 'anyone wearing red take two steps forwards'. The person who reaches her wall first wins, the furthest back is Mother for the next round. That's the basics though at some point people called out 'Mother may I', and I forget the details. As I said, it was very dull.

British Bulldog got banned at our school as well: we used to play it on the hard tennis court, so not only did it really hurt when you fell, but there was a good long run up and so contact was made at great speed. It was very violent. I loved it. As I recall you had to do more than touch someone, you had to actually grab them and stop them running on, in practice jumping on them and pinning them to the ground!

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

you had to actually grab them and stop them running on

This is kind of what venta is suggesting as the the difference between Britsh Bulldog and any other kind of Bulldog. It sounds very dull to play it just with tagging. The way we played in Scouts you did have to lift people fully off the ground to count as catching them (so the first person in had to be someone largish). There was a rule that if two or more people co-operated to lift someone, then the one at the head end had to make sure he let go last.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

That's the kind of safety conscious rule that you only find in the scouts!

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, it was a "rule of scouts" rather than a "rule of the game". If you were dropped on your head it was still a valid catch, it's just that the people who dropped you were in trouble.