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Posted By J Knight
Do you know, I was idly reflecting the other day on the whole conkers bonkers bit, and a stray thought made its way into my head. This is a rare event, so I noted it with interest. The thing is, as far as I can remember, my primary school didn't allow conkers in the playground, neither did my secondary. In both cases the reasons were pure safety; fears about injuries to the participants from misaimed conkers. Now this is going back a few years (nearly forty in the case of the primary), back to before HASAWA. And I'm sure this wasn't universal, but surely my schools weren't the only ones in the country taking such a line.
So, where were the blacktop rags screaming bonkers conkers at the time I wonder?
Exits left muttering about the social construction of reality and other unwholesome topics....
John
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Posted By J Knight
Oh, and the bans never stopped us playing conkers either, we just had to hide the bruises...
John
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Posted By Heather Collins
I remember we had bans on three things in our primary school playground:
1. Going round the back of the school where we were out of sight of the supervising teacher in their staffroom "portakabin".
2. British Bulldog. We had a tarmac and concrete playground and people used to get hurt!
3. Playing football by kicking stones. Again people got hurt.
Mind you we're talking about the late 60s, early 70s here....
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Posted By safety medic
Jeezz!
We used to play murder ball..... in PE lesson!!!
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Posted By J Knight
Ah now then, we used to play British Bulldog, but only in the gym, it was banned in the playground; presumably supervised injury is less serious?
John
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Posted By Darren (Daz) Fraser
Murder ball
Trafalgar
British bulldog (is that PC???????????)
all standard PE lesson games (I think it was called character building in those days (25+ years))
The only ban I can remember (difficult at my age (38) so the youngest daughter tells me anyway) was walking the half mile up the road to the girls school during morning and afternoon break time. Lunch break one and a half hours was different as the chippie was past them....................arrrrrgh the care free days of yesteryear.
Oh...........and the teachers did not bat an eyelid when it came to discipline, many a whack received from a board rubber / lump of chalk launched from 30 feet, hitting the intended target if they were day dreaming (regularly in Latin class) and did not notice the hazard in flight.
After school clubs included fencing, shooting, archery too name just a few of the more refined arts.
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Posted By Pete48
Rugby in the winter interlaced with cross country running (minimum 3 miles for first year and up to 10 miles for fifth formers) in cold, wet conditions. We were once excused when the temperature fell to about 20 degrees (20F in those days, about -6C today). Nothing to do with protecting us, the masters bike was too cold to work properly!!
Cricket in the summer, or tennis if you were a bit arty, but both with balls that travelled at a rate of knots.
Then there was gym, aagh! Climbing up ropes to about 12 feet(or 4 meters). If you fell, it was your fault for being a wimp. Medicine balls (!! good name that because you usually needed some medicine after being hit in the stomach by one!)
Somersaults both backward and forward, if you were not making the whole turn, you got twisted around by the master. I still have the bump on my forehead to prove I am no gymnast.
Conkers was banned because those naughty big boys always cheated or stole the best conkers; even after giving the little lads a knee up higher into the tree to get the better ones! Nothing to do with H&S, all about playing the game don't you know.
And then the really horrid health problem, having to eat a marmite sandwich and a slice of orange at the end of some PE sessions.
Happiest, safest days of your life? Only with the rose tints of time passed.
Was it unsafe? Nah, just more acceptable to risk kids in those days. But then look at what my generation has done to the country since, makes you think doesn't it?
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Posted By Colin Reeves
"And then the really horrid health problem, having to eat a marmite sandwich and a slice of orange at the end of some PE sessions."
Oyyyy, marmite is the best thing on sliced bread ever! And with an orange, bliss.
Colin
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Posted By J Knight
I think kids still do activity sports, and still play boisterous games; and some activities have always been banned, but nobody, in my youth, seemed to care apart from the kids or the teachers. Now it seems to be everybody's business, that's the bit that concerns me,
John
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Posted By Lilian McCartney
My autumn message (I'm getting like the queen) on our intranet is entitle conkers bonkers and then relates this to the work we do and how we need to live life and take sensible precautions and have fun as well.
we encourage our Service Users to try new things and support them whilst they do.
Needless to say I'm not trying the bungee jumping first but will try the swimming with dolphins - though I've been told some of them are 'bruisers'!
Good luck to IOSH team on Sunday - we expect pictures (espcially of any black eyes - obviously obtained after the event???)
Lilian
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Posted By Graham Watson
HI
This one got me to remember when we were banned from running in our playground in primary school, because it was too small! It was small, but had been OK for the previous 5 years I'd been there.
That was in 1963. Didn't really work that well, I was a prefect and couldn't catch people unless I ran, which was defeating the object. We used to skip!
Where there's a will there's a way, thing is to try and reduce the will I guess.
Graham
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Posted By Brando
Once made a huge snowball on our school field which we then launched down a slope at the lower school where it rolled right over someone breaking their leg.
Happy days.
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Posted By Merv Newman
H&S nostalgia for the good old days before HASAWA ?
Our school had a wide circle of very ancient chestnut trees (the cheggies)Someone had hung a rope from a high branch over the center of the circle. (too high to reach from the ground)The game was to leap from a lower branch, catch the rope and drop off the other side.
We had another rope over a river. The landing was often a bit softer. If wetter.
Merv
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Posted By MP Grayson
My old man was in the RAF in the very early 70’s, based at RAF Nicosia, Cyprus.
To keep us lads out of trouble in the school holidays we had the “Boys Club”. Run by a couple of single men from the camp. Now that’s the first no go area for this day and age.
We had organised trips out. My favourite was the visit to the aircraft scrap yard. We were bussed across the airfield in the back of a RAF lorry, bouncing along at max chat (that was about 25MPH), scrambling to stand in the area behind the cab to get the cool air flow. Then we were let loose to climb all over and play on, in and around the old aircraft, old cars, make dens with asbestos sheets etc, etc.
Sharp edges, aviation fuel, hydraulic oils, dirt, scorpions, snakes ……….A boys dream.
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