Oranges and lemons

 Oranges and Lemons

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings,

Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,

Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know,

Says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

I've just been reading a book with 'oranges and lemons' in the title and it got me to thinking about some of the games I played as a kid. 'Oranges and lemons' was one of them. 

We played on the street, ours was a short street and everyone knew each other. We were in and out of each other's homes and only went back to our own for meals and bed. 

The street I grew up in taken from the hill end. This must have been taken at least 40 years ago as our house is still standing in this photo but it has actually been knocked down along with a few others and pensioner flats have been built there. My aunt at the top right of the page and some of the boys I grew up with at the bottom right and on the bottom left.

Other games we played were cowboys and Indians and the boys were actually allowed to play with toy guns and bows and arrows. None of them grew up to be murderers. Skipping with a rope someone's father had brought home from the wharf, one girl at either end and 2 or 3 jumping in the middle. Hide and seek in the dark and ring a ring o' rosies.  The boys played cricket with old apple boxes for wickets. Our neighbour had a bay window at the front and the ball frequently went through it. Strangely by the time she made it to the street to see who the culprits were there was not a kid or an apple box in sight. These are just some I can think of off the top my head. Did anyone else play these games. I'm thinking some in my age group would have.

At the top end of the street was a farm on a hill. As long as there were no sheep in the paddock we were able to climb over the stile and play there. There was a large piece of exposed rock at one side and generations of kids used it as slide, I'm sure our knickers and shorts all wore out more quickly than they should have. Poor mothers. Mind you some of the parents had grown up in the same street so had inflicted the same thing on their mothers :) 

It was a great place to grow up, even if everyone knew everything about everyone else :) It was a real community.

******

Thank you for your kind comments on my last post. I really wasn't fishing for compliments but appreciate what you all said. My mother was a writer in that she wrote stories for her grandchildren as well as short stories and was great at writing poems but never had anything published. I suppose I take more after her although I don't write poetry :)

Until next time. 

Look after yourselves and keep well.

Diana