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managed to touch their hands without the people on guard being able to stop them. Sheep, sheep come over: I remember my mother, who came from Birmingham, talking about it, but we didn't play it here. I think it was a Dare game. There was a chasing game where you stood in front of someone and they had to nip out and chase round again.
    There was hopscotch with various different designs. In another game the boys used to leap-frog over other boys. It started with going over one boy's back, then two and so on. Then there was the game in which someone faced the wall and the others had to try and creep up to them without being seen. Every so often they would turn round and immediately you had to freeze because if they spotted you moving you had to go back to the beginning.
    Statues was a game in which we stood in a row and someone pulled us out and then we had to freeze into whatever shape we were in when we stopped. If you were pulled out bent over then you had to stay bent over. I think someone chose which one was the best.There was Leap-frog and a variation where one person bent down against a wall, then somebody would leap on their back, hold up their fingers and shout, "How Many?" If they got it wrong they had to stay bending down and so there would be a whole row of people. It was a boy's game.

CLAPPING GAMES
We used to clap in pairs to:
My mother says
I never should
Play with the gypsies
In the wood.
If I did she would say
Naughty girl to disobey.

We had a diabolo on a string which you had to spin round. Pogo sticks were pre-war because Roger Gaskell had one. If, when you were playing games, you became out of breath, or got �stitch� in your side, or you wanted to tie a shoelace, you crossed your fingers and cried 'BARLEY'. This intrigued me as my name was Barley. This applied mainly to the chasing games.

MAY DAY CELEBRATIONS
May Day was celebrated. I remember too celebrating the end of the war. The armistice was in November 1918 and in the following summer we had a peace celebration. It was held on Warner's field which was half way up Church Road on the right where there are bungalows now. It was a nice open field with Tettenhall Dick pear trees growing in it.
    There were a lot of these old pear trees growing in Codsall. They produced a pear about an inch and a half long. The tree itself was very large and it produced a prolific crop. The fruit had to be eaten very quickly after it had been picked because it soon turned brown.

OAK APPLE DAY
Oak Apple Day was a local tradition because of Boscobel just up the road. On this day if you weren't wearing oak leaves you were chased by children with nettles and you were stung. We certainly did that when I was under ten. One activity, I remember, was skating at Leighton Pool (Lightning pits) after a spell of hard frost. This pool is not far from Wheatstone. About sixty people would be there � skaters and non-skaters. I remember being pushed round the pool seated on a wooden kitchen chair, no doubt by someone who was not too confident!
    1929 was notable for six weeks of hard black frost. I think that between the wars the pool probably froze over about half-a-dozen times.