Games

Bottesford, date unknown. Courtesy of the Records Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland.

Mrs Challands: When I was young there wasn’t the traffic going through Bottesford like there is the big juggernauts and the big lorries and vans and goodness knows what, it was absolutely deserted. All you would see probably was a horse and cart coming down the middle of the road, and we could have our skipping ropes across the road, you know, turning, and shuttlecock and battledores, and with our trundles running up, you know, a hoop with a handle, go up and down, and play marbles in the middle of the road. To think now you have to stand back because the paths are so narrow that you’re not going to be drawn underneath them, I think it’s terrible.

Interviewer: Did you have sort of certain games at certain times of the year?

Mrs Challands: Oh Maypole dancing, we used to Maypole dance. Oh yes, we used to do that, you know, at May time, we had the May Queen. I used to love the Maypole dancing.

Interviewer: How were you taught to do that, who used to teach you?

Mrs Challands: One of the mistresses at school, yes they took us for that, yes we used to do that.

Interviewer: What about Shrove Tuesday?

Mrs Challands: Pancake Day? You had a half day holiday. Then you went running home and then you’d boast the next day how many pancakes you’d had. Of course shuttlecocks and battledores always came out on Shrove Tuesday, and things like that. But we always had a half day, ‘You don’t give us holiday we’ll all run away’. That’s what they used to sing, ‘Pancake day, pancake day, if you don’t give us a holiday we shall all run away’. And that was Shrove Tuesday, oh yes, looked forward to that.

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