Two children would have to cross arms to form a chair when the “baby” needed carrying. When we played Mothers and Fathers, the child playing the baby had to waddle in a squatting position, and when the tar melted in the hot summer sun, the hems of our skirts became permanently edged with it. They also collected silver charms for charm bracelets. Girls often collected marbles of the prettier type too, but never played with them. Large intricate beads were highly prized, but “tackers” were also preserved: these were the minature beads that came from the multi-strings of necklaces that were fashionable at the time. They were kept in tins lined with cotton wool. We were short enough then to skip with hoops too, although we got keener to spin them round our waists when the hula hoop rage started.Ĭollecting beads was an obsession, and changing duplicates a favourite pastime. Numbers were placed on the top layer and fortunes underneath: one girl held it on her forefingers and thumbs, and another chose first the numbers and then the letters that would seal her assumed fate.Ĭhinese skipping, where a long piece of elastic was wrapped around the legs of two girls while a third jumped on it, came in only at the very end of my time at Pennycross, and was more popular with my younger sister Melanie. Just to make sure, we also used to play with a square of paper with all the corners folded to the middle this was then turned over, and all the corners turned to the middle again. Some of this divination was done via skipping, and the rest by games in a circle. We also had games which would determine who the girl would marry, and how many children she would have. Other team skipping games could determine the initial of our sweetheart: after the some irrelevancy about raspberry tart we would get to the all-important line “Tell me the name of your sweetheart” and we would shout A, B, C, as the rope went round faster and faster, and the letter on which the person tripped provided the first letter of the sweetheart’s first name. If there was a large group, all the other girls would run through, one at a time, without missing a beat and without hitting the rope:Īnother game with the group involved one girl being invited in to skip, and then told to get out read for the next one: It was more fun, however, when two girls turned a long rope together. The one holding the rope had to be the taller of the two. Sometimes a girl would skip on their own, but often another girl joined in and the two skipped together, face to face. Here are the two most common dips that I remember: These were selected by means of a dip, which eliminated girls in the group one by one, until the required number of stooges were left. Many games needed people to do less interesting tasks, such as turning skipping ropes or giving the instructions while everyone else had the fun. This game had to be played up against a wall, and the chant was based on "One, two, three, O'Leary":.
This involved juggling with two balls, and chanting rhymes.
The Byrds did release a 1969 recording of the song on their Ballad of Easy Rider album (see 1969 in music).Games played by girls in Plymouth, c.1960 Tambourine Man" and "All I Really Want to Do", but neither recording was released in that form. The Byrds recorded the song twice in 1965 as a possible follow up single to "Mr. Them's version, released in 1966 influenced garage bands during the mid-60s and Beck later sampled it for his 1996 single "Jack-Ass".
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" has been covered many times by a variety of artists, including Joan Baez, Bryan Ferry, the Seldom Scene, Them (also by Van Morrison as a solo artist), the Byrds, the Animals, the Chocolate Watchband, Graham Bonnet, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Marianne Faithfull, Falco, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Grateful Dead, Link Wray, Hugh Masekela, Echo and the Bunnymen, Bad Religion, the Matadors, and Hole. The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular "Baby Blue." There has been much speculation about the real life identity of "Baby Blue", with possibilites including Joan Baez, David Blue, Paul Clayton, Dylan's folk music audience, and even Dylan himself. Lee's bass guitar the only instrumentation. The song was recorded on Januwith Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E. "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on Maby Columbia Records (see 1965 in music).