A 1950s Childhood (7 page)

Hula hoop: The hula hoop craze hit Britain in 1958 with the arrival of the American Wham-O toy company’s lightweight tubular plastic hoop, made from a recently invented durable plastic, and called the hula hoop. It was a toy hoop that you twirled around your waist, limbs or neck for as long as possible, and you had competitions between friends to see who could keep it going for the longest time. It was most popular with the girls, and grown-up women also enjoyed it as a way to keep fit. It was a short-lived craze that only lasted for a few months. Wham-O relaunched the hula hoop in the late 1960s.

Jacks: This game was very similar to Five Stones except it was played using a small bouncy rubber ball or a table tennis ball, and between five and ten small stones. You would bounce the ball once and pick up stones, catching the ball before it bounced again. As with Five Stones, you played ‘onesies’, ‘twosies’, ‘threesies’, ‘foursies’, ‘fifesies’, ‘sixies’ etc., but again, there were several versions to the game.

Kiss Chase: There never seemed to be any rules to this ‘it’ game. Girls chased after boys to kiss them, and the boys ran away. If the girls caught a boy and kissed him then he would be ‘it’ and he would have to chase the girls for a kiss, but it never seemed to happen like that. The boys were always running away – although they did slow down a bit when they got to about ten or eleven years old!

Knock Down Ginger: A game that was mainly played after dark and could get you into serious trouble with your mum and dad. In its simplest form, you knocked on street doors and ran away without being seen. Everyone had
knockers on their street doors in the 1950s. More advanced players would quietly tie cotton to a street door knocker and then reel the cotton out to the other side of the street, where you would hide and then pull the cotton until it broke, thus lifting the knocker and dropping it back in place to create a loud knock on the door. Sometimes you would do three or four knockers at the same time, but that was risky because there was more of a chance that one of the victims might come out and chase after you.

Leapfrog: Players vaulted over each other’s stooped backs. There could be any number of players. The first player stooped and the second player vaulted over him or her. On landing, that player also stooped, a few feet in front of the first stooped player. Then the third player vaulted over each of the two stooped players. The game continued like this with each player joining the line of stooped players. Once all of the players were stooped then the first player stood up and vaulted over all of the other players, and so on.

Lolly Sticks: Played with a bunch of used flat wooden lolly sticks. The lolly sticks were held a few inches above the ground and dropped into a heap. You then picked up all of the sticks that weren’t touching any of the others and used one of these to move or flick each stick off the pile without moving any of the others. If you moved another stick while flicking then one of the other players started a new game. The winner was the player who had picked up the most sticks during their turn.

The Beano
and
The Dandy
were the two best-known and most popular ‘must-read’ comics for both girls and boys – all those fabulous comic strip characters, like Dennis the Menace, The Bash Street Kids, and Desperate Dan – just to mention a few.

Marbles: There were many different versions of Marbles and usually the rules were agreed before the game started. In its simplest form, players took turns to roll or flick
their marbles at their opponents’ marbles, and if they hit one then that marble became theirs. Sometimes the game was played within an agreed area or circle, in which case you had to flick your marbles from the edge of the circle without encroaching. The aim was to either hit one of your opponents’ marbles that had already been placed near the centre of the circle at the start of the game, or to knock one of their marbles out of the circle. If you were successful then your ‘shooter’ marble remained where it had stopped and you could shoot again from that spot. If you were unsuccessful then the next player began his or her go from outside the circle. Loads of different versions and rules!

Roller Skating: In the 1950s, children’s roller skates were still quite primitive. They were simply four ball-bearing metal wheels attached to a foot-shaped flat piece of metal. You put your foot onto the flat metal plate, with your heel pressed against a small ridge at the back. There was a leather strap attached to the back of the skates, which you would wrap around your instep to hold the skates on. At the front, there was an adjustable metal grip on each side, and you tightened these against your shoe to hold the front of your shoe in place. They were absolutely useless! Impossible to keep attached for more than a few minutes at a time. You would often see a lone skate hurtling down the road having escaped its wearer, and sometimes the skate would still have a shoe attached to it! Lots of twisted ankles and grazed knees, but you always went back to have another go!

Run Outs: The person that was ‘it’ would close his or her eyes and count to an agreed number, usually between ten and one hundred, while the players ran and hid. ‘It’ would
then go in search of the players and each one he found would join him to search for the remaining hidden players. The players could change their hiding place during the game as long as they weren’t seen by any of the searchers. The last player to be found would be the winner. Seekers would often call out the names of hidden players in the hope that they would answer, and sometimes they did!

Scissors, Paper, Stone: A simple game that was usually played to determine who was to go first in a game, or who was ‘it’, or who should do a dare. Best played with up to three people, but when played with more than two people there were lots of drawn games, which meant playing again. Being a very fast game, you sometimes played best of three. The players would form a circle and each player would hold out their arm and make a loose fist. You would then shake your fist up and down counting ‘one-two-three’ and on the downward stroke of ‘three’ you would open your fist to reveal either a ‘scissors’ – two fingers open, ‘paper’ – flat open hand, or ‘stone’-clenched fist. The winner would be determined as follows:

Skipping (with rope): Very popular, mainly played by girls and usually done in time to a skipping rhyme. A skipping rope, often adapted from mum’s washing line, was never too far away to bring into use when someone suggested it. Girls would often skip alone but it was best played as a group competition. Depending upon the number of
players, the rope would be turned by one girl at either end, or one girl would turn the rope with the other end tied to a lamppost. The turners get the rope to slap the pavement in time to a skipping rhyme being chanted by the skippers. There were loads of rhymes with key words and phrases that prompted the skipper to do a trick in one turn of the rope; like jumping extra high with both feet together, hopping the rope very close to the ground, kicking one foot out, crossing and uncrossing feet and legs, and turning to face the other way. Boys were always fascinated by the skill of the girls and the tricks they could do. The skipper would run out from the turning rope, around one of the girls twirling it, and back in time to the beat of the skipping rope hitting the pavement. Certain phrases in the rhymes would invite other girls to join in with, or to take over from, the skipper on the next turn of the rope. Double Dutch was really difficult, with two turning ropes for the skipper to negotiate. There were names for all the tricks, like Kick (kicking one foot out), Sizzler (crossing and uncrossing feet) and Split (opening legs wide apart). There were so many skipping variations and so many rhymes, with several different versions adapted around the country.

Tin Tan Tommy: Played with an old tin can. One person was chosen to be ‘it’ and a place was designated to be the ‘home’ point, where the tin can would sit while the game was played. To start the game, one of the players would throw the tin can as hard as he or she could away from the home point. Whoever was ‘it’ would chase after the can to retrieve it and return it to ‘home’. Meanwhile, all the others would run and hide. Once the can was back in place
on the ‘home’ spot, the person who was ‘it’ would go and search for the other players. When one was discovered, ‘it’ would run back to the can and bash it up and down on the ground while shouting ‘Tin Tan Tommy, I see Mickey behind the wall’, or something similar. But if the discovered person could get back to the can and bash it on the ground before ‘it’, then he or she was ‘home’ and safe, otherwise that person became ‘it’ and another game began.

Two-Balls (juggling with tennis balls): A girls’ game that was usually played by juggling with two balls in the air or against a wall, but sometimes the girls would use three or four balls. It was a skill that was mastered by most girls at a very young age, and although boys admired the skills, they saw it as a girl’s game and usually steered clear of it. Playing two-balls was always done to the beat of a chanted rhyme. There were lots of tricks that were described with words like plainsy, upsy, over, dropsy, bouncy, legsy, twirly. Such words were inserted in the rhymes to indicate when to do a certain movement with a ball … One, two, three and PLAINSY; four, five, six and PLAINSY …

Juggling two balls against the pavement was usually done to the rhyme
One Two Three O’Leary
.

Up the Wall: Usually played with cigarette cards or other collecting cards from packets of Barrett’s sweets or Brooke Bond Tea cards. Teenagers sometimes played it with coins (farthings, halfpennies and pennies). From an agreed spot, a few feet away from a wall, you would flick your card or coin forwards as accurately as possible. The player who got nearest the wall won and took all the cards or coins already along the ground.

What’s the Time Mr Wolf?: One person was chosen to be ‘it’ and a place was designated to be the ‘home’ point. The player who was ‘it’ was called Mr Wolf (sometimes Mr Fox or Mr Bear), and would either stand with his or her back to the other players or be walking slowly away from them. The players would slowly creep up on Mr Wolf chanting, ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ The wolf would stop, turn around and reply, ‘It’s one o’clock’. The players would continue to ask, ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ and the wolf would reply, ‘it’s two o’clock’, ‘three o’clock’, until eventually the wolf would reply with a growl, ‘It’s DINNERTIME!’ Mr Wolf would then chase the other players who had to try to run back to the ‘home’ point without being caught. The first person to be caught became Mr Wolf.

Yo-yo: Various adaptations of the yo-yo have been around for centuries, but the modern yo-yo was only developed in the 1930s, and remained popular throughout the ’50s. Basically, it was a toy consisting of two equally sized and weighted small discs connected with an axle, and with a long piece of string tied around the axle. The rest of the string was wound around this axle until only the end piece,
tied in the shape of a loop, was still showing. The end of the string was looped around the player’s forefinger, and the player performed various skilful tricks with the yo-yo by rotating it along the full length of the string. A very skilful game, with lots of tricks, often played as a competition among friends. Sometimes there were yo-yo competitions held during Saturday Morning Pictures at the local cinemas.

Five

E
NTERTAINMENT,
M
USIC AND
F
ASHION

Sandwiched between the horrors of the Second World War and the excitement of the Swinging Sixties, the 1950s was a period of calm but also a time of exhilarating new experiences in entertainment, music and fashion that would start to prepare 1950s kids for the revolutionary changes that would be part of their teenage years. In the early 1950s, Britain saw the arrival of ‘rock and roll’ music and teen films from America, and for the first time ever, you witnessed teenagers being arrested for dancing in the aisles at the local cinemas. You had your first experience of the great theatre musicals and saw all of your Wild West cowboy heroes on the big screen. Horror and science fiction films became very popular, as did science fiction comics. The first drip-dry, non-iron clothes made from synthetic materials went on sale, and Levi jeans became trendy for the first time. Teenage girls tried to outdo each other with
their backcombed bouffant and beehive hairstyles, and they celebrated the introduction of the long-awaited seamless nylon stockings, while boys delighted in the newly arrived bikini two-piece swimsuit for girls!

Television sets replaced the radio as the most popular form of home entertainment in working-class homes, and you saw the first TV adventure series, sitcoms and quiz shows. You had your first glimpse of the new British fashion revolution in 1955 when Mary Quant opened her first fashion boutique, Bazaar, on London’s King’s Road. The British pop music revolution was already well under way with pop stars like Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Tommy Steele, Lonnie Donegan and Shirley Bassey having their first number one hit singles in the UK charts. It was back in 1958 that John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison first played together in ‘The Quarrymen’ skiffle group, little knowing the huge influence they would later have in worldwide popular music culture as The Beatles.

In 1959, the British Motor Corporation launched the Mini, which was later to become a big fashion icon. It was in that same year that you first heard music produced by the Tamla Record Company, which quickly changed its name to the now familiar ‘Motown’. The hula hoop and frisbee plastic toys arrived from America in 1958, and the hula hoop became a great keep-fit activity for young women looking to maintain the tiny waistline that was needed to conform to the figure-hugging flared and pencil skirt fashions of the era.

Expresso Bongo
was Cliff Richard’s second film appearance during 1959, the first being
Serious Charge
. Both films featured music performed by Cliff Richard and the newly renamed Shadows, previously known as The Drifters.

It was in the 1950s that the term ‘teenager’ first came into use to describe young people of the ‘teen’ years. Prior to
that, adolescents were simply called young people, boys and girls, or youths. It bridged the gap between kids and adults, and gave them their own identity.

Having experienced Britain’s years of post-war austerity, the 1950s baby-boomers had modest expectations of leisure and enjoyment. They revelled in every new experience of music and entertainment, and watched from a distance as teenage and adult fashions evolved. There was no computer-generated imagery, stadium-filled pop concerts, or chains
of kids’ fashion shops to feast on. Instead, children growing up in the 1950s would be left with their memories of the simple pleasures of childhood.

If you were lucky enough to live anywhere near a cinema then you must have experienced the great joy of going to Saturday Morning Pictures. Two or three hundred unruly children would descend upon unsuspecting cinema commissionaires every Saturday morning for two or three hours of film and live variety entertainment. There were no grown-ups, just kids up to the age of about twelve or thirteen, and it was the absolute highlight of any week. You will probably remember the cinema manager having to stop the film and threaten to send you all home if you didn’t behave, or booing when the screen went blank while the projectionist was changing reels. The solitary usherette would run for cover! It was controlled mayhem, with the stalls and circle areas filled with kids cheering for the goodies and booing the baddies. There were lots of short films, mainly westerns that seemed to consist of endless chases on horseback. The daring adventures of The Lone Ranger and Zorro, and the slapstick comedy of Mr Pastry would feature every week. And then there were the classic Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton films that had everyone in fits of laughter. And who can forget those wonderful old Shirley Temple films. During the film interval there would be all sorts of competitions, from yo-yo, hula hoop and juggling contests, to singing and dancing, and even
competitions for the best skiffle group, with knock-out rounds each week leading to the grand final. Most cinemas had their own club, especially the large cinema chains, and you would have a club badge and be made to sing the club song each week. Whether you belonged to the ABC Minors, Empire Rangers or the Granadiers Club, you definitely will have enjoyed every minute you spent at Saturday Morning Pictures.

Going to the pictures was everyone’s favourite outing. It enabled the young and old to climb out of their normal humdrum lifestyles and step into a fantasy world of adventure, comedy and romance. There was a distinct difference between the British-made films, which were generally down-to-earth, and the glitzy Hollywood movies that often portrayed everyone in America to be living in the lap of luxury. There were some great British films around in the 1950s, and a host of wonderful ‘stiff-upper-lip’ British film stars, like John Mills, Jack Hawkins, Kenneth More and Dirk Bogarde. They had all been making films since the 1930s, and were already household names, but seeing those very old ‘silver screen’ movies replayed in the 1950s endeared those film stars to a whole new generation.

Even if you were restricted to only the very occasional treat, you will surely have gone to see some of the best British war films ever made, like
The Cruel Sea
(1953),
The Dam Busters
(1954),
The Colditz Story
(1955),
Reach for
the Sky
(1956) and
The Bridge Over the River Kwai
(1957). You can probably still whistle the ‘Colonel Bogey March’ without any prompting, and after all these years! You will also remember all those Ealing Studios comedy films, like
The Man in the White Suit
(1951), starring Alec Guinness,
Joan Greenwood and Cecil Parker.
The Lavender Hill Mob
(1951), starring Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James and Alfie Bass.
The Titfield Thunderbolt
(1952), starring Stanley Holloway, George Relph and John Gregson. And,
The Ladykillers
(1955), starring Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers. Other classic British comedy films included
The Happiest Days of Your Life
(1950),
The Belles
of St Trinian’s
(1954),
Doctor in the House
(1954),
Carry On
Sergeant
(1958) and
I’m Alright Jack
(1959)
.

There were loads of marvellous British film actresses in the 1950s, including Claire Bloom, Diana Dors (d.1984), Margaret Leighton (d.1976), Margaret Rutherford (d.1972), Anna Neagle (d.1986), Jean Simmons, Glynis Johns, Joan Greenwood (d.1987), Audrey Hepburn (born in Brussels and grew up in Holland, but we think of her as being English) (d.1993), Dinah Sheridan, Petula Clark, Virginia McKenna, Edith Evans (d.1976), Phyllis Calvert (d.2002), Dorothy Tutin (d.2001), Ann Todd (d.1993), Celia Johnson (d.1982), Joan Collins, Kay Kendall (d.1959), Elizabeth Allan (d.1990), Joyce Grenfell (d.1979), Fay Compton (d.1978), Elizabeth Sellars, Margaret Lockwood (d.1990), Deborah Kerr (d.2007), Peggy Mount (d.2001), Dorothy Tutin (d.2001), Elizabeth Taylor, and Joan Sims (d.2001) – to name but a few.

And of course, a myriad of splendid British film actors that included Harry Andrews (d.1989), Richard Attenborough, George Baker, Stanley Baker (d.1976), Alfie Bass (d.1987), Dirk Bogarde (d.1999), Richard Burton (d.1984), Ian Carmichael, George Cole, Peter Cushing (d.1994), Michael Denison (d.1998), Robert Donat (d.1958), Denholm Elliott (d.1992), Peter Finch (d.1977), John
Gielgud (d.2000), Stewart Granger (d.1993), Cary Grant (d.1986), John Gregson (d.1975), Alec Guinness (d.2000), William Hartnell (d.1975), Laurence Harvey (d.1973), Jack Hawkins (d.1973), Richard Hearne (d.1979), Stanley Holloway (d.1982), Michael Hordern (d.1995), Trevor Howard (d.1988), Boris Karloff (d.1969), Charles Laughton (d.1962) Bernard Lee (d.1981), Christopher Lee, James Mason (d.1984), Michael Medwin, Bernard Miles (d.1991), Kenneth More (d.1982), Robert Morley (d.1992), David Niven (d.1983), Laurence Olivier (d.1989), Cecil Parker (d.1971), Nigel Patrick (d.1981), Dennis Price (d.1973), Anthony Quayle (d.1989), Michael Redgrave (d.1985), Michael Rennie (d.1971), Ralph Richardson (d.1983), James Robertson Justice (d.1975), Paul Scofield (d.2008), Peter Sellers (d.1980), Alistair Sim (d.1976), Donald Sinden, Anthony Steel (d.2001), Terry Thomas (d.1990), Richard Todd, David Tomlinson (d.2000), Bill Travers (d.1994), Jack Warner (d.1981), Michael Wilding (d.1979), and Kenneth Williams (d.1988).

However good and entertaining the British-made films were, it must be acknowledged that American films dominated our cinema screens with countless big-screen classics, and with some films they introduced us to newly developed widescreen technology, such as Cinemascope, Vista Vision and Cinerama, as well as new and improved techniques in the use of 3D colour film.

Epic films from American-owned studios included
The
Robe
(1953),
The Ten Commandments
(1956),
The 7th Voyage
of Sinbad
(1958) and
Ben-Hur
(1959). Hollywood enabled British-born filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock to make some of the best mystery suspense thrillers ever made. Walt Disney
Productions released dozens of captivating films in the ’50s, including
Cinderella
(1950),
Treasure Island
(1950),
Alice
in Wonderland
(1951),
Peter Pan
(1953),
Lady and the Tramp
(1955),
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier
(1955) and
Sleeping Beauty
(1959).

Who could ever forget going to the pictures as a child, and seeing the big red curtains fold back to expose that giant screen that suddenly burst into life with the MGM roaring lion, signalling the start of the film’s opening credits? Or, there was Columbia’s ‘Torch Lady’ logo of a lady stood on a pedestal carrying a torch and draped in a flag. All of the big production companies had their own unique, attention-grabbing symbols. You will remember the 20th Century Fox logo with the moving searchlights and dramatic fanfare. But, best of all, was the trademark ‘gongman’ of the British filmmaking company, the Rank Organisation. The ‘man with the gong’ was used as an introduction to all J. Arthur Rank films. It was not the most lavishly produced piece of film, but it is probably the best and most fondly remembered, and it was British!

Memorable films made in the USA during the 1950s included:
Singin’ in the Rain
(1952),
From Here to Eternity
(1953),
Roman Holiday
(1953),
The Caine Mutiny
(1954),
On
the Waterfront
(1954),
Rear Window
(1954),
Seven Brides for
Seven Brothers
(1954),
East of Eden
(1955),
Guys and Dolls
(1955),
Rebel Without a Cause
(1955) and
12 Angry Men
(1957). However, you will just as easily recall some of those old 1930s and ’40s films that were shown again and again throughout the 1950s: films like the classic gangster film,
Angels with Dirty Faces
, with James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart and the Dead End Kids.

All the kids loved Doris Day after seeing her star in
Calamity Jane
, with all those wonderful songs that you just couldn’t get out of your head. She made the film
Love Me or Leave Me
in 1955, and became the first actress to get star billing over James Cagney in thirty years, and he got her the part!