Children stood outside an hardware shop in the Parkfield area of Stockton. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Children stood outside an hardware shop in the Parkfield area of Stockton.
Linda Jackson:Remember The O”Connors” we lived over the back on Farndale. We were allowed to take a short cut thro” your back garden to get home. Your mother and mine were great friends. How is your Tony? I”m in Canada too. Contact me at E Mail aoconnor2@rogers.com. A little trivia, my mother Nora helped deliver you at birth. I remember the day ! I remember Tee alleyo as a game we played in two groups for hours at night around Commondale and Glaisdale and Farndale streets. The boys also played “Commando” the same way. We also used to go “Oggy Raiding ” up Del Strother Road.
I”ve just remembered another skipping game – double unders! The rope had to be turned twice for every jump – and I couldn”t do it to save my life! How I envied those girls who were experts.
Linda – yes but I think torturing is a bit of a strong expression – I seem to remember it was a two way thing! How are you and where are you (apart from Canada!)
Andy Wilkins – yes, I lived next door to Steven Klinke. Are you the little ginger haired kid who used to torture me?!
Linda Jackson – did you live next door to Steven Klinke?
HI janice, I used to skip a lot, spending time at my grans house in park terrace near the holy trinity churchyard. We used to use anything we could get hold of for skipping games. Old rope or washing line, This was the early sixties and most of the rhymes were taught of my mam the couple I remember are, Mother in the kitchen doing a bit of stitching in came a bogey man and chased me out. Also jelly on the plate, jelly on the plate, wibble wobble wibble wobble jelly on the plate. I also rember going to Deans Toyshop and my mam buying me a set of skipping ropes with wooden handles and they had little jingle bells on top of the handle. It was great fun growing up then.
IAM THE ONE 3rd FROM LEFT, I WAS BORN 1957 SO THE PHOTO MUST HAVE BEEN TAKEN IN THE EARLY 1960`s.
Another couple of street-games “Kicky-Tin” played by two sides, one side “hunted prisoners” from the surrounding streets and bought them to a site were a tin-can stood, if the opposing side could kick the tin over, all the “prisoners” scattered. Also “Money-Kitty” where one lad stood with his back braced against a wall , four or five bent their backs making a line of backs, the game was to see how far one could leap down the backs the lads trying to shake the rider or riders off Re Mount Pleasant Cottages a number Servants for the 3 big houses in the area NORTON-HILL, LARK-HALL and BELLE VUE ,lived in this cottage line Lustrum Farm A farm of this name stood on the Norton side of Lustrum beck, later part of the North-Shore rail-system (Lustrum a medieval word for shining or glistening
Growing up in the sixties on Newham Grange Estate I remember playing the tennis ball game for hours against the wall of our wash house – it was very complex. I also remember the game C. Chapman (not Christopher Chapman from Hartburn and Stockton Arms by any chance?) mentions but we called it Tee-allyo – don”t remember how to play it but would love to know! French skipping with rubber bands knotted together – again, I played that for hours. Skipping games galore – one that went Lipstick, powder puff – can”t remember that one either.
Hi, Colin. No, I”m not, as far as I know, related to John and Michael. My dad, Jack Carruthers, was a foreigner from Tyneside. He worked at ICI as a technical officer and met my mum, Dorothy Tinkler, playing tennis at Tilery Rec. In the early 1930s, there must have been some sort of tennis club attached to the courts there, I think. Yes, I remember those games – and the popping of bangers through the letterboxes! Not that I EVER did anything so naughty! We girls used to play a complicated game of ballthrowing against the tin adverts on the back wall of the Co-op. They had to be accurately hit in a certain sequence and in different styles.
Hi Janice, was never into skipping but I remember kicky can and tee-mac-eallyo i think that was the pronunciation,can you also remember chinese laundry and tying string to letter boxes and standing in the back alley opposite and yanking the string harmless fun but not for the victim,The kids from Wynyard St, Bowron and Seaham St. got together and played football outside the forge offices still standing today. Janice are you related to John & Micheal Carruthers who lived in Stewert St.
Yes, but can you remember the games we DID play? I mostly remember the skipping games when we stretched a long rope across the width of Wynyard Street and soon had many kids taking part, singing chants like: “On the hill there stands a maiden Who she is I do not know…” and then my memory gives out! Can anyone remember others?
Children seemed so much happier in those days! No computers, no CD”s and no I Pods – how did we manage!