ONCE upon a time, children played out in the streets enjoying a variety of games for two or more.

Many readers will, no doubt, remember playing hide and seek, leap frog, yo-yos and conkers, building go-karts, scoring goals between jumpers or taking part in a synchronised skipping.

Here historian Jack Nadin, from Hapton, takes a look back at some of the street games of his boyhood.

“Funny how something as simple as a walk in the park can evoke memories of childhood days. I spied beneath an old horse chestnut tree 100 or more shiny brown conkers strewn about the ground.

“When I was a child, you’d be hard pushed indeed to find any fallen conkers on the ground – they’d all be snapped up by eager young hands and prepared for the games to come.

“There were many ‘secret’ methods of preparing conkers. Some would bake them in the oven – others soaked them for days in vinegar.

“Some put them in the airing cupboard for a week or more. Once hardened, a good conker would soon become a ‘tenner’ or a ‘twelver’ depending on how many of the opponents chestnuts had been smashed.

“I have to admit though, the games could be painful at times, you might get the odd bruised knuckle or a bloody cut or two on the back of the hand.

“I once got a busted lip from an over-enthusiastic opponent with a conker string a bit too long – much to the laughter of the gathered crowds.

“There were other games such as sledging and marbles, or bobbers, as we called them.

“Outside school there were also street games. The girls had top and whip, or hopscotch, while the boys played cowboys and Indians, swung on the gas lamps, to impress the girls, or acted out scenes from the Saturday cinema.

“If it was a sunny day, then a picnic would be the order of the day – a few sandwiches and a bottle of orange squash or Spanish juice and water is all that was needed, for a full day out in the countryside.

“Group games included tig, weights coming on, Rin-tin-tin’ and aunties and uncles.

“While the cobbled streets echoed to the merry sound of children’s giggles, adults sat on the doorstep or a stand chair having loud shouted conversations with neighbours.

“All this went on well into darkness on barmy summer nights, until the gossiping turned into whispers of ‘night-night all, time for bed’.”

Have other readers any memories of street games and entertainment in the past?”