Games people play.

The second hire I did today was picking up from my childhood home.
What struck me, poignantly, about this: was the fact I was parked waiting for the customer in the exact same spot where my late father used to park our car.
There weren’t too many cars on this bit of the street today, but even so there were more than there was back when I lived there.
The back area, where we parked and where this is was not only closer to the house than the front door, but the address is actually a very main dual carriageway.
Although when I was wee it was just a very main single carriageway.
These four drying green poles were part of the mainstay of our childhood games.
We would play a sort of tig, or tick and tack as I think we called it? Where the poles were the safe spots and the man in the middle had to get you before you reached the opposite pole.

We would also play marbles, or dazzies. Then we would dig a wee, heel size hole in the ground called a kypie. Then one boy would roll or flick their marble towards the kypie, being careful not to let it drop. The next up would use their shot to try and knock yours into the hole; thus winning possession. You could use bigger marbles, whose name may have been called tattie mashers due to their size. But most players tried to. Avoid that in-sportsman like behaviour.
Ironers were also used. They were ball bearings. The smallest ones, also frowned upon, were teeny tiny ones. Almost impossible to nudge.

The final game I recall, which would be illegal now, was knifey. This entailed two children standing opposite each other,1 holding an opened picket knife. The holder would through said knife to the side of his or her opponent, and make it he blade stick in the ground. The other child would move whatever foot was to the side of the knife and stand splayed. And then it was their turn.
You never threw it too far. In fact sometimes you’d throw it as close as you could to that person’s foot without hitting the foot.
No-one was ever really injured in this game. If it hit your foot, you won. If your legs became to far apart and you lost balance, the other person was the victor.