From the Archives: August 1st, 1936

Holidays are changed, like all else, since old buffers were young boys. Folk whose children have grown up drive from place to place, eating a bite in one place and drinking a sup in another, as the character in Synge’s play says of all bachelors; every day of the vacation is spent in a new scene.

Where there are children, however, the oldfashioned holiday holds sway still. Though the cars of day visitors line the roads and parking fields behind the beaches, the beaches themselves still have their family parties who have settled at the seaside for two or three weeks. The little ones, with life before them, still dig trenches in the sand and build castles, and watch the waves bring their castles down: a parable. So, too, there are country house holidays for many families, and what holiday is better than this, in which James learns to ride and John goes fishing, and Jane watches the dairymaid at work, or goes gathering herbs with the hostess?

I have taken down an old family book, which used to be in demand at holiday time: "The Boy's Modern Playmate." My copy comes from the 'nineties, and the title page tells that the volume was "originally compiled and edited by the Rev. J.G. Wood, M.A." The edition of 1895 had been "thoroughly revised to date"; so that we had the dernier cri in modernity "to date" when the frontispiece was drawn.

A youth in a bowler hat drove a tandem at a spanking pace, with his sister as passenger, in crinoline and little cap. Another youth rode a pony in a horseman-like style. Those were the days of horses, not horse power. A rowing party in straw hats were on the river, and a single canoeist, in a Rob Roy craft, paddled near them. Other lads bathed, with Dad watching after their safety. An angler hopefully cast his line in the busy water, while his friend stood by with butterfly net. Finally, kites in the air, not of the box variety, but of the kind that a handy boy made, showed some invisible group happily engaged in the most restful of all open-air amusements.

Save for the pony trap that would be replaced now by a motor car, the picture shows us objects and amusements that are yet in vogue; but I doubt if all the seventy-one outdoor games which are described in the first quarter of the book are known now. Cricket, football, hockey and rounders are the first four; baseball, fives, tennis and golf follow. "Knurr and Spell, " however, is the title of a game, sometimes called Northern Spell, which will puzzle most of us.

A design shows that this game was an elaboration of tip-cat. Wooden wedges were tapped sharply with specially-shaped bats, and struck as they jerked into the air. Spanish Fly, Sling the Monkey, and Baste the Bear are attractively-named games, strange to us now; but tug-of-war, hare-and-hounds, leap-frog and prisoners-base are played by boys of 1936 at least sometimes.

The Rev. Mr. Wood describes thirty games which he classifies as “indoor games,” but distinguishes from “evening parlour games,” of which he describes thirty-six. I wonder how many of the most ingenious of uncles could make a list of sixty-six amusements for the evening or for wet days in holiday time! Conjuring, puzzles, and ventriloquism are explained in a third section, and yet Mr. Wood is less than a third of the way through his great volume in “modern” amusements for the ’nineties! Truly we were versatile in the days when we had to make our own amusements instead of touching a button to listen to wireless entertainments.

To deal briefly with what remains of the 805 pages of the “Modern Playmate,” I find that the Complete Playboy of the ’nineties – if I may so describe the boy of all desired accomplishments – was taught to be a carpenter, a gardener, an amateur engineer; to keep home pets, including dogs, hedgehogs, tame mice and ferrets; to understand the chief branches of physical science, botany, the making of sundials, photography and weather; to be a stamp collector, and finally, to play such games of skill as chess, nine-men’s-morris, Polish draughts, backgammon and brax and reversi – the last of which are ingenious board games that have died unaccountably.

May we not doubt whether more was not made of human faculty by the earlier generations?

Read the original here

Selected by Joe Joyce; email fromthearchives@irishtimes.com