Then Another Thing…. Remembered in Perthshire, (A joint project,
with Doris Rougvie, published by the Perth & Kinross Council,
2000
Nell Hannah: My cousins came up from Glasgow and we would sleep
toppy and taily in the bed. They would come up for a holiday…
My Grandfather used to sing to me as a wee girl. He was a highland
dancer and he used to do 'The Highland Fling' with his tackety boots
on the kitchen floor...He used to give me a Saturday penny... we
used to go into Smarts, she had a wee sweetie shop in the square
in Turriff. I got a ha'penny worth o' caramel bon-bons and a ha'penny
worth o' chocolate bon- bons. Granny always got one caramel and
one chocolate bon-bon back. I always brought that for my Granny.
Playground Games
Ball-bouncing
In Comrie, the girls had this version, sung here by Jean, Eliza,
and Selina:
One, two, three a leerie
Four, five, six a leerie
Seven, eight nine a-leerie
Ten a leerie overball.
One, two, three a leerie
I saw Mrs Peerie
Sitting on her bumbaleerie
Eating chocolate biscuits.
Nell: We used to play a game 'Hoist the green flag'- it was a tracking
game. You had a piece of chalk and and you made arrows and the idea
was to get back to the 'bed base' without being caught. And it was
all round Turriff, and when you got to base without being stopped
you shouted 'Hoist the green flag'
When I lived in Lowestoft I got a job at a holiday camp as a hostess
for kids up to twelve years old and the parents wondered what was
going on, 'cause all these kids were running round the camp making
arrows and shouting 'Hoist the green flag'!
Party games were different to school playground ones as Forbes recalled:
We played 'Dree-dree-ah-droppit-it'. We all sat on the floor in
a circle and to start with, one person who was IT went outside the
circle. Everybody got something to carry... it could be a sock or
a handkerchief... and [when it was your turn to be outside the circle]
you sang the song 'Dree, dree I dropped it, dree dree I dropped
it...' And you dropped it behind [another] person, and then they
were IT. This goes right back to 1915 or so.
The book is available, price £4.50 + £1 p&p
from the A.K. Bell Museum in Perth
or from
Doris Rougvie, Huntingtowerfield Farm, Perth,
See also Tocher, No 45, 1993. Based on my fieldwork and that of
Scottish Folklorists William and Norah Montgomerie, and including
a short article about his work with Scottish ballads.
