Study seeks memories of playground games

ACADEMICS are calling upon former students of a Sheffield school to once again share their memories of 1950s playground games and rhymes.

Back in the 1953-54 school year, class 2C at Ecclesfield Grammar School took part in a national playground games project run by Iona and Peter Opie, who found that many games drew on pop songs, comics, TV programmes and films.

Now, Prof Jackie Marsh and Dr Julia Bishop from Sheffield University are hoping to trace the former pupils who took part in this project.

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The pair have recently carried out research into the media-referenced games that present-day children in Sheffield play and are interested in looking at how these compare with the past.

Dr Bishop said: “We want to know what kind of a media-influenced childhood these people had. Did they own a TV, did they go to the cinema?

“We’d really like to recruit people who would be interested in remembering the games they played and the sort of media that was around them.”

Prof Marsh added: “We thought it would be fascinating to try and trace these former pupils and others at the school from the same period and find out more about their childhood play and games at home and school.”

Those who took part in the project and would be interested in helping the academics’ study can email Dr Bishop at [email protected]

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