Games you used to play as a kid...

Kirby is the only one of those I played.

French elastic - basically a large length of elastic sewn together at the ends, 2 people stand opposite each other and put the elastic round their ankles, knees, hips or waist depending on difficulty whilst a 3rd person stands on the elastic and jumps or twists it into shapes (not a very good description I'm afraid!)

Skipping- various varieties but usualy with 2 people turning the rope and one or more people jumping. Also double dutch with 2 ropes.

Handstands - hours spent during summer on the playing field or more dangerously against the wall in the yard where one person calls out the type you are meant to do - eg toilet which is a handstand and then raising one hand up and down whilst making a flushing noise. The "best" or whoever lasts the longest gets to call the next one.

Tent - involves commandeering every sheet, clothes peg and clothes maiden you could find at several peoples houses, spending all day constructing a tent out of them and then invariably us falling out and going home leaving the parents to sort out who owned what .

War - the only game my friends big brother would let us play. Basicaly hide and seek with 2 teams only when you got found you were tortured to give up the locations of your team mates - mainly involved the girls being caught - who'd have thougth it!

British buldog and Redrover are 2 more but i'm getting bored of explanations!

War sounds quite like Code - I used to hate playing that game as the boys would always give us dead arms and legs.

We used to play British Bulldog too although H and I played diffrent versions.

I really want to have a game of kirby now ?

"Mother Brown" juggling against a wall and French skipping with elastics were the faves of the day for girls in my era lol

We used to play kick the can, its a bit like hide and seek but better. Firstly the can would be kicked down the street and the person who was 'man' had to retrieve it and put it in its agreed position. Whilst they were getting the can that was when everyone would run and hide. The person who was man would then seek people out. When you were found you had to wait next to the can. If there was an opportunity whilst the person was seeking people out you could come out of hiding, kick the can and that meant everyone who had already been found was then allowed to run and hide again. It used to go on for hours.

Chips - riding into one another on your bike until the other fell off. Good fun until I broke my ankle.

Tracking - two teams, one goes off and uses chalked arrows with choices over which route to follow. The second team has to figure out the right route and find them.

Kick the can - like hide and seek. The hiders hide and the seeker has to start at the can and when they think they've found someone they race back to the can to 'acky' them. If you're ackied, you're out. If a hider kicks the can, everyone that was out gets to hide again.

Red Letter - can't remember the rules but it was dull anyway ?

Some hand clapping game with a partner, can't remember the songs we used to sing to go with them..........

We played British Bulldog and Kerby too.

You explained that so much better than me ?

Peek behind the curtain - one child has their back to the rest of the group & everyone else had to walk forward slowly. As soon as the first child turned round you had to freeze in your position & if you moved you were out

Simon says - one chile gives an order to the rest of the group saying things like ' stand on one leg' but you were only allowed to follow the instruction if they said 'Simon Says'

British Bulldog, although that got banned from my school eventually ?

Lots of skipping games

At secondary school we played 'bundle' which basically involved throwing a rugby ball around & beating up other kids. It was a good way to flirt with boys you fancied!

Off ground tig (or tag if you're not from Leeds!) - being off ground eg bences, tree stumps was classed as being safe so you couldn't be tigged.

Stick in the mud - Tig but when you were 'tigged' you had to stand still with legs and arms spread. You could be rescued by someone crawling through your legs

Dancing dollies - like dodgeball but against a wall <shudder>

We used to make up dances in the playground too, I remember a NKOTB phase at about 9 or 10... <cringe>

British Bulldog (Or Bullies Charge at our school) was banned for being too dangerous ?

Stars (not sure what else to call it). You need 5 small metal star blocks, kneel on the ground. Start with them all in your hand, throw them in the air and catch as many as you can on the back of your hand. Throw what you caught back in the air and catch in your hand again. Then different variations of throwing the stars up and catching them whilst picking up other stars on the ground in between. Does that make any sense at all?!

Off ground touch (it was definitely 'touch' not 'tag' down sahff)

Stick in the Mud

Kiss, Cuddle or torture

Bulldog (and kiss bulldog!)

French skipping

And it was 'it' where I was, never 'tag' or 'tig'.

That's jacks isnt' it?

British Bulldog, tiggy off the ground and kick can (great description BYW!) in big groups. Oh, and some cricket game where one person has a cricket bat and everyone stands around them. One of the standing around people throws a ball and tries to get the batter legs - if they hit the batters leg, then the batter is out. If the batter hits the ball away then the nearest person to it throws it. The batter isn't allowed to move their feet.

Skipping, two balls (throwing them against the wall to some rhyme) on your own/small group.

I *think* that's called French Cricket (or maybe that's just what we used to call it ?)

Oh, and loads of clapping/skipping rhymes...

We did french skipping but it was called German jumps.

We also played a game at school which started off with a rhyme/clapping thing "salt vinegar mustard pepper, salt vinegar mustard pepper, 80 days around the world which one will you choose?" Details about what happened after that are fuzzy ?

At my school this was 'Grandma's Footsteps' or the variation 'What's the time, Mr Wolf'.

Socky - tennis ball in a long sock and you stood against a wall and bounced the sock between your legs, above your head etc.

Really can't remember what the point of it was now!

British bulldog also got banned at our school.

Tetris was one of my favourites

I loved that one too. Plus Super Mario, Pac-Man and World of Tanks. Now i am playing mostly word games like Wordle and Scrabble. https://word-finder.com/words-that-start-with/dri/ - and that is my favorite online vocabulary which makes more and more professional in them.