We played a lot of outside games as children and
one of our favourite games was hopscotch. In hopscotch
ten squares had to be drawn with chalk on the pavements,
ten squares that began with a single square, then a double
square, then another two single squares, a double, a single
and a final double, all numbered one to ten.
We all had our hopscotch stones, which we guarded with our lives.
These were ordinary stones polished until they shone so that they
would speed smoothly to the square we needed as if they were on
wheels. But you had to judge how much impetus to give to the stone
and that was the secret!
When you’d worked that out, you then had to hop to that square and
pick up your stone whilst still standing on one leg. The first
one to triumphantly hit 9 and 10 and able to hop to it without
putting a foot down, through nerves or because you were being
heckled exactly to that end, well, that was the one who won the
game.
There was another game we used to play – high-kelly, which
was doing a handstand against a wall. You kept your head
up and stared at the red bricks until they were burnt onto your
eyes. To do a high-kelly in the days when jeans were not an
option, meant tucking your skirt into the elasticated hems of
your knickers so that you were always ‘decent’! As always,
with every endeavour, there was one little rebel who preferred
her skirt to hang down over head. Sometimes, you were the rebel,
sometimes it was someone else. But there was always room for
everyone – rebels and peace-makers both.
HOPSCOTCH
Hopscotch isn’t a game,
It’s a science,
A mathematical challenge,
An exercise into just how far
Your stone will slide
Over those ten squares
Stretching into infinity.
Most important of all
Is the application of logic,
To determine if this
Is an exercise in futility,
Or if you have at last learnt to hop
And stand on one leg.
©2017 Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 