The Mulberry Bush Blog

Marbles over the Millennia

There’s a nicely written piece about traditional games on Time Magazine’s website with the author describing how he and his primary schoolmates played marbles in the playground in the 1970s.  No doubt he thinks that makes him sound old, but I could have written the same about my primary school in the 1950s and I reckon if I asked my father - now in his 80s - he could have done the same for the 1920s and ’30s.  But in a way that’s the point of the article.

The author reckons marbles are as popular as ever - and they have been played since Roman times - and by-the-by points out that a child needs no instructions on how to play with them, nor ever did.  That pretty much sums up the appeal of so many traditional toys.  Simple, straightforward but still fun.  And isn’t there something reassuring, in this constantly changing world, in knowing that children get the same enjoyment out of a simple game that their forebears did generations ago? 

Posted in Games, The History of Toys & Games, Traditional Toys | 1 Comment »

Traditional game to get new look

Apparently the makers of Monopoly in USA are “dropping Water Works and Electric Company in favour of Wind Energy and Solar Energy” according to globeandmail.com .  They quote the games owner’s CEO as saying this is “a nod to the efforts of countries worldwide to increase the effectiveness and availability of renewable energy and resources.”

A “nod to the efforts”?  How patronising can a company get. But should we be surprised at the cynical attempts of one the world’s largest toy-makers to consider global warming to be just another bandwagon to jump on?   Unless they know something we don’t and wind farms and solar panels are about to be installed in Mayfair or the Old Kent Road.

Call me old fashioned but I like my traditional games to stay as I remember them as a boy - and still occasionally enjoy now.  You can’t mess with tiddlywinks or solitaire and that, no doubt, is why they are just as popular as ever

Posted in Games, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »