Summary

Game names (and type): 'Toodlembuck', 'Scone-on-Stick' (gambling game)
Alternative type: play with props/equipment

Typed letter composed by Dr T. H. Coates, a senior lecturer in Education at the University of Melbourne, addressed to Dr Dorothy Howard on 31 March 1955. Dr Coates writes to provide Dr Howard with further details about a version of the game 'Toodlembuck' played in Ballarat East in 1920. He states that the 'toodlembuck' was created using two lengths of a broomstick handle and a button. Players placed one length of broomstick vertically in the centre of a circle drawn onto the ground, placing the button on its tip. From a distance, the second length of broomstick was thrown in an attempt to knock the 'toodlembuck' over causing the button to fall either in or out off the circle. Marbles, known as 'alleys', or pennies were staked on the result. Dr Coates notes that Professor George Browne and Brigadier Langley also played this version of 'Toodlembuck' in their youth, however, they knew it as 'Scone-on-Stick'.

One of a collection of letters describing a children's games written to children's Folklorist Dorothy Howard between 1954 and 1955. Dr Howard came to Australia in 1954-55 as an American Fulbright scholar to study Australian children's folklore. She travelled across Australia for 10 months collecting children's playground rhymes, games, play artefacts, etc. This letter, together with the other original fieldwork collected by Dr Howard during this period, is preserved in the Dorothy Howard Collection manuscript files, part of the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC), Archive Series 3. The ACFC is an extensive collection documenting children's folklore and related research.

Physical Description

Typed letter in black ink on paper. Features letterhead in black ink along upper portion. Text printed on one side only of page. Signed in black ink on lower portion of page.

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