Summary

Game names (and types): 'Queenie' (ball game), 'Touch & Go' (chasing game)
Alternative types: running game, play with props/equipment, guessing game

Handwritten game descriptions of the ball game 'Queenie' and the chasing game 'Touch & Go' composed for Dr Dorothy Howard respectively by Mrs K. Lewis and Mr J. N. Lewis circa 1955. Mrs Lewis describes 'Queenie' as a school yard game popular with girls in grades 4-7 in Unley, South Australia in 1925. She writes that one child stands with her back to a row of girls. Throwing a ball over her shoulders, this child attempts to identify who has caught it. If successful, the catcher exchanges places with her and the game continues. Mr Lewis describes 'Touch & Go' as a chasing game played by all grades in the school yard at Cherry Gardens School between 1885-1892. To play, he writes that the children stand in a ring. One child runs around the outside of the group, touching a player on the back. The selected child must chase the first player in the opposite direction, racing to secure the vacated place in the circle.

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

Handwritten game descriptions in blue ink on paper. Page features typed print along upper portion. Text printed on one side only of page.

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