Summary

Game name (and type): 'My Friend's Seat' (guessing game)

Typed description of the guessing game 'My Friend's Seat' composed for Dr Dorothy Howard by Margaret Jacobs, a student at Cherry Gardens School, circa 1955. According to Jacobs, the players divide themselves into two groups in a room. One group leaves the room; the other takes a seat, leaving a spare chair next to them for a specific child. The first group re-enter the room and must find the chair allocated to them. A handwritten annotation by an unknown author notes that this game was also played near Hamley Bridge between 1930-1933.

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 game description in black ink on paper. Features handwritten annotations in blue and black ink by different hands along lower portion of page; types letterhead along upper portion of page. Text printed on one side only.

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