Summary

Game names (and types): 'Fruit Games', 'Apple Game', 'Biting the Apple' (miscellaneous play), 'Fruit Salad' (running game), 'Buy My Supper' (imaginary play)

Handwritten descriptions of different games involving food compiled for Dr Dorothy Howard by Marilyn Skinner, Patricia Dodd, Robin Murchison, Pamela Kinlock and Patricia Watson, five students from Clayfield College, on 15 October 1954. Skinner describes 'Fruit Games' which involves placing the peel of an orange or apple under the top lip of a player, who proceeds to show their fruit covered teeth. Dodd discusses the running game 'Fruit Salad', providing annotated, hand drawn diagrams. To play, children are divided into teams of fruit and seated in rows. The names of different fruit are called out and the corresponding team runs around the other players, the fastest player accumulating points. When 'Fruit Salad' is called, all teams run with the fastest group winning the game. 'Apple Game' and 'Biting the Apple', described respectively by Murchison and Kinlock, involve players biting apples hanging from string with their hands behind their backs. Kinlock states that 'Biting the Apple' is usually played by girls. Watson provides a description of 'Buy My Supper'. She writes that one player is elected the bride or groom, requesting the other players to get their supper. The fastest to procure the request becomes the corresponding spouse.

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 lined paper. Features text by five different hands; text printed on both sides of page. Features four hand drawn, annotated diagrams located within or below the descriptions.

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