Summary

Game name (and type): 'Skippy' (skipping game)

Handwritten description of the skipping game 'Skippy' written for Dr Dorothy Howard by Barbara Gliddon, a student at Double View Government Primary School, on 25 March 1955. Gliddon describes 'Skippy' as a winter game involving ten players, usually girls, aged between six and twelve. She writes that a lot of space on a firm surface is required. Two children hold the ends of a skipping rope, turning it rhythmically as players take turns to jump over it. If a player fails to successfully clear the rope as it turns, they are required to take one of the rope's ends.

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 description in blue ink on lined paper. Text printed on one side only.

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