Summary

Game name (and type): 'French and English' (chasing game)
Alternative types: running games, team games

Handwritten description of the chasing game 'French and English' written for Dr Dorothy Howard by Kerry Taylor, a student at Double View Government Primary School, on 25 March 1955. Taylor describes 'French and English' as a game which both boys and girls can play. Two captains select teams of even numbers. One team forms the English team, the other the French team. Taylor explains that the two teams form rows about twenty yards apart. The French team stand with their palms turned upward; the English team turn their palms downward. Taylor writes that a member of the English team approaches the French team, touching all players on the top of their hands except for one, who they touch on their palm. This player must chase the English child back to their team. If they catch them before they reach the safety of the English team, they take them to join the French team. Taylor notes that the game continues until one team has captured all of the opposition's players.

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. Features borders ruled in red pencil; text printed on both sides of page.

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