•  Haslemere Educational Museum
    Culture, Learning & Inspiration Since 1888

    Lets Share Stories Project


    Out & About

    Children growing up in the 1940s and 1950s had far fewer toys than children do these days and spent most of their time outdoors. With little traffic on the roads they played out on the streets of their neighbourhood. For children growing up in Haslemere, a relatively rural location, children played in woods, farmland and the local recreation grounds. Children at this time were also expected to have a hobby and joining societies such as the Girl Guides or the Scouts were part and parcel of growing up.

    Track 10 Playing with Marbles and Conkers



    Credit line: Andrew White talks about playing with marbles and conkers as a boy.

    Transcription:

    Interviewee: Things like conkers and marbles, alleys as we called them, were played every year for, I can’t think what, there were definite seasons for them.

    Interviewer: Oh were there?!

    Interviewee: Well you couldn’t play conkers until it was the autumn, but things like marbles and things, yes there were definite seasons for them. I don’t know what they were and you either played ’In the hole’ or ’On the knob’. We used to have, they were quite pretty these things, you see the glass ones, and you’d get sixers and twelvers and forty eighters and some were huge, as big as this. Interviewer: Where did you go to buy your marbles?

    Interviewee: I don’t remember. Toy shop, there was a toy shop on Wey Hill, and I assume you could buy them there. I don’t ever remember buying any so how I came by them I don’t know. There was a lot of swapping went on, you always swapped your comics and all sorts of things, so, no, I don’t actually remember buying them.