National Library of Australia

 

FROM THE RECORDINGS COLLECTED BY JUNE FACTOR

Access conditions: Open access

Dr June Factor is Australia's best-known researcher in children's folklore, and her book Captain Cook Chased a Chook: Children's Folklore in Australia (1988) is the leading scholarly work on the subject. Although it is not catalogued by the National Library as part of 'The June Factor Collection', the Australian Children's Folklore Collection listed above includes a number of recordings carried out by June Factor's students at the Institute of Early Childhood Development in Melbourne.

From the Australian Children's Folklore Collection, TRC 2632/20. Dr Dorothy Howard (1902-1996) performs and discusses songs she learned during her childhood in East Texas, USA. Recorded 1983.

Selected excerpt from this collection

The games we played were based on having a pocket knife that was with a long blade stick ... one that came down at right angles, and we used to stick a biscuit on the blade that was pointing down and put your finger and go like that and if it stuck straight in, depending how it stuck in the ground you got scored - it was called stag knife.
I used to love playing stag knife. That was one game where we had points scored if it stuck upright, crossways. Then we had another game where we had two stones like goals and we flicked the knife and it had to stick up and you had another shot...
The other thing, the cigarette cards ...we all tried our hardest to get the set. See, there were arms and armour(?) of the British Empire, the British Empire series which showed Canada and Africa and all the British ... Then there were golden girls and there were pictures of beautiful actresses ... and Lily Brayton who was a Shakespearean actress in London.
Swap cards came in after, they were the next move after there were no cigarette cards ... they couldn't afford to put cigarettes in every packet so then they started the swap cards and they could buy a set in the shops ... and then jacks, [throwing them] up and then catching them on the back of your hand.
June Factor: What did you use for jacks?
Alan Marshall: Jack bones from sheep ... See, mother would buy a leg of mutton or something and there always were the bones. There were no plastic ones then. They were really genuine knucklebones. What she'd do, when you got them out of the sheep, she'd have to boil them - she'd boil them and you'd take them and scrape them clean and they'd be dried and they'd get a lovely pattern after you had them a while. You had a bag for your jacks and a bag for your marbles and a tobacco tin to carry your cigarette cards in.

Children's folklore items found in this collection

TRC 3816. View record

Alan Marshall (1902-1984) reminisces about games of his childhood. Transcript only available.
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