Barbara, now a grandmother, has been reflecting on how the lifestyles of the young have altered since her own girlhood.

"I wonder are they any happier, with all their possessions and gadgets. I think not, because most youngsters only seem to have a limited vocabulary, and the key word is 'boring'. They don't appear to know how to enjoy the free things in life".

Toys were in short supply when Barbara was a kid, but traditional games were played with gusto. "These seem a thing of the past", she sighs. "What happened to games like Hot Peas and Cold Onions, Bung-off or better still Tin-can Bung-off?

"On the cobbled streets we used to play a game called Corners; or join in a ball game called Bumpers, against the terraced houses". Skipping in the side-streets, with neighbourhood mothers turning the rope for the children and joining together in the old skipping rhymes, was a girlie favourite that ran into the evenings.

"All long gone, I'm afraid", says Barbara, of Enderby Avenue. "If it doesn't plug-in or produce text, today's kids just don't do it. There were many other games, which I'm sure your readers can recall, requiring no money but just a little imagination".

John Roberts, formerly of St Helens and now resident in Ontario, seems to share Barbara's dismay at the attitude of today's kids. From the 1930s to the 60s, he muses, a variety of schoolyard games were in full flow, only to be eclipsed by the 'electronic wizardry' of current times.

Like Barbara, he mentions Bung-off, a hide-and-seek kind of game. And he also adds others to the old-time list: stonies ('or marbles to the toffee-nosed') matchbox rugby, hopscotch and conkers.

"The origins of some of these games must date back a couple of hundred years or so", he adds, "but how did we adopt the unusual names for those games that were only too familiar to our town and its surrounding areas?"

ANYONE else got a comment or two on the topic, or able to add to the schoolyard games list?