We knew how to party!
Yours writer Marion Clarke recalls musical chairs, jelly rabbits and tears before bedtime
Parties have always been a P great excuse for little girls to get dressed up. My mum made my first party dress (pink, of course!) with a matching sash that had to be tied in a perfect bow. She also knitted the fluffy angora bolero I wore over it. I felt like a princess in my finery – even with my two front teeth missing!
Wendy Chappell remembers her eighth birthday party: “We had jelly and ice-cream and a birthday cake which Granny had made. All my friends gave me a present and I had strict instructions from my mother that I was to appear delighted with each gift, even if it was something I already had. When I was given two copies of books I’d previously read I said, ‘Thank you. It’s just what I wanted’.
“My father and grandfather organised the games which included musical chairs and pin the tail on the donkey. A game called touching the ceiling involved standing on a plank, blindfolded, while two adults lifted the plank just a few inches. A third person touched the child’s head with a book so they believed they really had reached the ceiling!”
Sharon Haston had her first party in 1973 when she was seven: “Mum baked fairy cakes which had a piece of the sponge cut into ‘wings’ sitting on top of the butter icing. My friends arrived with presents of books, sweets and Matey bubble bath. We played pass the parcel and musical
‘Green jelly was chopped up to look like grass’
bumps. The Archies’ record Sugar, Sugar was our favourite.” As Jean Tripp’s birthday is in June, she always had a party in the garden: “My older sister helped my mother organise the games such as sucking peas up through a straw and dropping them in a saucer. I loved my parties, but I was a bad loser and ended up crying if I didn’t win a prize!”
I wonder if Jean would have been a winner at Puzzle Hide and Seek, a game devised by Nicola Cook’s mother: “She would cut up picture cards and hide them around the room. Each person had one piece to start with and had to find the rest of their picture. The winner was the one who put their picture together first.
“At one party, two of my friends were put in the corner for being naughty. They had encouraged another boy to put as many crisps in his mouth as possible and then say ‘Cheetos’ to make them spray all over the table.”
Nicola loved the jelly her mum made in rabbit moulds that were served on a bed of green jelly chopped up to look like grass, but Denise Canniff preferred a savoury treat: “Most parties had jelly and blancmange, but I looked forward to one particular friend’s parties because we always had fingers of toast with sardines on top. Delicious.”