Najma and Asma Khushid
Us kids playing and going to Millhouses Park, 1980s Asma (seated) and Najma with their brother Nazakit at home in Attercliffe, 1970s © Najma Khurshid Najma and Asma grew up in Attercliffe in the 1970s and 1980s, at a time when children had great freedom and played outside a lot. They describe the games they played in the sound clip. This sound clip lasts for 1 minute and 50 seconds. And can you remember what sort of games and things you used to play at breaktime, playtime? I don't know whether you've heard of it, but do you know that...[demonstrates a clapping game]. Clapping, those things, yeah. Hopscotch. We used to play 'Two balls on the wall'. Oh yeah, oh yeah. They don't do that now do they? [sings not remembering all the words] 'Le la Mother Brown, Le la Mother Brown, le-de-le da, le-de-le-da, Le la Mother Brown', that was for underarm, then it was 'Over Mother Brown'. Who was better? I think I was better. Nah, I think I were brilliant, me, at 'Two Balls', Gaby. She could go for ever on the wall and all that. Good trick, she couldn't do them trick things. We don't do French skipping no more, we used to have them big elastic band, 'England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales; Inside, Outside, Monkey's tails' How can you remember? I can't remember these things. I could do that me, I could still do that. OK, I'll get the elastic, you next term can show the playground how to do it. But I think we were more, like, resilient as kids, there weren't much, we were allowed to like...catch... We could catch the bus and go all the way to Millhouses Park by ourselves. Yeah. Would stop off in Sharrow area to pick, call for me cousin and things, We're only talking, she'd be about eight, me brother about five and I'd be three. So we were really, really young. And to go all that way and it was a lot easier... I think we were just clever. You wouldn't dream of letting your kids go? Oh no, no! Never, no never. I think its times as well. I think in them days... You could leave your back door unlocked and windows open, saying that I've left me windows open today, but ... Ssshh, I won't tell anybody. But, yeah, I think times were a lot better then than they are now. I love my children to have my childhood. Because it was much freer, and...less stress. Yeah, yeah. Extract from an interview with Asma and Najma Khurshid by Gaby Spinks for the Burngreave Voices oral history archive, July 2006. |