Figure 1.--This is an English advertisement for playsuits about 1967 when my friends and I. We played cowboys and Indians a lot, but never spacemen. None of us had fancy kits like these.

A HBC page reminded me of something once again. When we were younger my mates and I used to play cowboys and indians. This was mainly in the long Summer holidays when we were off school. Some kids did have costumes that were sold in shops but most improvised and me and my mates would pinch stuff from our houses and then share it out for a game. One of my mates used to be popular as his Dad had a load of “snuff hankies” - highly patterned rather than the usual white – which the “cowboys” would wear round their necks – that with blue jeans and some sort of check shirt did the job.Of course a couple had shop-bought hats that they would take turns in wearing – when the wearing was “dead” and “scalped” someone else would wear it. Some also had toy guns. There were other games, but I remember the cowboys and Indians best.

Waste Ground

We played on some waste ground near to my place (it was an old bombsite) and so I was the main provider for us “Indians”.

Cowboys and Indians

Nothing is more American than cowboys and Indians. I am not sure, however, just when this game began. It had to be the late 19th century as cowboys did not acome into their own in America until after the Civil War (1861-65). Of course children could have play frontiersmen and Indiands, but I have never heard of that. Not only did the cowboys and calvary appear after the Civil War, but so did American family life. The industrial revolution had after the Civil War caused a huge economic expansion creating a significantly expanded middle class. These children did not have to work like the earlier generation of children. They spent more time in school and had more time to play. And one of their favorite games becme cowboys and Indians. Here imaginations were fuled by the dime novels of Ned Butline and others. While associated wih American children, cheap book editions, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and after the turn of the 20th century the movies brought cowboys and Indians to even greater prominance in America and Europe as well. Mass marketers like Sears and Wards offered play suits in the 1920s and some of the most popular were cowboys and Indians.

Summer Play

When we were younger my mates and I used to play cowboys and indians. This was mainly in the long Summer holidays when we were off school. There were other games, including the American Civil War, but I remember the cowboys and Indians best.

Our Cowboy and Indian Games

The games I remember best were the cowboy and Indian games.

Costumes

Some kids did have costumes that were sold in shops but most improvised and me and my mates would pinch stuff from our houses and then share it out for a game. One of my mates used to be popular as his Dad had a load of “snuff hankies” - highly patterned rather than the usual white – which the “cowboys” would wear round their necks – that with blue jeans and some sort of check shirt did the job.Of course a couple had shop-bought hats that they would take turns in wearing – when the wearing was “dead” and “scalped” someone else would wear it. Some also had toy guns.

War Paint

Again some kids would have shop-bought “headdresses” but the main thing was the “warpaint”! which we used to paint our bodies and faces with at my place before going on the warpath.I used to nick my little brother's poster paints ( he was being looked after by a neighbour).

Indian Roles

I think,as HBC discusses, was the case in Germany, Indians were more popular as they were more exotic. We tried to make ourselves as exotic as possible – we'd wear our school snakebelts round our heads and share out a couple of feathers plucked from the bought “headdresses” that one or two kids had (after threatening to bar them from the game if they didn't let us). My mum had a set of chequered tea towels that we would also wear as loincloths – again snake belts were great for attaching these and the “cowboys” would have to bring theirs over to my place so we had enough for the t-towels and headbands.

Bows and arrows

We "Indians" in our games did of course have bows and arrows too - shop bought one's were useless - they had suckers on the arrows which, of course, we'd always remove and they nearly always snapped during our games. We'd always be trying to make our own from string and sticks found on the bombsite or over the park or down by the river (normally best - you could pick up some great stuff for play on the riverbanks).

Popularity

I think cowboys and Indians was the most popular because of the variety of ways you could improvise your costume - especially the Indians. The ndians were very exotic to us. The fun was to add as many different things as possible to the costume, the paint and beads and weapons which would never come with shop-bought costumes ( another good thing about Indians was that anything would do as a weapon bits of wood and other junk found lying about could be spears and tomahawks and you could really use them - i.e. throw them at someone from a distance - whereas "cowboys" would need expensive shop-bought toy guns to look the part). Another thing I've rememebered was that one of my mates would steal his sister's "jewellry" - only cheap plastic stuff - that we "indians" would wear as "White Men's Teeth" - well we were kids!. The only thing that spoiled the image was that we couldn't go barefoot on the bombsite as there were a load of old planks and glass about. Once I was on the warpath and a nail in an old plank went right through the sole of my sandals and into my foot - I got it out but it swelled up and a friend's mum made me go to hospital for an injection. We were of course banned from playing there from time to time and they reboarded it up - but we always got back in. If we went on a raid to the park we'd always take our sandals off so we could be "real Indians" (our socks would be "scalps" and be tucked into the snakebelts round our waist -! one of the ways of showing that a "cowboy" was "dead" was that after we'd captured him he'd have to take his socks off for us to add to our "trophies". If he came alive again he'd have to play on in his shoes or sandals (no cowboy boots I'm afraid) without socks until we sorted everything out towards hometime.

Other Games

There were a variety of other games we played. Looking back it is interesting how American history games tended to domnate our play. It was not something that occurred to us at the time.

Saxons and Normans

We may not have played Saxons and Normans but we did play at Knights in armour – mum's old saucepans came in handy and their were (plastic) “helmets and breastplates” on sale in toyshops too but it was always more fun to improvise and there was plenty of old corrugated iron around on the bombsite.

Robin Hood

I'm writing again because it occurred to me that we hardly ever played at that most English of heroes associted with bows and arrows - "Robin Hood", Although there was a TV series on that theme, our bows and arrows were always used in the cowboy games. Seems rather strange. I wonder if the same was true for English boys in other areas. The only Robin Hood games were fighting with staves and we had no costume for that.

William Tell

One other thing we did play (and this was from a popular TV series) was William Tell - I used to want this most because of my name but we usually gave up because we couldn't make crossbows that fired properly.

Civil War

In the colder holidays we reverted to playing civil war (American not English – TV influence I suppose) and, without understanding any of the history, I always wanted to be what we called “Confederates” as I could wear my grey school shirt and I'd heared the name “Stonewall Jackson” somewhere and it appealed to me. This too was serious for me and ,like I told you before, I persauded my mum to buy me some grey jeans ( they were more black but they faded – I'm wearing them in the picture of me and my brothers on holiday) one birthday rather than the more usual blue so I could play the part.

Cops and robbers

There were also play policemen's uniforms - but again I don't recall anyone playing in them.

Larence of Arabia

I also remember playing “Lawrence of Arabia” - again with my mums tea-towels round our heads this time and held in place with snake-belts (they really came in useful tose for play,being elastic) and some old sheets.

Costuming

As I said - we used to improvise our clothing for these games - an odd boy would have a bought cowboy hat or headress and a few starred sherriff's badges which you could buy fairly cheaply in the toyshop. I've found an advert for playclothes but, as I've said before about catalogues and such,these are not a good guide to what most English boys wore for these games - just what the manufacturers would like! - if anyone had turned up in a full outfit like those shown here they'd have been given a hard time and their gear redistributed amongst us. Also at that age we'd never have included girls in our games - again this is the advertisers view - to sell more of their clothes and I don't recall us ever playing "spacemen" - even though the moon landing was around that time.

Intensity

All of these games could get pretty heated as we got into them but the main danger would come if we couldn't sneak the stuff we'd borrowed to play in back into the house before our mum's got in from work – but that was part of the fun too and everyone normally took the chance and turned up on the bombsite with something – although a mate of mine did get into big trouble when he borrowed one of his dad's pipes so we could have a peace-pipe. We never lit it or anything – but we did break the stem our parley broke up and it was converted into a tomahawk.

Gender

I never remember girls being involved in our games on the bombsite - they took heed of the warnings to keep off as it was "dangerous". We were quite happy ! with this as it meant the girls would also take younger brothers off our hands as they could persaude them to take part in their games like,houses or schools which they'd play elsewhere - normally in someone's home.I never had to look after my younger brother as he went to a neighbour but some of my mates were meant to so they'd have to try to find a group of girls to take care of them before they could join us.

Psychology

I think the boys I played with did like dressing up - but not being told how to dress up.I've told you how I didn't mind wearing school uniform but once I'd accepted that I hated being dressed up for any other reason - like visits to my Grandparents. My friends were the same. It's interesting to think that my older brother and his friends didn't take part in these games as they would be away on a cub camp or something. None of the boys I played with were in the cubs - I think that reflects our attitude as I've said above - one uniform for school was enough without CHOOSING to wear another one for cubs. But dressing up wildly as Indians was a different matter because we chose what to wear (based on TV shows of course). I think this just shows different attitudes. In my first year at secondary school we had to read William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" in English and discuss it in class. I remember then us talking about whet! her we would have gone with Jack (who ends up running wild in the book) or Ralph ( who wants to keep some sort of order). The school had it's own scout troop and the English teacher suggested that they would have been with Ralph. By this time I'd moved and was more into playing football than Indians - in fact by this time (1970) I don't think it was so common to dress up forplay even for younger boys and on top of that the bombsites where we used to play were starting to be developed for new housing and such so there were no longer those secret places out of the sight of interfering adults where we could let rip. If we'd have started chucking our home-made weapons about in the local park someone would have put a stop to it as it was "dangerous". Funny thing was in our games no-one was really hurt - the odd cut or bruise or nosebleed - yet a friend of my brothers broke his arm on a cub camp and turned up back at school in plaster. We used to have to write an essay back at school "What I ! Did in the Summer Holidays" and then read them out to the class and, besides family holidays and such, those who were in the cubs would always have the same story that our teacher found "exciting" but me and my mate would never write about our games on the bombsite - which we thought were much more fun than being "organised".

Germany

Another thing - when I went to Germany there was never any dressing up by the kids there for play, at least not among the kids I was about. Nor did the boys have any toy guns like were still around in England. [HBC note: American boys in the 1960s were still armed to teeth with toy guns.] I wonder if German boys not having toy guns was some sort of legacy of World War II. I would be interesting in heaing about the experiences of German boys at this time. I do remember when my German friends and I were slinging fenceposts down into the river as I told you about on my trip there I had in mind World War II films I'd seen. Maybe it was the area of Germany I was in - Bavaria - and in the North more German boys dressed up to play cowboys and Indians.

Bill