I wanted to choose something simple for my skipping rope portrait, which I have been planning for a good while now. I was looking for a rope that I could recognise in some way, one that I could imagine using myself as a child and would make me recall skipping ropes we used as children.

I remember we had a wooden one, in a different design (similar to this one, made from old recycled spindles), which I believe my grandparents gave my sister.  I have not found any examples of what I could really describe as an antique or ancient skipping rope, and the most likely explanation is that one doesn’t need a specific skipping rope to skip, as it can be fashioned out of any good rope and doesn’t in fact require handles to work, though they do make them easier to use and less rough on the hands.

The rope I have chosen here is at the National Trust Museum of Childhood; the museum tells us it dates from around 1933, and was donated by one Mrs C. Burton in September 1985. I like the fact that there is a date attached to it, given that so many other ropes I have come across in collections lack this information, having been used and reused for years, sometimes even having the rope replaced.  

As always, I like to think of objects in context, so I looked into 1933 in the UK and beyond, to picture things a little more. In this video, 10,000 school children greet Queen Mary – I can easily imagine this skipping rope being used by one the girls curtsying at the end. This little behind the scenes film (2.5 minutes) of a fashion parade gives us an idea of fashions of the time, while this ‘scrapbook’ film about 1933 (18 minutes) gives us a sort of rundown of the main events from the year.

There is a wonderful series of articles about playtimes on the British Library website, many of which are written by Michael Rosen, including this great little introduction to skipping games. There is a more in-depth article by Julia Bishop, which includes great recordings of skipping rhymes, and the history of skipping. Both of these pages include several references to the wonderful work Peter and Iona Opie did, collecting recordings and videos of children in action, singing.

I asked around for people to send me songs they remembered skipping to as children. Someone from Worcestershire sent me the one below, which was still going strong in the 1990s:

Not last night but the night before,
24 robbers came knocking at my door
I asked them what they wanted,
and this is what they said:
Spanish Dancer do the splits,
the twist the turnaround and touch the ground,
and out the back door
Spanish Dancer please come back,
back, sit on a tack, read a book and do not look,
(jump with eyes closed, everyone counting out loud: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... until you miss)

There is a 25 minute recording by Iona Opie from the 1970s of children in Redditch (Worcestershire) demonstrating and discussing playground games, and this particular one makes its appearance at minute 4.43.

Someone else from Dublin sent me this rhyme, which she used to skip to in the early 70s:

 Vote vote vote for de Valera
In comes Mary at the door
Mary is the one who will have a lot of fun
So we don't want Deirdre anymore.

I found this interesting due to its political nature. I smiled when I was looking for references of skipping games in Ireland and instead stumbled across a speech given in 1933 (the very year of our skipping rope) by De Valera against the National Guard Party and military dictatorships.  

I also liked finding this little article by Kenyan Yvette Oruko, who describes a ‘nursery rhymes massacre’, in which she and her Swahili-speaking schoolmates would do their best to recreate whatever English song they learned, each of them often singing their own different version – only as an adult did she twig that what had variously been pronounced by her and her friends as “bubbly gun/bubble gum/babligan” in fact referred to “public van”.

I liked this because it also fits seamlessly with the nature of these rhymes, which are often full of nonsense anyway. It also reminded me of my English primary school in Spain, where, despite being a non-religious school, we were made to say grace before eating:

‘For what we are about to receive
may the Lord make us truly thankful, Amen’.

This ended up for many as:

‘Fowoh wee aaah bow to rissee
megalo mega truly thenful, Aaaaaamen.’

From Brazil, someone else sent me several skipping rhymes, including:

Com quem? Com quem?
Com quem será que _____ vai casar?
Loiro, moreno, careca, cabeludo
Rei, ladrão, polícia, capitão

[Who? Who?
Who will ____ end up marrying?
Blond, dark, bald, hairy
King, robber, policeman, captain]

This is very similar to the English skipping rhyme ‘Who will I marry?’

Who will I marry?
Rich man, poor man, beggar, thief
What will my dress be?
Silk, satin, muslin, rags,
How will I get to church?
Coach, carriage, wheelbarrow, dustcart
What will my ring be?
Gold, silver, copper, brass,
Bungalow, flat, mansion, pigsty
How many children will we have?
1,2,3,4,5 FASTER!

But my favourite skipping song is the Spanish ‘Al pasar la barca’, which has many versions. This is one of them:

Al pasar la barca
me dijo el barquero
las niñas bonitas
no pagan dinero.
Yo no soy bonita
ni lo quiero ser
tome usted los cuartos
y a pasarlo bien.

[When the boat came by
The boatman told me
Pretty girls
Don’t have to pay.
I am not pretty
Nor do I want to be,
Take the quarters
and have fun.]

I always thought there was something satisfyingly defiant about those lines, and I really imagined myself as the girl delivering the clever riposte.

I see this skipping rope in the same light as I would see an old kitchen stick back chair, in that it offers the same sort of inviting familiarity. I can almost feel the pleasant texture of the worn wood in my hands and smell the agreeable scent of old dust ingrained into it from years of use. It would feel like an old friend.