We used to play a game called Knucks in Waterford when we were kids. Knucks were a cast off from some industrial smoothing factory on the Industrial Estate. They were pieces of metal that had been worn down into a kind of an x shape that sat nicely on the knuckles at the back of your hand. Youâd start with one knuck on the back of your hand and throw it up and catch it and then you had to make your way up to 5 knucks. (In some parts of South Kilkenny they went up as far as 6).
Weâd break into the Factory at night and grab a load of knucks from the yard. They were being chucked out anyway.
Gallybanders were another thing you could teach yere kids to use, or Galleys for short. Find a sturdy v shaped branch or fashion a coat hanger into a v shape. Attach one or more elastic bands over the v. Then get a small piece of paper and fold it over until it is as hard as a rubber bullet, then fold it over one more time into a v shape. Place over the elastic band with your right hand while holding the base of the galley with your left. Pull back the paper and the elastic band. Aim in the direction of some exposed piece of flesh on another child (we used to wear short pants so this was easy) and release. Kids today will have hours of fun with this.
Just make sure they donât aim in the general direction of the eyes. The back of the head or neck is fine though.
Was it one point for a kerb, 2 if you caught it on the fly?
You move to the middle of the road until you miss? Great game. If you played it with a well pumped up basketball it was like a missile coming by back to you.
Hereâs a book I picked up a few years ago, we used to call the game on page 112 polio.
Fucks sake man the kids of today arenât up for Galleybanders. Thereâs a nice early sting from a good hit and you donât want little Cuthbert or God forbid Holly coming whinging and yowling because one of yours was an expert shooter.
Youâre creating a minefield with this one however well intentioned.
Did you ever make berry poppers?
Its is easy to construct.
All you need is the finger of a marigold glove the neck of a plastic bottle and some insulating tape.
The marigold finger had plenty of elasticity this allowed small pebbles or small shrapnel to be fired.
Youâre after bringing back some memories there. I spent a lot of summerâs in Ferrybank with relatives in the 70s and 80s. Nucks were everywhere. I hadnât thought of them in years.
Iâd say the kids who are on their phones 24/7 on Instagram and Snapchat are away in a hack in this crisis and probably donât notice that they are in social isolation. Meanwhile the kids with the earnest parents who wonât let them on social media are probably driven demented by loneliness and the parents wanting to do jigsaws with them.
The little one fell off the bed todayâŚthe drama. I was down stairs pissing about while the mrs was feeding her in bed and while the little monkey isnât crawling yet, sheâs up on all fours rocking and a rolling so sheâs closeâŚanyway, mrs dozed off feeding her âŚall I heard was a massive thud then the mrs screaming my name. Fuck it, I thought the thud was the mrs jumping out of the bed and screaming for me so I thought the worstâŚi reckon I bound up the stairs in two leaps and burst in the door in dread ⌠She was fine⌠But Fuck it the mrs frightened the bollix out of me with the scream. My legs were shaking after it. As if I havenât enough going on trying to find a vaccine for this bastern virusâŚ
