weeping children

[moominmolly]

I'm not sure I've gotten around to sharing this with the world yet, but apparently Natalie has a playground game they call "statues".

So, one person is the "policeman", and everyone else is a statue. And you can only run toward the policeman IF the policeman is not looking at you. Otherwise you have to stand still like a statue.

...presumably, a statue of an angel. I didn't ask.

Comments

[blk]

Funny! This is actually a common childhood game. I'm sure I played variations of it as a kid, too. Which came first, the aliens or the game? :)

[palmir.livejournal.com]

1, 2, 3... piano? Childhood games are weird, man.

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

Indeed! 50... no, probably more like 60, maybe even 65 years ago my father and his sibs were playing a version of this game that ended when my father accidentally threw my aunt into the side of the barn.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Yup, this game was name-checked in a couple of the 1950s children's books I read as a kid. (Not that I was a kid in the 1950s but my mom got me reading a lot of the books she had loved.)

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I remember something like this from rural West Texas in the 1950s! Even the name
'Statues' is familiar.

I think we had the 'Policeman' in the middle of the group, but I don't remember what we called him.
Maybe 'Policeman'. ;-)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we did this too -- both the freeze-when-seen and red-light-green-light (which is what we called policeman.)

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

I think that the Weeping Angels concept is actually a nod to the game of Statues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statues_%28game%29). I know the Wikipedia entry says they don't call it Statues in England, but I'm darn sure I first read about it in some British kids' books from the 1950s. (Plus, that's probably where the Aussie kids would have gotten it from.)

[bluepapercup]

Oh yah, we played a game like this too! I don't think it involved policemen, but it was definitely called Statutes.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Yup. Same here. It was definitely called 'Statues'.