-I had a grandfather who played football in Aris. We had Aris, Hellas, Keravnos, Doxa, Ermoupolis then. These were the teams of Syros. And when I was young like you, I would go in the door to watch, in the football field. We had a football field where there is an army camp now. And…
And we said: ‘Arai-bourai, in the donkey’s garden, I planted an apple tree, how many apples are these?” You can say I planted a lemon tree, how many lemons are these? I planted an orange tree, how many oranges are these? A pomegranate tree, how many pomegranates are these?
The dirt was here. These are the so-called ‘Vavoulia’. And we made a hole here, another here, here and one here. These were the holes. And they were soooo deep, inside the dirt. And we took a ball, like I told you, made of socks, and we were here, we took the ball and threw…
Afterwards we used cane, the cane was not like the one that gardens have nowadays. This was sugar cane. Where we get sugar from. And you know what we made? Kites! The kite was a thing like this, there was a piece of wood, we put the string here, take it down here and here…
– We played with the spin tops. We took a spin top and wrapped the string around it. – Yes, I know it! The Chinese have it but they call it a yo-yo. -Oh! No! The yo-yo is different than the spin top. We first wrapped the string around the spin top and…
But where we grew up, on the way towards the three bridges… I don’t know if you know these places. Where is St. George’s church? If you continue on the road, you will reach the place we call three bridges. From there on down, there was a room that was not that big, a little…
Us girls mostly played the ‘pastela’. I don’t know now, some times they call it ‘patito’. I don’t know what you call it. What we do, we draw a rectangle on the ground, like a little house, on the top and the bottom we draw four little triangles. And with the ‘pastela’, a flat stone,…
We played games, everyone together. All the children back then. We usually got together in the neighbourhoods and played. We did this of course when the schools were open, after we finished our homework and the weather was good so we could go out in the open fields around our homes back then. These were…
We also played with the other children, when we were a little older, in 3rd or 4th grade. Many children would play together, both boys and girls. We played a game called “Perna-perna i Melissa”. We played “Mila” with the ball. We were 2 teams. What other games would you like us to tell you…
A toy airplane! (She shows the children the different toys she brought). This little airplane was a gift from my husband’s father, he gave it to him when he was young like you. Do you know how old he was? He was five! You are a little older, right? And my husband would hold it,…
-Another gift, which I got at the time, was this doll! Do you see this doll? -Did you make it yourself? -No, my dear. We bought it. Okay, he was blue, he was a sailor. It was blue here and here. A regular sailor. He wore his little hat, and had two red epaulettes. But…
– Back then, children, it was cold. My grandmother had given me this gift. Do you know what it is? -A doll that is also gloves. -Excellent. Back then, children didn’t wear gloves too much. Okay? When it was cold, because it was real cold, our little hands had to be warm. And we put…
-What games did you play? – We went to the gym a lot, like all the kids. We went to the gym, do you know where the gym is? We went there to play. It doesn’t exist any longer, it’s in shambles. We went to the gym every day, we exercised, after school. We…
-We were two girls. But because we played outside a lot, we also played boys games. -Oh, it’s a spin top! -It’s a spin top. Good! But I forgot to bring its string. You normally put a string here and then pull it.
-We went for a walk on the beach with grandfather and collected the shells… -This one, where did you find it? -Also on the beach. Giannis, open your hand like this. Imagine how big these seemed to us! They looked enormous to me! -This one! What is it? -Which one? This one? This is the…
-We girls also had these. Do you know what they are? -Stickers? -Not stickers. That is your achievement. Here we had to have glue. We made glue. From the almond tree, we took the tears of the almond tree. Have you seen this brown sap? And we melted it with hot water or we took…
-Oh! Look at my toys here! (She shows photographs). This is my little horse. – We have similar ones now. – Yes, similar, yes. This one here, as I remember, was made of canvas. It was stuffed, and painted, and it has this thing under it. You could also rock on it. And I…
(shows a picture) Do you see me here with the big bow, which was the fashion of the time? We all had to wear them… And I am holding a little doll, which is not this one here, Rinoula (she shows a doll). This one here, this aunt Rinoula, or rather this doll called Rinoula,…
-I played some games and some of them are the same as you play today. -Let’s say tag? Did you play tag? -We played all the games. We played tag, hide-and-seek… We played in the house’s yard… -Did you play blind man’s bluff? -We played blind man’s bluff and football… Did…
– How did you play basketball? – There was no basketball. We didn’t have basketball then, we had a ball made of cloths. A ball, which we made at home, we would stitch it with the needle. We made the ball, and we kicked it, threw it, played with it.
– We made them back then, we didn’t have the ready-made balls. We made them out of paper or cloths, we wrapped them and tied them from the outside. And we played ball. – Do you mean you made the ball? – We made it together with our mother, our grandmother, she helped…
-What games did you play? – Plenty of games! The girls would play different games, and us boys would play our games. – My father told me that they made little boats with oars. – With bark. The bark from the pine trees. We took a piece of that, carved it and…
We played out in the neighbourhoods. We played tag, hide-and-seek, we played these games. The scarf, which we held. Who would catch it and be first. One would hold it and there were ten children on this side, ten on that side, and the two first ones would win. And we would tell stories to…
