Games and activities

The games played on the camp were drawn from those actually played by the groups in the 1930’s. In this we were assisted by Lesley Paul’s excellent Woodcraft Folk handbook written in the 1930’s- “The Republic of Children”. This included various outdoor games. Remarkably there were many games that were the same in many essentials to the games played today. For example, “Stealing Sticks” is very similar to the game “Waterloo” played by our members today. There were others- like puttocks that were played extensively in the Folk in the 1930’s that are almost unknown today.

See the descriptions of the games we played from Outdoor Games section of The Republic of Children.

Other activities included decorating the home made tents. In these activities we followed advice in books by John Hargrave and PH Cone, although we used acrylic paint rather than oils.

During our research in the Woodcraft Folk digital archive we found a photo of young woodcrafters playing with bows and arrows. On that basis we added archery to the activities.