In our topic ‘Family Album’ we are learning about the past. Today Mr Proctor came to visit us and talked about what birthdays were like for him when he was a little boy. He is a very young looking 73 and talked about his 7th birthday in 1950 and other birthdays around that age.  First we thought about what birthdays are like today for us in 2017 and then we thought of questions to ask Mr Proctor about his birthdays in the past to be able to compare birthdays now and then.

These are our questions and Mr Proctor’s answers …

Did you have party bags at your parties? (Caitlyn)

No they weren’t invented then, instead everyone took a piece of birthday cake wrapped in a serviette home.

Did you play pass the parcel? (Iain)

Yes we played pass the parcel. We didn’t have CD players or IPods to play music but we had a radio so we turned that on and off to play music and the layers were wrapped in newspaper. The prize was usually some sweets.

What party games did you play when you were little? (Isobella)

We played musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey (Mr Proctor explained how to play this game).

What was your favourite present you got when you were our age? (Eddie)

My favourite game when I was little was ‘Cowboys and Indians’ we used to split up into two groups and the cowboys and guns whilst the Indians had arrows with a sucker on the end and we used to fight each other.  My favourite present was a gun belt, a holster and a cap gun that my Dad gave me. When I was little I went to the cinema and my favourite films had a cowboy called Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger in them.  I wanted to be like Roy Rogers he was the hero and always won the fights. He had a white leather holster (the bag that held the gun) with rhinestones on. My present looked just like Roy Rogers’ belt, holster and gun.  The gun had six shots in it. I played with it so much it just got worn out.

Did you have play places that had ball pits when you were younger? (Theo)

No there weren’t any play places, but we did have a park with a swing, roundabout and a slide. We had parties at our house we played ‘tig’ and run around a lot!

Did you get lots of presents? (Spencer). What sort of things did you get as presents? (Spencer, Emily and Sofia)

I was very, very lucky, I had 11 aunties and uncles who all lived very close to where I lived. So I used to get clothes, money and books. One birthday I remember I got two presents that were about the same thing, one was an annual and one was like a teddy bear, it was Rupert Bear. My auntie knitted it for me and filled it with stuffing he was my favourite and I had him for about 10 years. My favourite present was a little case in which I kept all my pens, crayons and paper my Auntie Jean gave it to me.  I also got a cricket bat and a proper cricket ball one year which I loved.

Did you have a cake? What flavour were your favourite cakes? Did it have sprinkles on it? (Marcus).  Was your cake in the shape of a character from a movie? (Iain)

My mum made my birthday cakes and they were always a sponge cake with butter cream in the middle.