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Leisure: from child to adult control

Besides working hard, medieval children and adults enjoyed many more holidays (holydays) than we have bank holidays. In the 1500s there was concern that people were on holiday so often, the national economy was in danger. In the castles and villages, towns and growing cities, there were always plenty of other children to play with. Children enjoyed hundreds of games and rhymes passed on through generations, some of them thousands of years old, such as 'five stones' (I and P Opie).

In the castles and villages, towns and growing cities, there were always plenty of other children to play with. Children enjoyed hundreds of games and rhymes passed on through generations, some of them thousands of years old, such as 'five stones' (I and P Opie).

Until the 1950s, most children enjoyed much free time away from adults. The streets, fields, woods and rivers were their playgrounds, and they could be away from home all day on their own or with friends. William Blake's poems record how children love to play out in the evening, as does the old rhyme: Girls and boys come out to play The moon doth shine as bright as day Leave your supper and leave your sleep And come with your playfellows into the street Come with a whoop,come with a call Come with a good will or not at all.

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