What do you love about Nottingham?

[hippo girl 1,995]

Oh did I forget to post, present company excluded.....the Nottstalgian men are BOSS

[loppylugs 8,429]

Aaaaaaaaarghhh!

Now I'll be suspicious of the whole lot of yer.

Edited to ask. BOSS? Do I really want to know? ;-)

[MargieH 7,613]

# 44. There was never a shortage of boys around me when I was in my prime!! But many of you Nottstalgian men would still have been playing with your marbles at that point. I feel a song coming on.... You were 'born too late for me to notice you..."

[.... 23]

Sadly, a few of us have lost our marbles since that time, Margie.

[catfan 14,793]

#53.

What d'mean about prime margie ?

You ladies still are !

[Michael Booth 7,364]

Some of the men are still playing with their marbles, MargieH. (#53)

[Blondie 1,392]

I think most blokes have lost their marbles............

[loppylugs 8,429]

Wadya mean losing marbles? Lol. We are mature blokes, we know a good marble when we see one! Right lads?

[Michael Booth 7,364]

I'm not going there.

[radfordred 6,284]

Marbles I'd have loved some marbles It would have give me something different to play with

[MargieH 7,613]

All this talk about marbles has made me wonder.... What did we call the large glass marbles - not the ball bearing ones. I feel sure they had a name but I can't remember it. Yes, girls played marbles in the playground too - we didn't just do skipping!!

[benjamin1945 16,181]

i know we called the ones with RED' in em we called ;Blood Alleys'..........

[FLY2 10,109]

The larger ones were called Twoers. Hence double the size of the normal ones.

[MargieH 7,613]

Thanks for that FLY. I think that was what they were called where I lived, too. And Benjamin, I can remember blood alleys. Were there any more special names for particular marbles? What about those which were just one colour - did they have a special name?

[.... 23]

'Bullies' I think was the term we used for ball bearings.

[TBI 2,351]

We called ball bearings steelys. We always had a ready supply of various sizes, nicked out of the scrap bunkers of the bus sheds on Turney St.

[DaveN 1,118]

Margie, I’ve got a couple of books about games from the past and the only names they mention for marbles are:- taw, shooter, alleys, mibs and ducks. I don’t suppose it’s any of those.

[OrphanAnnie 296]

I love Nottingham because whenever I am reminiscing (which seems to be more often as the years fly by) it is places/people there I am thinking about. Such as schooldays, first crush, first love, memories happy and sad. As I've mentioned before when we first came to Nottingham in 1966 we lived in the Meadows, and I find that more and more that house and shop figure in my dreams even though most of the people in the dreams I do not know and there are changes in the surroundings but the shop and living rooms remain the same. Sorry sounds weird!!

[benjamin1945 16,181]

'Bullies' I think was the term we used for ball bearings.

Yes Stu I remember 'Bullies' I had a 'Golden one'............just the one sadly...........

[benjamin1945 16,181]

#58 orphan annie I too have weird dreams most nights,about places I used to live and people I used to know,even though not thought about them for years,.......often wake up and can't for the life of me know which house i'm in,......only lasts a few seconds, very Weird,........luckily not called the wife by another name yet,............that 'Duck' word comes in really handy.....lol.

[MargieH 7,613]

Dave, I remember using the term 'shooter' but not any of the others.

Stu, we used to call the big ball bearings 'bullies' too.

I still think there was a special name for a one colour marble. I think I had an all blue one..... I hated it when I lost one of my favourites to someone else

[MargieH 7,613]

I was just telling Paul about the names for marbles and he asked if anyone could remember flicking cigarette cards towards a wall..... The person who got nearest to the wall got all the cards. Mind you he thinks that was when he lived in Grimsby about 60 years ago so maybe kids in Nottingham didn't do that?

[Guest]

Skills sold a net of marbles..with a ' lucky' in each net.

[.... 23]

Here's a few marble names to stir the memories, taken from Wikipedia. 'Alleys was a term I remember, and shooters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_(toy)#Marble_terminology

http://www.imarbles.com/kindsofmarbles.php

• Aggie - made of agate (aggie is short for agate) or glass resembling agate, with various patterns like in the alley
• Alley or real - made of marble or alabaster (alley is short for alabaster), streaked with wavy or other patterns with exotic names like corkscrew, spiral, snake, ribbon, onyx, swirl, bumblebee, and butterfly
  • Ade - strands of opaque white and color, making lemon-ade, lime-ade, orange-ade, etc.
  • Cat's eye or catseye - central eye-shaped colored inserts or cores (injected inside the marble)
    • Beachball - three colors and six vanes
    • Devil's eye - red with yellow eye
  • Clambroth - equally spaced opaque lines on a milk-white opaque base. Rare clams can have blue or black base glass. Medium-high value for antique marbles; rare base color valued much higher.
  • Lutz - antique, handmade German swirl, containing bands of fine copper flakes that glitter like gold. Erroneously thought to have been invented by noted glassmaker Nicholas Lutz. Medium-high value for antique marbles, depending on specific sub-type of Lutz design.
  • Oilie or oily - opaque with a rainbow, iridescent finish
  • Onionskin - antique, handmade German swirl, with many closely packed surface streaks. Medium price range for antique marbles.
  • Opaque - a popular marble that comes in many colors
  • Oxblood - a streaky patch resembling blood
  • Pearls - opaque with single color with mother of pearl finish
  • Toothpaste - also known as plainsies in Canada. Wavy streaks usually with red, blue, black, white, orange.
  • Turtle - wavy streaks containing green and yellow
• Bumblebee - modern, machine-made marble; mostly yellow with two black strips on each side
• China - glazed porcelain, with various patterns similar to an alley marble. Geometric patterns have low value; flowers or other identifiable objects can command high prices.
  • Plaster - a form of china that is unglazed
• Commie or common - made of clay; natural color or monochrome coloration. Made in huge quantities during 19th and early 20th centuries.
  • Bennington - clay fired in a kiln with salt glaze—usually brown, often blue. Other colorations fairly scarce. Fairly low value.
  • Crock - made from crockery (earthenware) clay
• Croton alley or jasper - glazed and unglazed china marbled with blue
• Crystal or clearie or purie - any clear colored glass - including "opals," "glimmers," "bloods," "rubies," etc. These can have any number of descriptive names such as "deep blue sea", "blue moon", "green ghost", "brass bottle".
  • Princess - a tinted crystal
  • Galaxy - modern, machine-made marble; lots of dots inserted to look like a sky of stars
• Indian - antique, handmade German marble; dark and opaque, usually black, with overlaid groups of color bands; usually white, and one or more other colors. Can also have many colors like blue, green and scarlet. Medium price range for antique marbles.
• Mica - antique, handmade German marble; glassy to translucent with streaks or patches of mica, ranging from clear to misty. Value depends on glass color.
• Steely - made of steel; a true steely (not just a ball-bearing) was made from a flat piece of steel folded into a sphere and shows a cross where the corners all come together.
• Sulphide - antique, handmade German marble; large (1.25 to 3+ inch) clear glass sphere with a small statuette or figure inside. Most common are domesticated animals such as dogs, cats, cows, etc.; then wild animals; human figures are scarce; inanimate objects such as a train or pocket watch are very rare and command high prices. The interior figures are made of white clay or kaolin, and appear a silvery color due to light refraction. A sulphide with a colored-glass sphere, or with a painted figure inside, is also very rare and brings a high price. Like other types of antique marbles, sulphides have been reproduced and faked in large quantities.
• Swirly - is a common marble made out of glass with one swirly color.
• Tiger- clear with orange-yellow stripes
• Baby - white with colours visible on the outside

[FLY2 10,109]

Margie, one flat cigarette packet was sloped against a wall, and we took it in turns to skim other packets in an attempt to knock it down. The successful skimmer won what was on the floor. I played that at Berridge Juniors 54-7.