SOME years ago, a friend bought his infant son a toy tractor but was somewhat dismayed when the youngster preferred to construct things from bits of metal and wood from his dad's workshed.

This matches another tale where a grandmother always kept a huge tin of coloured buttons handy for her grandchildren to play with during visits - this was always more popular than the toys they brought with them.

I was reminded of the inventiveness of children at play when recent reports suggested that some playground games might be banned because they are too dangerous. Some teachers, it seems, consider a conker on a string to be an offensive weapon, while more boisterous games such as skipping, rounders and British Bulldog may be banned.

This is not due to the creeping sickness of political correctness but to the fact that some parents might sue teachers if their children are injured during playtime at school. While one can appreciate the caution of teachers, it is a sad indictment of modern society if children's playgrounds are threatened with developing into something akin to mausoleums and museums.

Children will, as always, invent their own games and in recent months I have seen my own grandchildren develop their own skills in playing. One interesting observation is that the small boys gravitate towards playing with trains, tractors and guns while the girls love dolls and games associated with home life.

If politically correct pundits want to tell us that we are all the same in our talents, interests and development, then they should watch children playing freely. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls, and we should not interfere with nature. When I was a child, I can remember the girls at school playing skipping games, something denied the boys. Quite often, these involved a chant or song and I have a note of such a game played in Lancashire. As a girl skipped, her friends would sing:

Mary Ellison lives on the shore

She has children three or four.

The eldest one is 21

And she gets married to a

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor,

Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief.

The skipping speeded up as the last two lines were sung, and if the girl caught the rope at one of the names then that was the person she would marry.

There were countless variations of skipping games, although many playground activities did not involve skipping but used a form of dance instead. The verses varied from place to place, and were sometimes known only in a particular town or dale. Another verse (sung by girls I believe) was: When you are married, you must obey, you must be true in all you say, you must be kind, you must be good and help your wife to chop the wood".

Yet another read: We've come to see poor Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones, Jenny Jones. We've come to see poor Jenny Jones, so how is she today?"

There were times when boys danced around girls, however!

Some years ago a woman called Grace told me that, when she attended school, the boys would dance around her singing: "Patience is a virtue, and virtue is a grace; Grace is a little girl who wouldn't wash her face."

If a party of boys teased another boy, however, he might retaliate by calling: "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but calling will never hurt me." Now, such name-calling is probably illegal, or regarded as harassment or politically incorrect.

There was even a simple game for tiny tots. It was called Handy Pandy, and its purpose was for the very small children to guess which hand contained a sweet or some other object. As the guessing took place, the players sang: Handy Pandy, sugar candy - which hand is it in?"

I recall one very popular playground game for girls and boys, large and small. It was called The Jolly Miller. A child stood in the centre of a ring of other children who danced around in a circle as these words were sung:

There was a jolly miller and he lived by himself,

As the mill went round he made his wealth.

One hand in the hopper and the other in the bag

As the mill went round he made his grab.

At that stage, the child in the centre had to try to touch one of the others and the child thus touched had then to take up a position in the centre. It was a simple but enjoyable game and, I would think, quite harmless. I hope this kind of game will not be banned - and what about tig, hop-scotch, kiss and chase, fox-off, ring-a-ring o'roses, wall-flowers, and all those other lovely old games?

Will they be banned or will our resourceful children produce new games which involve running, dancing and singing rather than spend their leisure time sitting before a television or computer screen? Let's hope our youngsters retain all their inventiveness - and that they are allowed to develop their natural skills at physical games.

Winter visitor

Is it possible that a willow warbler or chiff-chaff would spend winter in the northern regions of these islands instead of flying to the warmth of southern Africa? I pondered this likelihood because, as I returned home on a frosty day in December, I spotted such a bird in my garden.

It was seeking insect food among our roses bushes and did not fly away as I parked my car only feet away. I remained in the car to watch it and eventually, this tiny green bird flew into a dying clematis on the wall of the house, only a yard or so from my vantage point.

It reminded me so much of a similar mystery bird I spotted last spring. On that occasion, the warbler-like bird sported a single yellow stripe on each wing, rather like an Arctic warbler. I was never able to positively identify that spring visitor and now I have a winter puzzle, this time a warbler-like bird without any bars on its wings. The snag is that the warbler family of birds does have many members, some of whom are remarkably similar in appearance to one another albeit with very small differences.

From time to time, rare varieties do find themselves swept into our islands on the prevailing winds or sometimes in storms or other unusual climatic conditions.

Most, if not all, warblers are migrants who undertake long and dangerous journeys both in the spring and in the autumn. It is therefore quite likely that some unfortunate bird will find itself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As I spotted my recent visitor, there was talk of global warming and abnormally mild winter conditions but I don't think these were sufficient to detain a member of the warbler family who would normally leave us in September or October.

Although I am not an expert at bird identification, my visitor was the same shape, size and colour as a willow warbler or its cousin, the chiff-chaff; it is so difficult to distinguish one from the other (except that a chiff-chaff has dark legs and a willow warbler has lighter coloured ones) and I do believe that, on occasions, chiff-chaffs will spend winter in the south of England.

Having hunted through my reference books and examined pictures of various warblers, I think my visitor is most likely to have been a chiff-chaff who had been delayed by the abnormally mild conditions of that time. We had frost a few days afterwards, so I hope he made his way safely to a warmer place.

Cold comfort

With global warming in mind, tomorrow is the feast day of St Hilary, which is said to be the coldest day of the year. It has gained this reputation because on this day in 1205, a dreadfully severe frost affected the whole of England and persisted until March 22. St Hilary (AD 315-367) was Bishop of Poitiers and the Pope declared him a doctor of the church in 1851. In England, he gave his name to the Hilary term of our universities and legal system