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Oral History Recording of Philip Pearson (1987)
Transcription of an interview with Philip Pearson recorded in July 1987.
Unfortunately the Northumberland Record Office does not have any information about Mr. Pearson except for what he discussed during his interview. During this particular extract he recalls the game of quoits which was played all over Northumberland. He talks about the rules, in a somewhat confused way, as well as some of the players he knew.
[Transcription]
Was quoits popular?
Quoits, it was a craze man. They were so good some of these men. I believe there was a fella called Snowball, I think he lived at Bellard, Newsham or some place, but they used to reckon that if he threw, you threw for first, and when he got his first quoit in you were out the game. That's how good they were. Of course with the quoits, you see, you just put a hover up.
Well were they the horseshoes or were they the full rings?
Oh the full rings.
The full rings?
The full rings here. At the clay end you see, as you know, a hovers two, you only get one for the. But they didn't throw for hoyers, for hovers, because the other fella threw on top of you, he threw the gater up. So, that there's the pin, and he threw his first quoit like that.
So it was lying against the pin?
And you were out the game, but we kept that, it was 21 up, you could do that all day. Once you were against these good ones and mind I mean that.
This tape recording comes from the large collection of oral history recordings held by the Northumberland Archive Service. Interviews were conducted by Record Office staff from the early 1970's right through until the mid 1980's. The purpose of the recordings was to capture the essence of life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many different subjects were covered, including coalmining, farming, fishing, domestic life, World Wars and entertainment. Over 350 recordings have been collected comprising approximately 700 hours of recollections.