Comments on: One, Two, Three, Alairy…

By: Jill Goodwin

Jill Goodwin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:42:47 +0000

I remember playing this ball game, between 1952 and 1957, in Christchurch, New Zealand, although I never thought about how to spell it! We took it in turns to bounce the ball against a wall. It was a competitive game, to see how far you could get in your turn. After ‘7, 8, 9 Alairy’, it was ‘10 Alairy catch the ball’. At each ‘ALAIRY’ the action would be the special one in something like this order: under the leg; under the leg and a clap; between the held-out skirt and the arm; spin right around; spin around and a clap; and the last one was ‘blind’.

By: patricia duval

patricia duval — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:10:35 +0000

i find it so interesting that the rhyme one two etc is so universal.the last line as i recall was 7 8 9 alary 10 alary catch me I never saw the word alary spelled out so am guessing i grew up in northern ontario canada in the forties and fifties. I played a long ball game throwing the ball against a house that startedwith ordinary,moving,laughing,talking,one hand,the other hand,one foot,etc anyone remember this??

By: PhilipHolt

PhilipHolt — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:16:46 +0000

PS I have recorded a whistled version of the tune she used if you’d like it. I don’t know how to attache to this comment

By: PhilipHolt

PhilipHolt — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:02:34 +0000

My memory of this is the same as that of Maureen Nichols above. My mother born 1918 in Chelsea I believe used to recite this to us children as she played with either one or two balls against a wall. The House she was brought up in was near the Worlds End on the Kings Road and it had an “area”. I always believed the game was unique to her and her sisters because of this. Not until Des O’Connor released his song did I realize otherwise.

By: Linda Stevens

Linda Stevens — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:10:18 +0000

Under Area (architecture) – Wkipedia identifies The airey as a lightwell and says it is the subject of the ball-bouncing rhyme that begins:
One, two, three alairy
My ball is down the airey
Don’t forget to give it to Mary
Early in the morning

That said, in California, where I grew up, we said, One, two, three O’Leary, four, five, six, O’Leary, etc. I do not remember that it ever ended. You just tried to get as high as possible in numbers before “missing.”

By: Mitsu Sundvall

Mitsu Sundvall — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:40:19 +0000

When I was a 5 yr old (1942) in the WWII concentration camp at Topaz Utah for Japanese Americans, we used to pass the time away in the laundry room/latrine where the ball bounced good on the cement floor: “One two three a-larry, shame on brother harry, kissed a girl her name was mary, in the month of January one, two, three–” counting the bounces to see how many times you could throw your leg over the ball

By: Marsha

Marsha — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:42:07 +0000

We used this rhyme when bouncing a ball on the sidewalk in Canada. “One, two, three a lerry, I saw my Auntie Mary, sitting on a chocolate cherry, in the middle of January”. Every time the syllable rhyming with “lerry” was said, we had to raise our right leg over the bouncing ball. This was a game you played all by yourself.

By: William Hastings

William Hastings — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:18:15 +0000

In Canada in the 1930s girls used to sing One two three Alaura; four five six Alaura; seven eight nine Alaura; ten Alaura Secord.
As you will note from the following, Alaura makes much more sense than Alery.
Laura Secord was a heroine of the war of 1812.
Laura was born in Massachusetts in 1775, and moved, with her family, to Upper Canada (now known as Ontario) in 1795. Apparently, her family was at odds with the newly established US government. The next year she married James Secord, and they moved to Queenston, Upper Canada. When the Americans invaded in 1812, James was wounded, and the Americans billoted themselves in the Secord house. In 1813, when Laura learned of a planned American attack on a Canadian post, she walked 20 miles to warn the Canadian garrison. The Americans were defaeted in the ensueing battle at Beaver Creek, and almost all of them were captured.
This implies that the rhyme may have started in Canada, then migrated to the U.S., and England.

By: Nora Mitchell

Nora Mitchell — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:05:59 +0000

Anatoly Liberman’s very interesting suggested derivation receives some support from the version that we used to play in 1940s Jamaica, but which I have never heard anywhere else in quite this form. Instead of “O’leary” we used to say “Levay” (ending “one postman”). I have often wondered since if the word was French (influence from Haiti?); if the essential feature of the bouncing ball game is the swinging of the leg over the ball it seems to me that it could be, with “Levay” being originally “levez” (i.e. raise your leg). Perhaps a Francophone reader could shed some light on this. Of course as practiced in playgrounds the game had much more to it than swinging the leg over the ball. We used to play it as a ball bouncing group game. The order of difficulty was (more or less): (1) Straight bouncing, patting the ball on the syllable “vay” (2) The same, but with crossed feet [Interesting in the light of the Piers Plowman explanations] (3) With uncrossed feet but clapping instead of bouncing on “levay” (4) Making a circle with the thumbs and index fingers and making the ball pass through it on “levay” (5) The same, but doing it twice, saying “levay-levay” — some game-leaders used to continue with levay-levay-levay; (6) Spinning round during “levay” (7) swinging the right leg over on “levay” (8) Swinging the left leg over on “levay” (9) Swinging both legs over, which only the most agile could do. By that time the bell ending the school break generally rang.

By: Carol Kardos

Carol Kardos — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:48:31 +0000

As a child in Cincinnati in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, my recall of the o’leary chant is “… ten o’leary, post man” with the right leg swung over the bouncing ball on the word o’leary. No idea where “post man” came from. We did not play in groups – it was a way of playing when alone.

By: Laura Chejlava

Laura Chejlava — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 18:06:08 +0000

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, we competed against other playgrounds in “O’Leary” I recall there were 20 + exercises. After learning the exercises we then had to learn/compete doing them within a small circle painted on the floor.

By: Pat Eldred

Pat Eldred — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:13:39 +0000

I was delighted to find this explanation of the game and comments on the derivation of what I thought was the word “O’Larry.” I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1940s but could find no one (even in my age category)who recalled the game or the refrain.

By: Maureen Nicholls

Maureen Nicholls — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 07:02:20 +0000

My Mother (born 1910) lived in the East End of London and she used to sing “One, two, three Aleary, My ball’s down the area, Don’t forget to give it to Mary, Early in the morning.” An ‘area’ was the space in front of a basement, usually with stairs down to the servants entry.

By: Judith Neaman

Judith Neaman — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:53:33 +0000

I grew up in upper New York state and, more than sixty years ago, oleary was the ball-bouncing and sometimes skip rope jumping refrain then.