S. Worthen | Weblog

Never heard of it, but my background is South Wales and London. I shall ask G, whose mother was a millgirl.

My background is South Yorkshire/Derbyshire (where my grandparents came from) and (and my mother was German, but that's irrelevant.)

Though Opie records it as Yorkshire, I never heard of it, and I have fond (and clear) memories of most of our playground games and chants. It looks to me as if it originated in the mill towns (Sheffield, my hometown, had no textile industry - it was all steel and heavy engineering) so would be Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax and the other West Yorkshire mill towns.

Oh, and thanks so much for earworming me with 'The Wheels on the Bus.'

Urgh.

My upbringing is South West - never heard of it.
I wound bobbins on a sewing machine at about age 12. Does that count?

I remembered it fondly from my childhood, together with its actions, and although I never wound bobbins, we used to sing it while winding wool for my grandmother, which honestly is almost close enough to tick. So I was delighted to discover that it was still being sung in Walthamstow when M was tiny. It endures for tinies because of the startlingly good actions.

On the other hand, I had never, as a child, heard the ubiquitous 'Sleeping Bunnies'.

I do not know the song, but when we were squabbling children my mother used to appear and cry "I need bobbins wound for my sewing-machine!" And we would sit there laboriously winding thread around bobbins, and by the time we were done all squabbling had vanished from our minds.

And it was not until I was an adult that I learned that my mother's sewing-machine had a device for winding bobbins, that would do the job in seconds...

(My mother is now 92, and still evil.)

We sang it at baby groups in Manchester.

I wound thread bobbins as a kid. But did not sing the song and had never heard of it then ;)

I grew up in Cheshire and never heard it until I had Daf (in Yorkshire). Interestingly I live in North Yorkshire and was taught it by a mum from West Yorkshire. It seems quite well known in my NCT area but we cover bits of North, South, East and West Yorkshire!

Agreeing with quite a few of the above commenters - not a feature of my childhood but very popular with the playgroup Linnea went to. The first few times she came home and sang it to me I was clueless (until I actually saw it for myself with someone with better enunciation leading a group).