Iona Opie and the People in the Playground

Available for over a year

A sonic exploration of children's culture, drawing on Iona Opie's extraordinary recordings that reveal the language and rituals of young people being remade through time. From the late 1960s, Iona Opie travelled playgrounds across the U.K. with a tape recorder, collecting the chants, rhymes and games of children at play. Her recordings capture a world that is vibrant, poetic, and startlingly alive — a language passed between children, out of adult earshot. We listen in on a world adults often forget how to hear. In the games of children — their rhymes, rituals, and secret codes — we glimpse a world both ancient and ever-changing, chaotic and precise, playful and profound. Featuring recordings from the 1960 BBC series, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, and recordings from the C898 Opie Collection of Children's Games and Songs, available at the British Library. This collection is © British Library Board and extracts are used with permission. The complete collection is available for access through the British Library’s Listening and Viewing Service. Produced by James Spinney A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3