WE ALL think that summers were longer, rain heavier and Wagon Wheels bigger when we were nippers.

I remember going out to play after my breakfast, getting called in for lunch and tea and then getting a row for being back later than I should have been as the dusk set in.

But what on earth was I doing all that time?

As I got older I was given the fantastic present of a ZX Spectrum 48k and remember spending some time on Horace Goes Skiing and Jet Set Willy, but that didn't account for much of my summer time.

The simple answer to what I did all summer is 'play out'.

There was no mobile, PSP or anything to make a noise, other than a stick dragged noisily along a fence.

I'm not harking back to some post-war 1950s rose-tinted vision - I grew up in the 1980s on a council estate in Barnsley.

But it seems that some of the games of my youth - and probably yours - may be going the way of my Spectrum.

One of the best games ever is Kerbie (or Kerby).

This simple game takes two people and a football. Each player stands on a kerb (hence the name) and throws the ball across to the other kerb (without it bouncing).

If you hit the kerb and it bounces back, you take a leap forward and try again.

If not, your opposite number gets a go.