In those days there were very few shop-bought toys. There was only one shop, at Lions' Square, next to the Aktarika building (Damianakis' toyshop). We would go and spend hours gazing in through the window. The shop had these amazing toys - wooden trains, model cars... The lucky ones would get a present on New Year's Day! That's why the empty lot helped out! The empty lot was a society in miniature. You would join in and make friends, have fights, get to know what people are like, learn about the world... Kids from all the neighbourhoods would get together there and run around without worrying, since none of today's dangers existed then. Our knees would be covered in blood and we would heal our cuts with dung from the horses that passed by drawing carts...
The games we played weren't individual ones, they were group games. Apart from hide-and-seek and tig, I also remember playing potholes. We'd dig small holes in the ground - everyone in the group had their own one. Then we'd throw a small ball, and the owner of the hole it ended up in would pick it up and try and hit one of the other players, who would run away. If he managed to hit someone then he would put a pebble in that person's hole, but if he didn't he'd put in his own one. We called the pebbles lice, and when you'd collected ten you were out.
