Generation Games

In the early 1970s I used to love the BBC’s It’s a Knockout. It was the sheer physical comedy of the show and (subsequent grim revelations aside) host Stuart Hall’s helpless laughter that got me every time.

For anyone unfamiliar with the format, teams from different regions of the UK dressed up in silly costumes to compete across a range of games. Typically, contestants might be required to transport multiple buckets of water on their heads, blindfolded and riding a unicycle, with team-mates barking instructions at them. The best UK team went on to compete in the international version of the show, Jeux Sans Frontières. It was where I first learned the German for ‘left’ and ‘right’.

Something similar occurs at my family’s Mini Olympics every August Bank Holiday Monday. Each year my brother, as official Gamemaker, comes up with a host of new and evermore inventive – some might say bonkers – ‘events’ designed to challenge and entertain us. He has his work cut out for him – the age of the participants can range from four to eighty-four. But, clipboard and stopwatch in hand, he ensures an atmosphere of inclusivity and fairness.

One of the best things about the Mini Olympics is that – not unlike It’s a Knockout – the more seriously you take the events, the more ridiculous you appear. I defy anyone to maintain a competitive edge whilst attempting to knock over a row of skittles with a ball dangling from their head. In fact, you are far more likely to succeed in these Olympics if you don’t try. My highly non-competitive sister-in-law, one of the eventual joint ‘winners’, levelled the skittles with such speed and ease that, if it had been the actual Olympics, there would have almost certainly been calls for a drugs test.

But what I really love about our Mini Olympics is that, with all the differences of generation, temperament, beliefs and opinions, get us being playful together – dribbling a rugby ball around an obstacle course with a broom or flinging old handbags as if it were the hammer throw – and we’re just one big silly, but happy family.