In Bristol we played 'Elastics' with the rules that Guest described 11 Sep 09 we called it French Skipping. Skipping or jumprope was as popular as anywhere else for girls but if you were invited to play French Skipping you knew that you were 'in' with the popular girls. I vaguely remember there was something else too. It was a solitary game a length of elastic or string was tied around an ankle with a weight and the girl would jump over it with the opposite leg as she spun it around. But I am not sure if there was a rhyme or rules to this.