We used to play this in Australia in the 60's. Maybe you were there, aussiebloke?? Oh, you are up in Darwin, so unlikely, eh?

My sister and I were part of the folk process in bringing elastics to Maitland (NSW country town) from Sydney. We went down to Sydney to visit our cousins and one of them taught us how to play elastics. I remember saying that it sounded pretty silly when she described it to us, but we ended up getting hooked on it after a short time. We got our friends back home hooked on it too, and then we taught it to a girl from another school and she taught it to her friends. After a short time we would see kids everywhere playing it. The game started out fairly easy but got harder as the elastic was moved higher and higher up. We used knicker elastic, not rubber bands.

Helen