Being 2nd April already in Oz I'm a bit late but, yesterday, I thought it'd be unfair of me to take advantage of the International Date Line to beat y'all.

There are a couple of schoolyard traditions around the first day of the month (hence the thread title) and around the 1st of April in particular.

In Oz in the 40s and 50s you could play a joke on someone and claim "April Fool!" only before noon; you defaulted if you tried it after noon. I'm wondering if this aspect was 'alive' elsewhere.

More generally (ie for any month), back in 1999, Bert posted When we were kids, on the first day of the month we'd say (With appropriate actions of course) "A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month" There were a couple responses to this, "A pinch and a kick for being so quick" and "A punch in the eye for being so sly"

This arose in a thread discussion about White Rabbits, which I have no knowledge about, although Joybell (who grew up in almost the same suburb and at the same time) did recall and link to the "pinch and a punch" routine, which she describes as arriving among her acquaintances in the 80s.

This accords with my recollections and I wonder what others recall about it. I suspect there's now a whole routine of 'antiphon/response' sayings connected with "pinch and a punch". Among the kids I see, it's always done in jest and without intention to hurt, although I suspect such restraint isn't universal.

Cheers, Rowan