Spark & Anvil Privacy

Ball 00 · 1900

housie: the deck of a ship at sea

The device here: nickname. Your caller: Kelly.

The ball said 00, which Ama said was not a number at all — and then they were on the swaying deck of a big ship, with sailors and soldiers sitting on coils of rope, playing a game they called housie with little paper tickets.

The caller, a cheerful sailor called Kelly, had a nickname for every number. Nobody minded that you had to know the nickname — that was half the fun. “Snowman!” Kelly called, and everyone circled 8.

“A nickname is a picture of a number,” Kelly said. “Once you have heard a good one, you never forget it.” She asked Ama and Tam to make up new ones.

Where this comes from: Housie was played by British and Commonwealth soldiers and sailors in the early 1900s, and travelled with them to India and Australia. The year is approximate, and Kelly’s nicknames are our own, not the traditional calls.

Kelly’s nicknames

  • 1 — “a candle on a cake”
  • 2 — “a swan on the lake”
  • 4 — “a chair turned upside down”
  • 7 — “a walking stick”
  • 8 — “a snowman”
  • 10 — “a bat and ball”
  • 11 — “two lamp posts”
  • 13 — “a baker’s dozen”
  • 22 — “two little ducks”
  • 24 — “hours in a day”
  • 60 — “minutes in an hour”
  • 88 — “piano keys”

✍️ Write your own nickname calls Next stop: beano →