Three drains bad, two drains good
I was talking on Twitter earlier about the word "BUNDLE!", in relation to when some poor sap fell over at school and playground law dictated that upon the command Bundle, everyone could jump on top of him, hopefully popping a couple of ribs. I discovered that there are regional variations on this theme - it seems to be very much "Bundle!" in the home counties (such as my beloved Surrey), but "All pile on!" as you go further north. I may be biased but I prefer the elegance of "Bundle!" - it's simpler, more concise, and gets straight to the point. And speed is crucial when you consider that you needed to get the command out as soon as possible, preferably before the victim managed to get to his feet.
It got me thinking, though. Do you ever get scared of this?
We called it 'three drains' but I'm pretty sure they aren't drain covers. Anyway, round the mean streets of Surrey, if you walked over three drains, you were condemned to instant death and a curse upon your very soul - unless (and here's the important bit) you walked over 'two drains' afterwards.
Did anyone else do this? And why would it be bad luck, unless you fell through the third one, plummeting to your death to the earth's core?
*update* By my research, here is a rough 'bundle' map of Britain (now updated to include Devon):
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November 7th, 2010 - 19:00
Up near Liverpool we called it “three grids” or “three grates” (even though they aren’t grids or grates either) but otherwise it we had exactly the same game.
November 7th, 2010 - 19:02
Here in the mean streets of the West Midlands is was “pile on” but there was never a need for someone to fall over. It would just be… PILE ON (insert name of victim). Victim would then be chased until caught, tripped up and everyone would pile on. As an unpopular child I found myself at the bottom of many piles… some of even had teachers joining in.
As for three drains? That’s a new one on me.
November 9th, 2010 - 02:37
Christ, I’m really glad I don’t live near you.
And also….teachers joined in? Surely that’s not allowed…so somebody somewhere has written an article about it or perhaps just a comment on the Daily Mail comments section about how that’s political correctness gone mad and actually it should be compulsory because it ‘never did me any harm’.
And back to the matter in hand, people called it ‘Pile on!’ where I grew up. It usually happened on the bus….not that I would have joined in with such uncouth behaviour….
November 7th, 2010 - 19:04
One summer job, working at a sailing school, uttering the words “pile on” made you the victim. Or, for that matter, “pylon”. Considerable work went into tricking people into uttering the words.
November 7th, 2010 - 19:07
If we walked over three drains, we were required to spin around three times and spit three times.
I did this in the middle of a rush hour Oxford Street a few years ago, much to everyone’s annoyance
November 7th, 2010 - 19:23
I come from Surrey, I’m probably a fairly similar age to you (I’m 33) and I’ve never heard the three drains thing before.
November 7th, 2010 - 19:28
Went to school in Devon myself and have fond memories of BUNDLE! indeed. Oh, and I totally *still* do the drains thing as well..!
November 7th, 2010 - 19:44
Holy fuck, yes! A friend of mine used to do this and I mocked him for it at first, but found myself terrified of going on the wrong ones. I’m not superstitious, apart from avoiding walking under ladders (for health and safety purposes), but I avoid three drains like the plague. I’ll cross the street, or stop dead on a busy pavement, just to avoid the fuckers.
November 7th, 2010 - 19:53
North Yorkshire, also “Pile On”. Two syllables and in my opinion, carries further in the air. The command is very clear. Not sure about this “All Pile On”. The public school variation?
November 7th, 2010 - 20:00
We didn’t have three drains. If you put your hand over your mouth, went up behind someone and put your hand, flat hovering above their head and counted to 15 then that meant they had a girlfriend.
This was when I was about 7 in Norfolk so excuse the weirdness. Now-a-days I count to 20.
November 7th, 2010 - 20:43
I grwe up in Hampshire. The drains thing totally new to me, but yes we were “bundle” kids. My memory of being on the bottom of one or two was there was too much weigh on top to enable you to expand your ribs, i.e. breathe. Although enough oxygen was always found to shout “I can’t breathe”, which just encouraged either more people to jump on top or everyone to wriggle about a bit and make no move to get off!
November 7th, 2010 - 20:58
Round my way, Berkshire, “dog pile” was the phrase.
Everyone had a lot of fun “Fencing” people. Not sword fighting, someone standing in front of a low fence is pushed and they fall over…then someone shouts “dog pile!”
God kids are bastards.
November 7th, 2010 - 21:10
Another Hampshire, another “BUNDLE!” though also the three drains were introduced to me by my Londoner wife. The variation in this instance is that you can’t walk on all three, tou have to miss one of them. She takes this very seriously, to the extent that while pushing a double buggy along a narrow pavement just after the birth of the second she found the energy to leap over the third cover, pushing the weighty buggy in front of her…
Odd thing the human need for habit…
November 7th, 2010 - 21:22
Not familiar with the “Three Drains” thing but I did have a dream about those types of access panels. They were called Doppelgangers and housed springs which were used to launch injured people into air ambulances overhead. Reason enough not to step on them, I reckon.
November 7th, 2010 - 22:02
Anton, WTF! What sort of tenuous method to avoid upping your NaNoWriMo word-count is this?! For shame!
8D
November 7th, 2010 - 22:54
Dorset/Devon here, we had bundle, and in fact still do, as evidenced when someone fell over in the pub 2 weeks ago, and someone cried “Bundle!” at which point everyone did just that…
November 8th, 2010 - 00:18
Oh my god – the three drains thing! I have never met anyone else who knows about this, but a babysitter warned me about it when I was about 7 years old and I STILL avoid stepping on more than two of them to this day. I’m from West Yorkshire, and like the first commenter I used to think of this as ‘three grates’!
November 8th, 2010 - 01:19
I live in Surrey but have never heard of the three drains thing. I definitely agree that bundle is a home counties thing but at my primary school (private) we used the term “pilies” or “pilies on [name]“.
November 8th, 2010 - 01:22
@Adam S we had the same. except you counted how many seconds and however long you held it over their head was how many girlfriends they had. This was in sussex and berkshire.
November 8th, 2010 - 07:37
I was very drunk in London one evening with a young girl who convinced me that walking on three meant death until I walked on two.
November 8th, 2010 - 09:30
Even more juvenile, at my school it was decreed that if you walked between the two ‘legs’ of a big road sign, it ‘reversed’ your sexuality, turning you gay (although presumably also turning gay people straight…)
November 8th, 2010 - 09:49
Anton, your geography is shit! I’m also from Devon, we too had bundle, but you’ve left us off of your South East, home counties centric map!
Hint – it’s that sticky out bit over the other side. The red line should have gone straight across.
November 8th, 2010 - 09:54
In my bit of Berkshire it was definitely BUNDLE! Then again we were nearly in Surrey. The three drains thing passed me by until I was about 15 – there was never anything mentioned about undoing the bad luck, and I have spent the 17 years since stomping over every three drains I encounter to prove (not sure to whom) my lack of superstition.
November 8th, 2010 - 10:43
Cambridgeshire here, and as recent as 10 years ago it was definitely bundle, but our method was to get someone to crouch down right behind the intended victim, then approach all nonchalant like, before gently pushing said victim who would then flail about like a cat in a bath. “Bundle” is cried out whereupon around 400 of the 1200 kids at the school would then attempt to hospitalise the victim.
Trick was to not be first. Shout bundle, wait a bit… then go.
November 8th, 2010 - 11:29
We had bundle in Norfolk too. I’m also completely peed off at my girlfriend for introducing me to the “3 drains” thing last year. I thought I hated superstitions, but I keep finding myself avoiding the buggers. She didn’t mention the two drain thing though, so maybe my life is saved (my girlfriend is from Surrey, so deffo a Surrey thing).
November 8th, 2010 - 12:41
We had Bundle in Norwich. It was the tits. We invented Spam as well.
November 8th, 2010 - 13:37
yeah, we did that in the outskirts of bristol. my friend once pushed me in the road in order to stop me from walking over 3 drains, ‘proving’ that walking over 3 drains was bad luck!
November 8th, 2010 - 13:43
It’s “pile on” in the West Midlands where I am.
And I have heard the three drains thing, but I have no issues walking over them and I’m not dead yet. xD *touchwood*
November 8th, 2010 - 14:45
I was introduced to the ‘three drains’ thing by an ex, and it’s still with me. Two drains lucky, three drains unlucky. I’ve always avoided more than three, just in case. ‘Taking off’ the bad luck is a matter of kicking the pole of the next available street light with your left heel.
November 8th, 2010 - 14:48
In south Essex, it was also “bundle”, although it was more the Native American Indian war cry “bunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddlllllllllllllllllllllllllle!”
November 8th, 2010 - 15:31
In Manchester, it was ‘pile on’. Hence the oft-repeated playground joke:
WAG: What’s that metal thing that holds the electricity wires up?
UNSUSPECTING VICTIM: Pilon?
(Everyone piles on.)
We didn’t have the three drains thing. We couldn’t afford sewers so we just shat in each others’ pockets.
November 8th, 2010 - 15:52
Yep – Kent, Bundle it is too.
Three drains – spin round three times and touch the floor.
Damned stupid superstition is always in the back of my mind too! Grrrr.
November 8th, 2010 - 16:37
I grew up in Hampshire where it was indeed ‘Bundle!’. Usually followed soon after with at least a few cries of “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”.
This is the first I’ve ever heard of the drains thing, though.
November 8th, 2010 - 17:26
Wrexham in the 70s – definitely “Pile on!”, but I’d never come across it until I got to secondary school.
As for grids, we had no superstitions about treading on them that I can recall, but when playing “Tuck” (= “Tag”), you could hold off your pursuer by standing on one (a grid, that is; although standing on the pursuer would have had a longer-lasting impact) and shouting “Barley on grids!”.
November 8th, 2010 - 17:49
ok probably don’t need any more contributions to the “BUNDLE!” discussion, but… I really don’t remember this from school.
I do remember it from university however! (that was Wales circa 1995-8)…
(never heard of Pile On)
But no-one needed to fall over. Just a drunk student standing vacantly in a suitably grassy patch seemed to be enough stimulus..
November 8th, 2010 - 18:52
Definitely Bundle in MIlton Keynes
November 8th, 2010 - 21:33
I’m from Dorset. We had the three drains thing, and bundles too. The reason I heard that three drains are unlucky, is that they are the size of a coffin. I never paid any attention to it until I heard that, and then I was all spooked and have pretty much avoided them since.
November 9th, 2010 - 11:54
I’m from Surrey and we had ‘bundle’ and the three drains thing. Bundling was so common, and so joyfully popular, that we actually had a speech in assembly from a man in a wheelchair WHO HAD LOST THE USE OF HIS LEGS WHILE BEING BUNDLED. Dire warning indeed: I’ve been petrified of it ever since.
My friend from Liverpool informs me that although they have ‘pile on’, the correct pronunciation is ‘pileyon’.
November 9th, 2010 - 12:11
I’m 30, and I still catch myself skipping over the third of three grates (2 lucky, 3 unlucky). I also occasionally catch myself walking in a very embarassing manner due to a random combination of short/long steps to avoid treading on the cracks/joins in a paved/slabbed road. Its not a concious thing, but my brain is clearly hard-wired now to treat gaps in paving as the entry points to hell.
November 9th, 2010 - 12:38
I grew up in Essex and am very firmly in the “bundle” camp, but now live in central Scotland and am informed that the term here was “Pile Up”, an interesting variation of “Pile On” I think.
November 9th, 2010 - 23:11
In Reading – we bundled – like a war cry
I am nearly 30 and still cant give up the three drains. I know where the 2 drains are on my bike route to work so I can cancel any inadvertant 3 drain exposure.