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Our childhood toys

Mom P The boys were trying to tell you something - But you didn't listen did you? - You were still competition- Maybe you needed my cap gun to give you more power - We would have had a great time beating up the boys.........
 
Yes Moma P or is it Wendy - I think we would have made a great team - I always found the boys a challenge because they thought they knew everything - when really they didn't - and they still don't LOL
 
Hey chaps, will ya just listen to these wimmin? :rolleyes: I have a sneaking suspicion that Beryl's after their red-headed leader's crown. Be interestin' to see how the coup unfolds. :D
 
Tom Boys

Hey girls we sound like three of a kind!!!!!!!!!!!!! I' loved playing with the boys (now stop them there thoughts) I mean playing cricket, kick the can and run, tracking and I could climb trees with the best of em! Wasn't too keen on footie though I was a swimmer.
Was anyone a member of the Summer Lane Settlement? Had some great fun times there too camping out at Kinver Edge and Tembury Wells, the I flew up from the Brownies and became a Girl Guide at 263rd group John st West if my memory serves me correct! Went camping with the GG at Snitterfield, loved every minute of it!
My Dad was very clever with his hands he made me a three wheeler bike a huge dolls house, a dolls cradle complete with al the fancy lace trimmings (thanks Mom), a bright red scooter with big white rubber wheels, Lord knows where he got those from I'm talking mid 50's, but my all time favourite was my rocking horse it was huge black and grey with a silver mane and tail and a big red saddle. I must have stood well over 4 foot I guess to buy it today would cost around £2,000. How I loved that horse the adventures I conjured up on it were nobodys business lol It was on a kind ofswing frame that went back and forth not like some which were on a coiled frame that just went up and down, you really felt like you could gallop on this one! such wonderful memories!:D
 
Eric, our gulley was a largish piece of land behind our house at Hidson Road,
(Stockland Green area) off Woolmore Road. The developers of the houses, which were built in 1935, sold the lots at a certain size for at least 16 houses going down Hidson Road on the East side. The left over land belonged to the City I believe. It was a great place for a den which the local boys in the late l940's built. We used to hold huge bonfires on Guy Fawkes Day in the gulley.

My brother and I still own our house at Hidson Road and last time I was there I noticed that part of the gulley has been claimed by home owners on Hidson Road to extend their gardens. I suppose they must have bought the extra land from the City. So the gulley is much smaller these days. You can still cut through it from Hidson Road to Ransom Road and then round the corner on to Marsh Hill. Both ends have lockable gates now so you have to be a tenant of one of the houses on Hidson Road or Woolmore Road whose houses also backed on to the gulley.
 
Kick the Can

Used to play kick the can with my brother he kicked the can so hard thet it hit a polcieman's hat and the hat come off he marched my brother to see my Father and said that he was going to prosecute him. My father calmed the policemand down gave him a cup of tea and veggie's from his allotment, and he also gave him a bucket of horse manure for his rhubard.
 
Hey Jude - Tembury Wells is that Worcester - I know Puddleford Farm there??????? I was in St Mary's Girl Guides Handsorth - often went camping at Sutton Park too!
 
Hi Beryl M,
Its Worcestershire actually situated just below the Malvern Hills, can't remember the name of the farm though. Yes, I remember camping in Sutton Park too and my favourite was Kinver Edge where all those cave house were, and still on show to this day!
Did you ever go to the big Scout and Guide Jamboree in Handsworth Park? That was fun mixing with all the scouts ha ha ha, in fact I still have a small peice of twig about 3 inches tall and about 2 inches in diameter with a sticker comemorating the Jamboree on it, the top is cut on a slant, I think we were given them as we left the Park.
Happy Days :D
 
We used to go to the Settlement Club at Kingstanding Road, it was linked to the Summer Lane one I think.
We went for a weeks holiday from there to Windmill House at Alvechurch, I wonder if that's still in existence.
I was at the end of the war and while we were out walking we came across a place selling strawberries and ice cream, something we'd never seen before. E.
 
Hi Eric

The settlement in Summer Lane and Kingstanding are still there.

I came from Winson Green and our haunts was a methodist church in Rotten Park Road where we would all gather especially on haloween sit round in a circle with candle lit and tell ghost stories


And of course there was the Girls and Boys brigade where we congregated in a hall opposite the Winson Green Prison on Sunday we would march the street with the band bugles blowing - sounding the drums, we could see the prisoners in the windows

https://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZNxmk571KNGB It was great after marching you would go home and smell the sunday dinner cooking - what a smell and a great big yorkshire pudding and of course a apple pie






 
Although I played with dolls, whip and top, skipping, jacks marbles exchanged cigarette cards like any other kid –The most memorable and impressive things of my English childhood didn’t come from the minds of inventors – they came from my mother’s imagination and inspiration. Her spontaneous creations expanded my world far beyond our small garden.

‘Let us tour our estate’ my mom would say, and we would. Lingering to tell the stories each plant or rock had to tell. There was poetry in the way she saw the world. A caterpillar basking on the brick was the hero of a tale of a dragons. The serrated fungus on a fallen branch was a fairy staircase leading to a secret realm (spider web).

One day my mom showed me how a daisy seemed to have a face – while an upside down hollyhock bloom looked like a flouncy evening gown. You could dress the daisy in the hollyhock bloom and send her to a ball. . .

I divided the garden into countries and plotted elaborate fates for their inhabitants. England was the strip of garden behind the back wall the sun never quite reached. The rest of the garden was Australia and front the garden where mom planted her flowers was France.

In autumn changing foliage inspired a game of chapeau shop – a large crimson or gold leaf would become a flamboyant picture hat a small one a sophisticated pill box. .

None of these games cost any money. Their instigation demanded only the expenditure of my mom’s time. . . What great memories they were at that!
 
Beryl how lovely. I think you are alot like your mother it shows in your wonderful writing and poetry. You obviously inherited your imigination from her and all that early teaching obviously inspired you to do what you do today. What a wonderful legacy to leave.
 
Charlie and Wendy - What a lovely compliment you pay my mom- thank you. I was indeed, very lucky to have parents like mine. Mom besides being a classical pianist was a real story teller including very funny ones. Think it must have been from her Irish heritage …..

My parents were just ordinary working people who didn’t have much money –Dad a silver spinner by trade belonged to a barber shop quartet. However, he also happened to be an avid reader and owned many books. Naturally we were brought up to really appreciate reading and to appreciate books. So I grew up reading all kinds of things. The books that supposedly I was allowed and also those that were forbidden LOL
Oh! Would I were a child again.
When life seemed full of sunny years
And all the heart then knew of pain
Was wept away in transient tears!
 
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I too have great memories of my parents and childhood, as with a lot of folks we didn't have a lot, but more than some.
Although I had 2 elder brothers, and the eldest was at work and would bring me each week a brand new corgi army truck, and one christmas a pair of silver sixguns with real leather holsters.
Even so the fondest memories are of homemade catapults, wooden guns, trollys with odd wheels and various other home spun toys. (I do wish I still had the vast collection of Corgi's though)
 
childhood toys

:nicetopic: I was very lucky to have an aunt and uncle who never had children of their own. My uncle bought me roller skates with ballbearings. I too was a tomboy Judy and a swimmer. I did play cricket in the entry with some of the lads. I had a three wheeler bike which was I think at least third hand. My favourite game was marbles. Do you remember gutters and wallies. I still have a bag full of them which were also used by my twins. I had a shop with sweets and different types of pretend foods. One day I decided to cut some daff stems. Decided to suck them. Ended up in hospital with poisoning. The photo's are of myself in a little car with my dad. The cot was made for me by another uncle. That was my pride and joy the three wheeler. TTFN. Jean. :D
 
one for the girl in you girls.
found this when we were out and about
last week in a museum in Nottingham castle,
they used to be all the rage with you girls
if we boys were lucky we had the train set? this belonged to a seven year old so much detail.
happy days regards dereklcg.
 
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I had this fort for Christmas in the early 40s; the photo was probably taken on Christmas morning - notice, I am wearing my Sunday best. It was made by my uncle Harry. Interestingly although it is a wooden castle it is painted in wartime camouflage. I played with this for hours with lead soldiers (not shown). Altough this is supposedly a medieval castle the lead soldiers were in ww2 uniform plus a www2 cannon that shot matchsticks. There may have been the odd lead camel from my Noah's Ark collection and lead cows and chickens from my farmyard collection
 
This was my first bike. That's not me in the picture, its my brother Alf taken in the late 20s. Once he grew out of it, it was stored in the cellar. It was cleaned up and given to me for Christmas in the mid 40s
 
Not many of us will remember these and they are not really toys. The photo is of my mom in her very early teens with her indian clubs. (Recently featured on the Diet that Time Forgot on TV).
The photo would be about 1912
 
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