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Our childhood toys

Hi Andrew, my son had Action Man, Evel Kneivel (is that how you spell it?!) and lots of Star War characters. He kept some of them. He wouldn't let my Grandkids play with them though! He had my Lego too!.
rosie.
 
As I read some of the stories above I kept thinking what I would have given to have had such real toys. As a little kid I lived in a back to back house on Wilton St. and, yes, we did have a little garden to play in. However, this little garden was as sterile as the surface of the moon, nothing grew there and planting anything there was futile. Its one good feature was that the soil was soft and fine and you could make designs and tracks which would last until the next rain shower came. Now getting back to toys, my favorite 'toy' to play with in that garden was a good old house brick. Not any old brick, it had to be one of those old tough blue-purple ones that didn't chip and had hard, sharp edges. I would push such a brick around the garden leaving intertwining tracks thinking that I was a driver on the B,ham City trams. As they say simple minds, simple pleasures. But in a child's mind with unlimited imagination a good old house brick gave hours of cheap pleasure. I don't think the brick would compete with an X-Box or PS3 today .....Ah Dreams !
 
Conkers, Our once very popular childhood natural toys. I cannot believe when I go to the local convenience store, situated on the edge of a large housing estate, that bucketsful of conkers are simply lying on the ground or being smashed on the road by traffic. Children today do not even give a second glance. During my childhood us kids would trade almost anything for a couple of the conkers and tried to be first to get to the various trees early on our way to school. If there were no fallings we would hurl stout sticks at bunches of conkers hoping to knock them to the ground. I must admit as I pass the trees I bend and pick up one or two for old time's sake. Every year I pass conkers on the floor I just have to have that little buzz of excitement now lacking in the computer kids. What are they missing, or is it a case of simple things please simple minds???
 
Anvil man:

I think Health & Safety was one of the reasons for their demise. Can you imagine us kids wearing goggles to play conkers? In all my years of playing conkers, I never ever saw anyone get harmed apart from an occasional clout on the back of the hand, and goggles wouldn't solve that problem.

Maurice
 
Here's a little video of games we used to play :-[video=youtube_share;K3UZEQIDdBg]https://youtu.be/K3UZEQIDdBg[/video]
 
Mickymoo said:
Here's a little video of games we used to play :-[video=youtube_share;K3UZEQIDdBg]https://youtu.be/K3UZEQIDdBg[/video]
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Marvellous, wonderful Micky, they seemed to play quiter then. We have a créche next door and they scream at the top of their voices, and shout with deeper menacing voices, imitate screaming sirens without stopping, the woman who runs it even said they are rowdier and worse behaved than when she started whenever that was. 70's 80's maybe. One girl screams "dya wann pardy all say long," they have life sized 'toys' which they play with for a bout 3 seconds then go on to something else, they are very destrutive she says, rude and cheeky and call her by her first name. Not even Aunty so and so. One adult per 3 children. The children are always stripped off. But they do have activities like drawing outside and planting things.
I didn't recognise the London game, an the marble game with the lad holding something with holes in is a blur in my memory, I don't know what the girls' dancing game was but some of us boys joined in with the girls' games, like the dancing rhyming games and the skipping. I only know one boy who did cat's cradle with elastic. The girls produced this from under their skirts. Some girls played cigarette cards with us but only boys played stag. We had a human chain game where you wouund round and under like on the film but we ended up all tangled up. Your clip Micky reminded me of Whistle Down the Wind.
 
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Conkers, what memories you have stirred anvil man. Conker season for me always started with a search for the perfect 'Cheese Cutter' conker. I didn't want a nice big fat round conker, I wanted a small deformed one with one side thinner than the rest. Finding one led to the treatment phase. If my memory serves me right this included skinning the conker, bathing it in vinegar and then baking it a little. This turned natures beautiful seed pod into a yellowish weapon that would be better described as a rock on a string. I was the scourge of Lozells St Junior School in the late 40's leaving smashed conkers and tears in my wake. The only thing I dreaded was playing with kids who would close their eyes, flinch and movr their conkers. This would often cause the strings to tangle during my vicious down stroke whish would just about tear you fingers off.Ah such sweet memories !
 
Hi Dave
Blimmeyyoubrought some memories back today for every body if you asked me well at least me
But I was only thinking two days ago after seeing thousands of of them laying down in the horse road , meaning main roads,
Also the lanes by us here in Worcestershire and it crossed my mind I have not seen one kid playing conkers around the area
Or even scouring for them , searching nor throwing sticks up the trees to knock afew down to gather
Nor take them to school and p.any against each other
My question to you is do kids still play conkers today or was we just bored kids in our day they atre all stuck on computers today
Best wishes astonian,,,''''
 
l remember when my brother and l were evacuated in the war, mom and dad would come and visit whenever they could, dad had a motor bike, but as you know petrol was rationed but dad managed to get some petrol over and above his quota...mom took care of my g/parents newsagents in church lane while my g/parents took care of my brother and l...l remember the village Dorsington where we stayed had a huge tree that dropped conkers in the autumn....we would collect the conkers and save them for mom to sell in the at the shop, l think she charged a halfpenny each. even if we got a bag full we would never get rich at those prices....still even a halfpenny was more than we had...sad to know the kids are'nt playing conkers anymore....Brenda
 
Many of my childhood toys were made by my father. He was very keen on using a Hobbies fretwork machine, operated by foot treadles, to make wooden toys. I remember having a bus, fort, tip-up lorry, caravan and garage. Perhaps, being an only child, I was a bit spoiled. A picture of a fretwork machine is attached. It was used in the shed so that no dust entered the house. Hobbies Weekly was one of his favourite magazines. Dave

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We had a rudimentory one of those, Farmerdave at school. It was power driven though but it was good for cutting out shapes. I was spoiled as an only too. Grandad made me wooden farm buildings for my model farm. The animals were Britions or Britains and very realistic, I made myself a silver paper pond and pinched a green sponge from the bathroom and made bushes. Wired twigs together for fences and used a plastic mesh ball bag for my hen coop.The matchboxes used to have 3 pieces of matchwood in the bases I used those too. I remembe bakalite being very brittle and dangerous if it shattered.
 
Jeep Dad made 001.JPGDad had a fret work machine just like the one shown, This is a WW2 Yank Jeep that he made for me when I was a nipper, has the string still attached after all these years. He also made my sister Joan a doll house with all the furniture, wish we still had that. John Crump OldproudBrit, Parker, Colorado USA
 
We still have one of those fretwork machines out in the "workshop" (the end of the garage really!). We haven't used it for a while but last time, one of the grandson's sat on my husband's knee while he treadled. My dad had one too and I loved the home-made jigsaws.
rosie.
 
Thanks Rosie. I had forgotten that the fretwork machines could be used for making jigsaw puzzles. Very much like oldbrit's toy jeep. The only wooden toy, made by my Dad, that I have still got is a bus. It is green in the attached photo but was originally red. I don't know why it was repainted unless the red paint was beginning to peel off. It also used to have an X99 number plate, which was the Midland Red route from Birmingham to Nottingham. The windows I think were made of thin Perspex but they were all pushed out by my childhood fingers. It is no ordinary bus because it was made by my Dad. Dave
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Does yours smoke when it gets hot? The classroom one did? This lad used it for his CSE but he didn't get a grade one, nor did I, carved 2 horses fighting in to a hard foam slab, then 2 kids who couldn't draw for toffees, one crochetted and dropped her stitches on purpose, the teacher stretched it over a frame and she got a grade one, another brought in an oilamp, smashed it to bits with a hammer and laid the pieces in plaster of paris and they both got grade ones!
 
Not a toy folks, thought I used to sit in it upside down and play fire enginers, I still have grandad's stool he made when he was a little boy. A lovely bus such craftmanship and sentiment.Your route to us was X68.
 
We did not have many toys to play with in the 1940s so we often made our own and another forum thread reminded me of when we made a 'gas works'. This was no problem to us as we were children quite happily making fire cans as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
We had read in a library book that town gas was made by heating coal in a closed container so we got a golden syrup tin, bodged a hole in the lid and fitted a metal tube. We then filled the can with small pieces of coal and after tightly fitting the lid we placed the can over a fierce fire and after about 10 minutes a white vapour-like smoke came out of the tube. The smoke burned with a yellow flame when we lit it and we were making our own town gas ...
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oldMohawk said:
We did not have many toys to play with in the 1940s so we often made our own and another forum thread reminded me of when we made a 'gas works'. This was no problem to us as we were children quite happily making fire cans as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
We had read in a library book that town gas was made by heating coal in a closed container so we got a golden syrup tin, bodged a hole in the lid and fitted a metal tube. We then filled the can with small pieces of coal and after tightly fitting the lid we placed the can over a fierce fire and after about 10 minutes a white vapour-like smoke came out of the tube. The smoke burned with a yellow flame when we lit it and we were making our own town gas ...
encouragement.png
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My mum told me they used to get an old oil can and put parafin in and set fire to it with old rags and run round the streets with it on a rope.
 
oldMohawk said:
so we got a golden syrup tin, bodged a hole in the lid and fitted a metal tube. We then filled the can with small pieces of coal and after tightly fitting the lid we placed the can over a fierce fire and after about 10 minutes a white vapour-like smoke came out of the tube. The smoke burned with a yellow flame when we lit it and we were making our own town gas ...
encouragement.png
Click to expand...

Another game with a syrup tin was to heat the open tin above the gas-hob to warm the air inside, to then take it off the hob and to quickly hammer on the lid. As it cooled the can would be collapsed by the external air pressure. Tried it recently for the grand kids but the whole experiment failed as a modern tin didn't have air tight seams!
 
The Royal Mail has just issued ten first-class stamps of "Classic Toys". These are: the Teddy Bear; Sindy Doll; Spirograph; Stickle Bricks; Toy Soldiers; Spacehopper;
Fuzzy Felt; Meccano, Action Man; and Hornby Dublo train sets. I'm sure I had a teddy bear when I was very, very small and I know I played with toy soldiers, Meccano and Hornby train sets. I still see young kids playing with Spacehoppers. Dave.
 

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The only one I had on the stamps was the Sindy doll. Didn't know it was called 'Weekend Doll' in that outfit. Must have been written on the box, but who reads the details on the box when you're a child? Mine had the very same outfit and I think it had a bag. You could get a wardrobe for the clothes too. Thought it was truly magical. My daughter had Barbies when she was young, but not the same magic. Viv.
 
I had a toy in 1955 which was a tube of water about 12 inches high & 3 inches diameter. Inside was a little plastic deep sea diver and on the top was a rubber button/diaphragm so, when you pressed it down, the diver went to the bottom and when released, he came back up. I've never seen another and wish I still had it. I wonder if anyone else has seen one.
 
not an expensive toy but boy did we have hours of fun with the plastic rockets that you slipped a cap under the metal plate..chucked it as high as you could and BANG..the caps came on rolls in little round cardboard boxes...happy days

lyn

rockets.jpg
 
Lyn yours were posh ! We would go to the ironmongers in Highgate Rd and for a couple of pence you could buy two 1 inch bolts and one nut. You screwed one bolt half way into the nut, put your cap in then screw the other bolt in 'til it just touched the cap.
Threw it in the air and on impact you got a real loud bang.
Cheers Tim
 
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