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Our childhood toys

Remember the free gifts too ? Think magazines only had free gifts when they first started up. Usually a ring or bracelet type of gift. But wasn’t it essential that you got the magazine ?! Talk about gullible... Viv.
 
This is another cheap toy I remember well. You’d pull the slate up to clear the ‘slate’. I also remember ones that you just lifted up to clear the slate. Made a ripping sound when you did. Vintage ones on eBay aren’t so cheap these days. Think you can still buy modern versions. Viv.

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Most Christmas’s in the fifties I had a present which was a length of strong wire bent into the shape of a gun. It was fitted with a spring and propelled a wooden bead. It was activated by squeezing the handle. The target was four Indians on a wire frame that fell when the bead hit them. The problem was you couldn’t hit them if you were more than two feet away.
 
This is another cheap toy I remember well. You’d pull the slate up to clear the ‘slate’. I also remember ones that you just lifted up to clear the slate. Made a ripping sound when you did. Vintage ones on eBay aren’t so cheap these days. Think you can still buy modern versions. Viv.

View attachment 128247

Oh Yes I remember these , I loved them.
 
Grea- presents didn’t always quite live up to expectations did they ?

Remember magic painting books ? I got enthusiastic about the first few paintings but then found them utterly boring. For those unfamiliar you had to wet the page with a brush and all the colours of the painting appeared. Viv.
 

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A couple of Heinz bean cans (empty!) and a peice of string and, hey presto, a telephone. A bamboo cane, a wire and the foot off an old stocking = a fishing net. Viv

Yes , remember the old can telephone , we were happy with home made toys when we were kids, weren't we, I loved stilts, made with two tall sticks with a wedge hammered on side of each, kept us quiet for hours.
 
Grea- presents didn’t always quite live up to expectations did they ?

Remember magic painting books ? I got enthusiastic about the first few paintings but then found them utterly boring. For those unfamiliar you had to wet the page with a brush and all the colours of the painting appeared. Viv.
Loved those books , my kids also loved them when they were yo
tn
I used to love hoola hooping. Good for keping fit too.

I loved my hoola hoop , you still see them in the shops now.
 
Grea- presents didn’t always quite live up to expectations did they ?

Remember magic painting books ? I got enthusiastic about the first few paintings but then found them utterly boring. For those unfamiliar you had to wet the page with a brush and all the colours of the painting appeared. Viv.
View attachment 86421a photo of me with the doll my dad brought for me i wasnt a dolly person ( in fact i hated them ) i swapped it for some marbles my dad made me go and get it back in the end it got broke i was happy climbing trees and roller skating

Ha Ha I loved climbing trees too and roller skated for hours and hours, bit of a tom boy.
.
 
:angel: Remember them Moma P ... I should Cocoa... In fact I still make them for my little 'Rug Rats' at work and they love them... Some of them haven't been walking on their own two feet very long, so the giggles and sense of achievement when they walk on two tins is great.:)

Oh Yes we had those too.
 
So where was your gulley? We used to play up the gulley, ours was behind Sidcup Road. E.

Oh dens were a favourite for kids , even my kids had one over a sheoak reserve where we live now. All the local kids used it , it was a huge hole dug in the ground covered by corrugated tin. Must have been hot in the summer!
 
I remember making a den in the field at the back of my house in Yardley as a little lad. I cut out some star shapes and coloured them yellow and hung them up inside thinking they would provide some light! Oh well, they looked nice though.
 
Dens on the five-house bombsite next door to us in Knowle Road were all the rage in the 1940s. Sometimes in holes with a corrugated iron roof, at other times with brick walls on the surface. No shortage of materials and provided we didn't light fires, we were left to our own devices. But the watchful eye of Mrs Price on the other side of the road, who appeared to have nothing else to do except to spy from behind her net curtains, soon had her running out with her everready bucket of water at the slightest sign of smoke. Of course, we soon got wise to her antics and would throw a sheet of corrugated iron over the fire. Minutes after she had left, the iron was removed and it was blazing away again. A permanent her -v- us situation. :)

No real damage was ever done, and it made a change from damming the River Cole or getting our shoes covered in clay down at the brickworks in Greet.

Maurice
 
Grea- presents didn’t always quite live up to expectations did they ?

Remember magic painting books ? I got enthusiastic about the first few paintings but then found them utterly boring. For those unfamiliar you had to wet the page with a brush and all the colours of the painting appeared. Viv.
And your sodden page went lumpy and all the pages stuck together!
 
I remember making a den in the field at the back of my house in Yardley as a little lad. I cut out some star shapes and coloured them yellow and hung them up inside thinking they would provide some light! Oh well, they looked nice though.
Dens on the five-house bombsite next door to us in Knowle Road were all the rage in the 1940s. Sometimes in holes with a corrugated iron roof, at other times with brick walls on the surface. No shortage of materials and provided we didn't light fires, we were left to our own devices. But the watchful eye of Mrs Price on the other side of the road, who appeared to have nothing else to do except to spy from behind her net curtains, soon had her running out with her everready bucket of water at the slightest sign of smoke. Of course, we soon got wise to her antics and would throw a sheet of corrugated iron over the fire. Minutes after she had left, the iron was removed and it was blazing away again. A permanent her -v- us situation. :)

No real damage was ever done, and it made a change from damming the River Cole or getting our shoes covered in clay down at the brickworks in Greet.

Maurice
We kids had a den in an empty house, someone lifted the sash window and the glass fell out and smashed which brought the neighbours shouting and us running. That was in Coventry Street. I always thought it was daft to have a Coventry Steet in Coventry.
 
Coventry ain't the only one, mate. In nearby Crewe, not only do they have a Crewe Road but they have a Crewe Street as well !
 
Remember painting by numbers onto a canvas using oil paints. Just had to match the number to the colours. Mine was of a fully rigged sailing ship. It looked quite good when finished, I can see it now.
Is that how you paint your pictures Eric :D;)
 
I was given a paint set aged 4 it had 4 colours only in round flat pots and the paint was a bit powdery and the tray was shaped liked a duckling.
 
remember the books where you held your pencil as flat as possible and shaded the page with it and a picture appeared white through the shading
Yes I do Nico, I also loved the painting by number sets, I think you can still buy them.
 
I liked the sliding pictures of faces interchanging with bodies. I had one with little easter eggs behind each face.
Now they do it on Iphones and distort the faces. With which my grandson changed me in to a werewolf and made me look looe the bride of Shrek.
 
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yer. too true lyn. thanks
My Nan's book from Lewis Bull Street, Birmingham in 1913. I read it from cover to cover. And the tiny toy money box about 2 and half inches wide with green flock gone baldy that mum played with and then me. Playing shops. I saved tins and boxes and chocolate bar wrappers padded out to look real. Bisto, Marvel etc. Egg boxes.
My phone makes the photos files too big. These were taken with my camera which broke.
 

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Does anyone remember making a Kazoo out of a comb & a piece of paper? Or folding a privet leaf between your thumbs & making a weird sound. Oh we were so sophisticated back then!
 
Does anyone remember making a Kazoo out of a comb & a piece of paper? Or folding a privet leaf between your thumbs & making a weird sound. Oh we were so sophisticated back then!
yer smudger. i try'd blowing on a leaf. sure made some weird sounds.some not nice:laughing::joy: i bought a thing,that suppose to sounds like calling gulls and more.it sounds more like fa*t. i had forgot about it till now
 

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Yes Smudger I surprised my grandaughters one day with noise from a blade of grass! My brother could hoot like an owl through his cupped hands too.
I saw a bird-warbler the other day similar to one I had, you put water in and blow and it sounded like twittering birds.
rosie.
 
snap rosie...we always used a blade of grass and i can still hoot like an owl with cupped hands

lyn
 
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