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Our childhood toys

  • Thread starter Thread starter angeleyes
  • Start date Start date
I Remember at the seaside you could hire toys in a restricted area like pedal cars and scooters and bikes. They had little metal horses which went forward if you bounced up and down on them. They had chimps in circuses on them. I am told these are very sought after now. Also Tricycles with a horses head on the front with handle each side of the head.
 
We seemed to have a 'fire-can season' round our way every year usually as Autumn came, every kid had to have a fire-can. We boosted heat in the cans with coal and coke and vigorous swinging could make them glow white hot. Sometimes the wire snapped and burning coals were scattered over everyone and everywhere.
Half an Anderson shelter was useful as a sledge with 10 at a time on board, no means of stopping once it got going, crashes at the bottom of hills were magnificent !
How did we survive ?
 
What did they call those things made over folded paper. You started with a square and folded the corners into the centre,then turned it over and did it again and again. Wrote numbers and names of colours on and I forget what else. Someone would ask you to pick a number? The girls at schools had elastic round theor waists which they took off and made like cats cradles with them jumping in and out and making shapes. I liked shadow puppets. I still make paper chains of animals joined up and snowflakes of paper discs folded ovr and over then cut patterns out. I used to make them at work at Christ,as and stickc them on the windows. No one else had seen it done. I did it at school in the early 60's. My colleagues then were 70's and 80's kids or 30's and 40's kids.
 
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
 
two line props with two wedges of wood nailed to the side i played for hours on them also a tizer pop bottle top and a stick with a lace tied to it and you have a whip and top
 
I used to thread a piece of cotton through 2 holes in a button. Tie the cotton at the end then play for hours just pulling at the cotton with the button in the middle, it used to make a whurring sound and it felt like elastic as it stretched. We would also spend hours playing with a paper and comb i'm sure some of you did that. We had to make do with things to entertain ourselves. Toys were in short supply in our house
 
I played with a cog from a brass clock which worked liked a spinning top and the rubber sucker from my bow and arrow. We had mirrors on the fireplace at te sides and I liked sticking it on and off and making marks everywhere. I panicked when I stuck it on my eye, I thought it would pull my eye out.Mum took it off me. Had a little flat wooden horse walker with a leather seat. I stuck a file in it and enjoyed watching the sawdust filling pour out. We also wrote in the dirt in the jitty and played hopscotch.
 
My mum always used to say that when I was very little I was happy to play with a bit bit of fluff on the floor. Serious! Now either I had a very good imagination or my mum's cleaning left a bit to be desired! Viv
 
I played under my great gran's bed often with stray budgie feathers. Or in grandads garage with screws and nails and tacks he used to ask me to sort them all out in to piles as did nan with her button tin, and making daisy and buttercup chains. I used to play with worms and watch the ants and creepy crawlies for hours.
 
I used to play marleys with my mates or conkers or even a game called chopsticks with ice lol sticks. Remember the old pea shooters, we used to make our own with the byro covers, or make catapults with elastic bands. Another game played a lot by the girls was a sorrt of criss cross folded paper with numbers on the inside and you had to pick a number and find out what said underneath. They were good days.
 
Pic (925).jpga 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
 
smashing photo of you josie but i was just the same....rather be climbing trees and hanging out with the boys gang lol..

lyn
 
when i was a child in living in alum rock. the next door neighbour was moving house and she offered me a pair of wooden stilts. i used to play on them for hours every day until they finally broke. great memories
 
HI CATKIN;
I Most ertainly do indeed as we was poor i used to look thrugh the windows quite often and whatch the kids with there parents buying and discussing there model trains sets and planes the one you build with the balsa wood how eveiuos i was then one day i got a part time job and got five bob from my choir pratice so i decided to go there and buy the air kit in a little plastic bag ad a little tin of paint then got my second oldest brother involved he started to buy a couple but we did not last long the novelty wore off as we pinned our little air kit together and had it dangling on the ceiling the old man told us to get them down . mother stuck up for us but he was not having none of it ;but when i was in the shop wih all these people around me i felt embarassed as they was buying expensive goods and me with my five bob ; equal to two half crowns thats when i was a nipper of course and singing in the aston parish church on sundays and choir practice at dyson hall and we was payed by miss rice she must have been in her seventys of age
 
I've still got the dollshouse that Dad made when I was 5 and it's on the sideboard, no-one is allowed to touch it!! It's a bit fragile now. He made a fort for my brother too from plans by "Hobbies". My stilts were made from an old clothes-horse. The "moke" was from old pushchair wheels and had seats too. Our sledge had some brass curtain-track on the runners to make it go faster.
rosie.
 
my dad made me a doll house i was never intrested in it i would spend hours over the railway and down the canal in winson green and on the bombpeck
 
I had a po-go stick took me ages to balance but it was great fun. I was an all rounder loved dolls. roller skating,building dens and riding my bike..I used to pinch my brothers Falcon Olympic racing bike sometimes when he was out or at work, thought I was the bees knees...lol
 
When my younger brother and I went to visit my grandmother in Bartons Bank, Aston, almost as soon as we walked through the door we asked if we could have the tins of beads to rummage through. These were large Ovaltine tins which were jam packed with all manner of things that she didn't have anywhere else to keep... beads, necklaces, buttons, fasteners, nails, screws, you name it, she had it! Because she was deaf, she didn't want the radio on or anything that would disturb her difficult conversation with my mother, but these oddments kept us enthralled for ages. When it came for us to pack up the tins again, we invariably had selected a few items that we fancied taking home, so it was a case of "Do you want this grandma or can we have it?" and the answer was generally "Oh, I suppose so" with rarely a glance at what we had 'requisitioned'!

Maurice
 
You have sparked a memorie there Maurice thank you. We loved grandma's button tin. My mother did the same with my boys. I always astonished at how they would play with a box full of "junk" beads, buttons, washers, old plugs, yogurt pots. A conversation for the weekend I think.
 
I had an uncle that worked for Chad Valley toys and he used to buy me all kinds of great stuff but this girder and panel set was my favourite,so much so that i recently purchased a set on eBay for nostalgic reasons of course. Anyone else purchased their old childhood toys?..
Girder and panel set.jpg
 
talking about grandmother althought my grandmother was lovely we were never allowed to play with anything
she had a beautiful china cabarnet with all nicknacks inside if we went anywhere near it she would shout at us not to touch it and we had to sit and be quite ( and that was very hard for me to do ) she wasnt what i call a hands on nan but saying that she was very kind and always gave us sweets
 
Coming from a large family we never had many toys to play with so we made our own fun. i.e Paper and comb, Shoebox with elastic around it button and thread and hopskotch to name but a few. One toy that i remember was a very special toy, It was a black doll. I found this doll when i went mouching with my sister just before Christmas. We had a cellar under the house (as many houses did in the 50s) Mum and dad had hid our presents in the cellar but we found them. There was also a red puschair and some books among other things. I figured that the doll and pushchair was for me because my elder sister hated dolls, she would rather have a bag of marbles. My younger sister was too young and my brother did'nt give a monkeys. The rest of my siblings were older .By the time Christmas arrived we had read the books . The pushchair eventually got disgarded but the doll was my prized possession. I carried that doll around with me everywhere until i went into hospital. I have no idea what happened to it after then. I reckon my sister swapped it for a bag of marbles. I have often looked in the antique shops to see if i can see one of those dolls but i have'nt had any luck as yet, but i will keep on looking
 
My scooter with big wheels c.1960 Loved it, went many, many miles on it. Was yellow and red - yellow tyre guards and red frame. (Didn't often smile for photos but I certainly loved that scooter). Funny how you can never remember what happened to these things but I hope it went to a good home. Sob, sob....... Viv.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1368700105.978554.jpg
 
Don't give up looking yogimon! I found one at a carboot sale similar to the one Mom gave away!!

My tricycle was made from bits found on the Tip, three odd wheels, painted with "GPO" red paint which Uncle "borrowed", and with a wooden saddle covered with Rexine left over from covering a chair!! the only new bits were the mud-guard and the bell!!
rosie.
 
My daughter loved a andy pandy doll which used to talk. My wife gave it away and now my daughtersasking why we gave itaway. shes in her late 30s now but still moans about it. We have tried many times to find another with any luck
yogimon said:
Coming from a large family we never had many toys to play with so we made our own fun. i.e Paper and comb, Shoebox with elastic around it button and thread and hopskotch to name but a few. One toy that i remember was a very special toy, It was a black doll. I found this doll when i went mouching with my sister just before Christmas. We had a cellar under the house (as many houses did in the 50s) Mum and dad had hid our presents in the cellar but we found them. There was also a red puschair and some books among other things. I figured that the doll and pushchair was for me because my elder sister hated dolls, she would rather have a bag of marbles. My younger sister was too young and my brother did'nt give a monkeys. The rest of my siblings were older .By the time Christmas arrived we had read the books . The pushchair eventually got disgarded but the doll was my prized possession. I carried that doll around with me everywhere until i went into hospital. I have no idea what happened to it after then. I reckon my sister swapped it for a bag of marbles. I have often looked in the antique shops to see if i can see one of those dolls but i have'nt had any luck as yet, but i will keep on looking
Click to expand...
 
yogimon said:
Coming from a large family we never had many toys to play with so we made our own fun. i.e Paper and comb, Shoebox with elastic around it button and thread and hopskotch to name but a few. One toy that i remember was a very special toy, It was a black doll. I found this doll when i went mouching with my sister just before Christmas. We had a cellar under the house (as many houses did in the 50s) Mum and dad had hid our presents in the cellar but we found them. There was also a red puschair and some books among other things. I figured that the doll and pushchair was for me because my elder sister hated dolls, she would rather have a bag of marbles. My younger sister was too young and my brother did'nt give a monkeys. The rest of my siblings were older .By the time Christmas arrived we had read the books . The pushchair eventually got disgarded but the doll was my prized possession. I carried that doll around with me everywhere until i went into hospital. I have no idea what happened to it after then. I reckon my sister swapped it for a bag of marbles. I have often looked in the antique shops to see if i can see one of those dolls but i have'nt had any luck as yet, but i will keep on looking
Click to expand...
My mum had a back doll you could feed but not empty, so she went pappy. She had to be got rid of much to mum's horror but her grandd persauded a shopkeeper to sell him a baby manekin from the window display which was floppy like a real baby to make up for losing the other one.
 
josietrue said:
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
Click to expand...
My partner has 3 dolls like this but ones eyes have slipped. There doesn't seem to be any doll repairers anymore.
 
Being born in the 1970's, my favourite toys were Action Man and toy soldiers, like Airfix or Britains. I can still remember some of the great toy shops that used to be around in Birmingham. Close to where my Grandma lived at the Maypole was Bate's Toy Corner. For a treat, my Mum used to give me a pound and I could buy as many soldiers as my pound could get me. Action Man was more expensive I seem to remember, but I can still picture the displays at Lewis's and Youngsters in the old Bull Ring. The King's Norton Pram and Cycle Centre at Cotteridge also used to be an exciting place for a lad with pocket money to visit!
 
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