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toys

  • Thread starter Thread starter angeleyes
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angeleyes

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what was your favourite toy when you was a child mine was a tin typewriter and a blower football game. wished i still had them would be worth a bit now.mary
 
I had a Army Lorry which towed a canon, I had that for a long time. As I got older I remember Pea Shooters became a favourite. I also recall playing with a Gyroscope which mum bought me at the Boys & Girls Exhibition held at Bingley Hall. There are so many other toys I could name, but then I guess most of the lads on here might say that.....
 
:D Mine was a shared Blue Cast Iron Doll's cot. Got many a scrape down my legs from the cot legs though while moving it around the house, but could put up with that as I really loved it and Mary that too would be worth a mint these days, a real collectors piece.
 
I had a tin banjo once which I loved.

I think mostly my Corgi cars were the favourites and I had a bridge buidling kit once which was great

I had a decent bow and arrows with a straw target once as well.

I still have the bow somewhere.
 
"Dangerous" Toys

Can you good "Grown Ups" recall your Dangerous toys ?
Mine got me a (well deserved" Fatherly chat + belting, Oooh
age about 13 (mad eh) I read a mediaeval war weaponry book
which had actual dimensional drawings,, So I made a Crossbow,
What a beauty- 5ft length & bow, brake cable drawstring with
ratcheted (Bike geared) winding mechanism, brace with feet to
load the aluminium bolts, weighted & quilled of course (lol?).
Well this beauty took the chimney pot clean off our attic high (3)
went straight through the brew-house door & outside excuse me.
Unfortunately, grassed up by my sister, Dad said "Fetch It boy"
After admiring it, loading & firing it at the "Miskin Bin" , Oooops
Straight through-only 15ft away, he calmly cut it to bits, lectured
Then walloped, (But I still think he liked it),
Ok so whats Your favourite Toy with a "twist" ? ? ?
 
I made whip once emulating Zorro . I got quite good at whipping things . but was too dangerous ..
 
Colin I used to collect Corgi Cars, I used to line up up in the yard at the back of the house.

I was fortunate enough to have a Johnny 7 once. That was a cracking toy for a lad back then. I think Kandor remembers them too? They were a kind of multi purpose gun, come grenade launcher thingy majingy whatsit!! specially made for waging war as a one man army!!

We used to play a lot with Torches too, but the batteries cost an arm and a leg, so they were only used for important games on winter nights, My favourite was a Bulls Eye torch, I think made by Ever Ready? I'll see if I can find a picture out of one?
 
Well THIS is gonna take a long time!

I built a Go-kart that had a sharpened spike fixed on the front of it as a battering ram..it also had two thick rubber bands that fired either pebbles or arrows..
I made various bows with nail tipped arrows..
I then used to buy the real brass tipped ones and added to a bow so powerful I had to lay on my back to fire it..I could send the arrows 100 yards which would then either shatter in the middle of Vauxhall Rd or bury themselves a foot into the ground.
I made tack guns...they fired nails 50ft..
I had slate tipped spears..hang..scoffs up..I'll come back to it!
 
I did yes Postie, UNTIL........

I used to use the gas fire there was a ridge along the bottom edge and U2's sat on it a treat. One of the batteries leaked a tar like substance which took some of the coating off the front of the fire. Mom wasn't pleased, in fact my rear end could have been used to get the batteries warm!!
 
Make your own buses (with and without matchboxes)

For my tenth birthday in 1943 my Nan bought me a book called "Matchbox Town", which showed you how to build models, mainly of buildings, made from matchboxes covered in paper. I persuaded our few relatives, also friends and neighbours to hand over their old matchboxes, and in a good week I might scrounge 20 or more of them. I soon got tired of the range of models in the book and decided to make a double-decker bus from 12 matchboxes, covered with paper on which I drew the sides with windows, walls and the entrance. The prototype was meant to be one of the earliest wartime Birmingham Corporation 'Utility' buses painted in the blue and primrose livery rather than the later wartime grey. It was just a rectangular chunk of cardboard, and I soon decided to do better.
My next effort was slightly bigger, made from some thick cardboard cut and folded to make an bigger oblong, but with four wooden wheels I picked up from a shop on Hawthorn Road. I painted that one grey, and it was meant to represent utility bus 1327, which was a one-off.
Like all kids I wanted immediate results, and resented the time spent on making these big models. So I decided to make much smaller model buses using just one matchbox surrounded with paper. They were far too short and squat to be very realistic, but I could knock off two a night. I also had a go at trams, using a heavier card which would give me rounded ends. When I ran short of matchboxes I would make my own box out of card, sometimes putting a taper on the front end like real buses had. I must have made over 200 of these over the next 18 months or so.
I don't remember where I got all the cardboard and paper from, but I remember our local newsagent, Mr Keeling in those days asked my mother what I was doing with all the 'Mendit' glue I bought from him.
Peter
 
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