In the eyes of my kids Dad's old, telling them about growing up as a child of the 70's and 80's they seem to have the interest of a sleeping fish. So I've decided to inflict my memories onto my readers, aren't you the lucky ones, I will try my hardest not to waffle say "back in my day" or "when I were a lad".
Toys of my childhood were wonderful, amazing and could endure the most destructive of children or so I remember. There were no electronic gadgets as there are now and the world was in black & white..., time was simpler, the sun always shone and sweets were plentiful.
The earliest memories of toys I had or believe I had when I was young were simple toys but I loved them and played with them all the time.
The spinning top was a toy I had it was so simple yet had hours and hours of fun. If you have never seen one before red handle on top base on bottom and you would pull then push the handle repeatedly making the circular centre spin, ah the fun no stupid laminate flooring needed these toys were made to work on carpets.
View Master
The View Master if you have never used a view master you have never lived, or so I thought when I was a child. For those of you reading and thinking 'what the freak' a View Master was and still is a device that allows you to insert white card discs into the top of it, on each of the discs were a sequence of about 14 to 20 themed micro colour negatives. I remember some titles such as Superman, Batman, Star Wars but there were many more. Once inserted you looked into it aimed toward some form of light source, we had natural sunlight in them days not like now, next you would use the black trigger on the side to cycle through the images. Now this might sound pap put there were no consoles, mobiles or tablets so it was fun.
Fisher Price
Fisher Price a toy brand that's been around since the dinosaurs. I'm pretty sure everyone has had at least one Fisher Price toy in there day. The toy I remember having was the Fisher Price car parking garage with elevator, mine was the exact same one as in the image, it was made of 70's plastic which was stronger than steel probably. The small green thing at the bottom of the ramp was a fuel pump attached to a cord with a nozzle, all the fisher price cars came with a tiny hole on the right hand side of the cars allowing you to fill them up with childhood imagination lasts longer than petrol. On the side of the elevator which is the tall cage looking tower there was a turning handle which allowed you to move the elevator up and down, this was a toy I constantly played with even long after I lost the people and cars, just used my corgi cars instead there was tons of parking for my cars and the ramp was so smooth that they flew down braking on the carpet, I miss my garage.
Playmobil
From this I evolved to Playmobil, it had everything cars, boats, airplanes loved the Playmobil people they were so interchangeable, or they were after pulling their heads, arms and legs off allowing you to mix arms and legs, the only drawback of this was over time there arms became so loose they wouldn't stay up and kept flopping to their sides making holding things a pain and tiny teeth marks on their hair and heads. The accessories that you got with playmobil were great to tools, weapons and clothing not to mention the vehicles and buildings.
Me & my Big Wheel
One of my favourite toys the Big Wheel, when I was little the big wheel was the equivalent of getting an Xbox One I was so excited when I got it. This was a moulded plastic trike for want of a better description two little wheels at the back and one big wheel at the front hence the name. I remember me and my brother used to take the big wheel up to the top of a huge hilly road at a caravan site near where we lived, one sat on the big wheel and the other gave them a push with the gradient of the hill I'm sure we must have hit about 15-20 mph bearing in mind this has no brakes other than your feet it was absolutely mint, remember the gaping hole we eventually made in the front wheel. So glad I wasn't brought up in this nanny state era.
Etch a sketch
Etch a sketch another great toy from my childhood a red rectangular drawing tool all be it you could only draw straight lines and the had to be connected drawing a car was tricky. The Etch a Sketch was made up of tiny metal filings spread over a plate as you turned the knobs on the front they attracted the filings bringing them to the surface allowing you to draw a straight line one you were done all you had to do was give it a shake and it was gone simples.
Speak n Spell
Speak n Spell the reason I'm such a mint speller, well that and auto correct, this was probably my first electronic toy it was a toy made to help with spelling and it did exactly that it was pretty light and robust in design and came with a lot of function. This was a great toy very battery hungry but great, non the less the hours I spent with it, it was a wonder I didn't have an American accent. I can't remember if I out grew this or took it to bits as I had a thing for disassembling electronic devices.
Board Games
Board Games one thing we never were was bored, yes there were hundreds of games around in the 70's and 80's a lot of them being vomited back up now as toy manufacturers don't have any new ideas shame. Anyway back to the games this is something I could go on about for ages but I'm not I'm choosing my four favourite games and yes my brother, sister and me did have more but so did everyone of that era. Rant over.
Computer Battleship simple but strategically satisfying you got five ship and had to place them in a way to out whit your opponent (AKA my brother). The Computer side of the game was the noises the peeewwwwww! and Pshhhhhhh! once you sunk all your opponents ship (cheating permitted).
Countdown as a kid you were the top safe cracker and listening for those counters to drop got you ever closer to opening the vault ok it was a blue piece of plastic with white turning wheels. This is another one of those toys I played with long after the novelty wore off.
Next the top two Operation so simple but what a mind FECK of a game no wonder surgeons get paid so much, the amount of time I dropped body bits and heard that BUUzzzz! is why I work in a shop maybe, I remember one Christmas me my brother and sister finding some of our presents in the loft hatch getting them down and playing them on the landing, shock horror as we hear a key go into the front door and then it was one mass scramble to get the game back in the box and the box up into the loft (mission impossible music) required for suspense. Bit of trivia the Operation I had the patient was naked and now he has a lovely pair of pink heart boxers (NANNY STATE).
Finally Monopoly what can I say the board game that began wars, think of Adolf Hitler and then Poland's PM Władysław Raczkiewicz sat playing Monopoly and oh! Władysław Raczkiewicz wins so what did Hitler do invaded Poland. This game has so many variations from the original ones over the decades to the specialist games, such as Game of Thrones, World of Warcraft junior versions, Star Wars and hundreds of others. This is a game of kill or be killed, or like me go off in a huff; great when you're playing against a noob not so much when it's against a hardened player.
I know there were thousands of other toys of this period and probably hundreds more I could have mentioned so maybe ill save these for another post stay tuned.
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