Introducing Simple Simon

This handsome, though very worn fellow, was made by my Grandmother in about 1963.  As can be seen, he was well loved and has been brightly patched to hold back mother time and escaping stuffing.

My grandmother was very creative and, with many grandchildren, I suspect she made many of these lovely toys.

The pattern came from the book titled ‘Rag-Bag Toys’ which was published by Dryad Press in Leicester circa 1941. The title gives away the source of the materials for these toys. At the time of war when goods were scarce, ingenuity, resourcefulness and recycling were the necessity of the time.

According to the book my little guy ‘uses up old stockinette undies’ and is ‘adorably idiotic’.  My Simon was not made of the former but he is adorable and was well loved when I was a child. He has a felt hat, shorts, shoes and hands and his shirt was most likely made from an old shirt or dress. His arms and legs were made from old singlets and his socks were knitted!

Other toys to make include a teddy bear made from a ‘moth-eaten motor rug’, a chunky pink pig from and ‘old vest’, and a rag doll ‘stuffed with oddments’. There is also a small giraffe, that now, having looked at the book, I also remember I had that was made out of old curtain fabric.

The interesting thing is, that after sifting through some old photos, I discovered that I actually had three Simple Simons to take care of !!! 

Fiona Lowe

The SUPERMiniCine Machine

This machine gave us hours of fun and was probably bought in the 1950’s. 

Note the plug. It had to go into a light bulb socket and, as I don’t think table lamps were as common then, it meant putting a coffee table, with a pile of books, underneath the central ceiling light before placing the machine on the top. 

The plain wall would become the screen and then someone had to keep turning the handle as fast as possible to give the films movement.

We never had any extra films. These were the only ones that came with it. 

For whatever reason I have never wanted to part with this Cine machine - but I’m sure my children will have no difficulty when the time comes.  

But one of my favourite things was a simple top and whip. I wish I could bend that low with ease now! {for more, visit the article and video on the British Library website
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/whip-and-tops }

Paula Lockley

Toy Memories

My earliest toy memory is of a rocking horse chair that was a 1st birthday present from my Uncle Les (Dad’s brother). The picture shows me aged 2 happily riding the chair in our back garden in Walsall around 1956, it was made by Triang a well known toymaker of that era. Even though I was very young, I do have memories of enjoying using the rocker, however - by the time I was 5 - I had grown too tall to sit in the chair comfortably, much to my annoyance. It was at this point that my parents stored the rocker away and I forgot about it. 25 years later, after I had given birth to my son, Mom and Dad retrieved the rocker from storage and offered it to me for my son to use. Unfortunately the chair had seen better days, the metal was mostly rusted and the colours on the horse’s head had faded – I therefore declined their offer, which I know disappointed them at the time, and which I also regret very much now. I never saw the rocker chair again and I am not sure what happened to it. I think Mom and Dad sent it to a charity shop so it is possible someone took pity on it and restored it. I would like to think that maybe it is still out there somewhere being happily used by some other 2 year old.

Pam Turner

This story is about my beloved Panda.  The photo is taken with my Maternal Great Grandmother, Rose Annie Harvey (née Till) who sadly died in 1955. She was born in Gentleshaw and moved to Bedworth, Nuneaton with her family when she was young. Apparently there was a shortage of Teddies and my parents searched high and low for one and in the end settled for a Panda. 

Panda was very obliging. He joined in all my games. I could inject him (horror!), rub cream in him, put him in a classroom so I could teach him, and wheel him around in my toy pram. I was an only child so he was very important to me. Good memories.

Margaret Stead

I started my working life in the engineering department at Lucas in Birmingham (mid 1970s). During a conversation one day, it emerged that the majority of us had one particular toy in common. We had all spent many hours playing with a Meccano set. I am not sure that the term ‘playing’ is totally appropriate. I took it very seriously. If I was making a vehicle, then the steering had to work. If it was a crane, then it had to be capable of lifting decent weights. Aircraft had to have moving elevators and ailerons. Retractable undercarriages were always a problem that I never fully solved. Bridges? The longer the better!  

I inherited the initial collection, from an uncle (I think). I spent a lot of pocket money adding to my collection. The predominant colours were red and green, although some of the later parts were silver. And it was metal, all made in Liverpool. No plastic! These days some is made in France and some in China.

It is slightly misleading to refer to my set in the past tense. I still have it, carefully stored in the loft. Our sons were part of the Lego generation, so it was never passed on. If we have Lockdown 4, perhaps I will retrieve it. There are plenty of engineering challenges left to solve!

Keith Stanley

Sadly, I only seem to remember events and toys from my childhood that are supported by a photograph or, in the case of a toy, that survived into my adulthood.  Consequently, the toy that remains in my memory is a 31” tall Pollyanna doll that I was lucky enough to be given as a present following the success of the 1960 Disney film “Pollyanna”, featuring Hayley Mills.  It must have been a gift from Mum and Dad either on my 8th birthday in November or for Christmas 1960.

I managed to keep hold of the doll in good condition, still wearing her original blue dress, until I could pass it on to my daughter Zoe, and she was delighted to receive it, especially as she and Pollyanna were the same height. I use the words “managed to keep hold of” as my Mum had a habit of removing my toys when I wasn’t looking, and to this day I don’t know where they went.

A recent search of the Internet showed that most Pollyanna dolls that have survived, and are now collectors’ items, have blonde hair and a gingham dress with matching knickerbockers, however our Pollyanna had brown hair and a pale blue dress. Perhaps she was a UK version of the American Disney doll, probably sold in the UK at Woolworths.

The photograph, taken in 1972, shows Zoe with our Pollyanna. Pollyanna is wearing a coat that my Mum made, and you can just see the hem of her blue dress beneath the coat. The doll’s face was presumably modelled on Hayley Mills, and I’ll leave it to you to decide if it was accurate or not. Certainly, Hayley is still a very attractive woman, now in her 75th year.

Sadly, I haven’t a granddaughter to pass the doll onto, so I eventually bathed the doll, washed her hair and clothes, and took her to the Charity Shop in the hope that she would make another child’s life as magical as she had made ours.

Kaye Christian

Hopefully this qualifies as a toy! It is May 1955 and the 4 year old garden policeman is on patrol. I have fond memories of this car and whenever I see something like it on The Repair Shop or Salvage Hunters, I say “I had one of those!”. It was blue and I believed it to be a police car, even if it may not have been intended to be one (some may recall the Morris Minor and Ford Anglia Police cars were blue with white doors in those days). When I found the photograph again, I had not remembered that the windscreen was at such a jaunty angle - possibly as a result of the excessive speeds I had been travelling.

Kent Parson

One of my memories is of a treasured silver six-shooter, back when playing “cowboys and Indians” would occupy many a day. I remember that I was determined that my gun should not get damaged or lost, so I hid it under a floorboard in the house in London where we lived. Inevitably it disappeared!! Around the same time, my sister’s hamster disappeared behind the skirting, never to be seen again. The shortage of other suspects led inevitably to the conclusion that the hamster must have made off with my six-shooter, a prelude to its subsequent rodent life of crime. The house was demolished some years later, but I often wonder if one of the workmen clearing the site chanced upon my gun and took it home to inspire a new generation. I also had a Davy Crockett coonskin cap – but that is another story!!

Chris Graddon