Figure 1.--
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Figure 1.-- |
Friday night was pocket money night. When dad arrived home from work he gave my brother and I our spending money. This was a shilling. In the 1950s this lasted a very long time if small things were bought but bigger purchases ate into the money and I soon found that by Saturday evening I had spent my pocket money. I spent half of it on a toy and the other half was used to buy a cinema ticket. I bought was a toy soldier. At first these were made of lead but soon plastic soldiers were being sold. The plastic ones were made by Chad Valley. They could be bought in boxes of six or individually. I paid 6p for an individual soldier.
I aimed to have a toy soldier army 100 strong. It was a motley collection of soldiers. There were men from the 7th cavalry, knights,WW2 soldiers, native American Indians and French Foreign legenaries. I enjoyed my play with these plastic figures. There was a fort in which I kept my men. This had been bought for 10 shillings from a friend who was selling the fort he no longer needed. This was the regimental head quarters of my army. From here I fought all kinds of battles that involved the army I had amassed.
I acquired a whole range of Robin Hood characters from collecting the figures given free in cereal packets. I do not know which the greater sensation was, eating corn flake or collecting the figures. The ones from the cornflake packets needed paining with special modelling paint.
A toy company called Airfix made plastic construction kits. Some of the models you could build were military vehicles such as tanks and WW2 war ships. They also made HO/OO scale army men. These sets of figures covered the whole of military history. There were about 40 plastic soldiers in each set. The fun was painting these tiny figures. Afterwards they became part of my war games.
Special occasions such as birthdays and Christmas time were the opportunities I had to buy more expensive items such as artillery. I had a several field guns, which fires small balls, and I used these to knock over my soldiers. I let my uncles and aunts have insight into the Dinky and Corgi models cars I would like to have when it was near my birthday.
Over a period of time I had got a good collection of military toys and these I played with for hours on end. I gave them away to kids in the neighbourhood when I out grew them. What a fortune I would now have if they had been kept in pristine condition. Where would the fun have been if my toy soldiers and cars had been kept and not played with!
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