"Those were the Days, my Friend"

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It was Kath that asked the question -

"What do little boys play with?"

I was of course tempted to say, we played with little girls,

but,

I thought I had better rephrase that to say,

we played games with little girls.

So, I sat down to make a list of some of the real toys we played with,

and the blog got longer and longer.

I thought no one will read 48 pages - I'll have to reduce it to just a couple of subjects this time round.

In the nineteen forties, you played with anything you could find, even banging on an upturned bucket with a stick!

There were few toys.

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I expect I did have a drum, but I thought I'd kick off with a photo of my father with his drum, taken around the end of WW1.

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"Off to the Front" with of course his Teddy Bear,

or perhaps it's his toy dog?

I found this in that box of old pictures I was sorting through.

I expect I had a Teddy bear as do most children, but I do remember being given a 'Nurse doll'. I remember it having a white apron with a big red cross on the front. How I got to be given a doll, I do not know, except that toys were not something you bought during the war years (WW2 now).

I expect someone had 'grown out of it' and had passed it on to my mother.

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I didn't find many pictures of me with toys, as I said earlier,

we played with anything to hand.

Like this....

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Little B - Summer 1943.

No elf 'n Safety in those days. I lived dangerously!

Later on of course I had my own little mower,

from our old friend Dinky.

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This is not mine: all my toys, as I grew up, were passed down to younger brothers and maybe even sister?

Then where? Who knows?

One toy I do know the history of is one my Father made for me.

He was stationed at Market Drayton (I blogged here if I remember) and he managed to get bits and pieces to make toys for me.

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The horse you see below was made for Christmas 1943, and Dad told me how on the train home for leave, he got umpteen offers from people wanting to buy it.

But it arrived safely at Linden Road.

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It was Christmas Day in the Garden....

An interesting technical bit now.

Those little wheels on it were old 'ball races' recovered from WW2 aircraft. Probably old wheel bearings from a Spitfire?

It didn't go like a Spitfire though, it gave a rather rough ride on solid metal tyres!

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All boys had trains.

We had lots of them.

Starting off with clockwork...

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This is a three rail electric. Ours was two rail clockwork.

Living in Bournville this was a 'must have'.

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Ah, those were the days.

Eventually we did progress to Hornby Dublo electric.

We had a baseboard in the spare room and painted it green with sponge trees and hedges.

I wonder where it has all gone?

Go on, ask me.

You didn't think I was going to throw out

'goodies' like that!

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From the loft.

"Those were the days my Friend.

We thought they'd never end."

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