h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Obviously, most of us posting here were children in the 50's so how about a section on toys?

Pocket money was obviously low - I think I started out with threepence a week. I'd save this up for packs of miniature garden mostly. At that time they didn't seem concerned at the size of parts and all the flower heads came separately as did the leaves for the trees. Birthday week was the time to buy the bigger items such as the greenhouse, blocks of lawn, fencing and the glorious copper beech tree. I had hundreds of the little 'spades' with metal points!

This was coupled with houses built from Lego - which overtook Meccano and Bako towards the end of the 50's. Bako was just so lethal - rods placed into holes and then items slotted in; bricks to build the walls, windows and doors. My brother was the Meccano freak - his bedroom was one jungle of construction.

Doll's houses were very popular as were doll's prams. I remember that a lot of the furniture was actually made of wood and plastic items didn't appear until much later. I was lucky as my dad made me a fabulous house out of wood with a hinged opening front and roof. I carpeted the whole house with samples picked up at the Ideal Home Exhibition.

Other collectables were those little airfix packs of soldiers etc. You could buy the foreign legion (all dark blue I think) and pit them against cowboys and indians. Paint and glue for the packs or kits was easily bought - no worries about sniffing substances back then.

Every child I knew collected the stickers from Robertsons jam - let's just call them gollies shall we? I had a full set of bandsmen and lots of metal badges as I loved eating jam... all non-pc now as they would be deemed racist.

A favourite soft toy was a 'Sunny Jim' which was gained by collecting tokens from a breakfast cereal called 'Force' I think.

Puppets were very popular. I definitely had my first Pelham puppet in the mid-fifties and went on to have the theatre and scenery. 'Spot the dog' even had a wagging tail and the witch a moving jaw.

Outside the better-off kids would have a swing in their garden and even a slide or see-saw. Most parks and open spaces had childrens playgrounds which had some quite lethal (by today's standards) items. There was a roundabout resembling a spiders web constructed of strong metal tubing. I saw at least one child fall off this at speed and have their head cracked open. The playgrounds were mostly build on concrete bases which led to many other minor injuries over the years.

In the summer we didn't walk. We roller-skated, scootered or biked everywhere. The roller skates were not integral boots but a plate clamped onto our own shoes and adjusted with a special 'key' - they could take ages to fit if more than one child in the family shared them. Despite having a rubber stopper on the front to help with braking I still got through a lot of shoes!

Bikes were invariably Raleigh - no choppers or mountain bikes as yet.

shazz