Toys from our past

[struth]

I had one of these b4 i got a bike....well it saved walking Loved it even though they were out of fashion they made a mini come back with the local kids.
who knows what its called?

..and what was your most enjoyable toy for your youth

[icehockeyboy]

It's a " ........... Wheel" !

Sorry can't remember the missing word!

[brian2957]

Tis a gird and cleek young man I didn't have the opportunity to play with one of these as I'm much too young

That was my much older big brother you met when you visited mine

[struth]

It's a " ........... Wheel" !

Sorry can't remember the missing word!

It is/was called a Cleet and Gird. Gird is a Scots (possibly north Eng as well) word for a hoop and gird is the rod you push/control it with. Hours of simple fun, made of iron and never painted, you ran around the street with it. An old guy in the shovel works made mine for me in his lunch breaks.

Better than a bloody Y box anyday

[walpurgis]

In my little world a 'toy from the past' would have been a weedkiller and sugar pipe bomb. I made (and let off) loads as a lad. Fireworks just didn't quite 'do it' as far as I and my schoolboy mates were concerned.

[struth]

In my little world a 'toy from the past' would have been a weedkiller and sugar pipe bomb. I made (and let off) loads as a lad. Fireworks just didn't quite 'do it' as far as I and my schoolboy mates were concerned.

A mate of mine did the same....was always demolishing things he shouldn't

[walpurgis]

A mate of mine did the same....was always demolishing things he shouldn't

I made quite a 'dent' in the school cycle sheds (amongst many other things).

[synsei]

Thomas Salter Chemistry Set 6: And herein lies a sorry tale:

Bought for me by my grandparents for Christmas in 1973, I was given strict instructions not to mess with it unless my dad was present. Three weeks earlier my parents spent a fortune decorating my bedroom, of course my parents warning went unheeded.

When very bored one wet Saturday afternoon, with mum in the kitchen baking and dad at work, I wondered whether it would be fun to mix a little of each of the many interesting and brightly coloured chemicals together in some water contained in the largest, sealable vessel in the set. So, off I trot to the bathroom, filled the container with water from the tap and then plodded back into my bedroom where I began my first and last solo foray into the uncharted territory of the amateur chemist. Upon dumping the varied chemical elements into the flask, I sealed it and looked at the gooey, brown mess inside with a feeling of dejection: Nothing was happening. Feeling very down-at-heel, I gave the flask a brisk shake and toddled off to the toilet as I needed a wee.

Half way through emptying my bladder there came an almighty bang from the rough vicinity of my bedroom. ^Uh oh*, exclaimed I, which was quickly followed by a distant exclamation from my mother in the kitchen, "JESUS CHRIST.... DAVE?" And then there was the sound of feet pounding up the stairs followed by another sound, which was my bedroom door being thrown open. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST" (Incidentally, this is the only occasion I can ever remember my mum using the 'F' word). "Get your arse out here boy...NOW!!!" - UH-OH!!!

Hesitantly I moved towards the bathroom door, unlatched it and then I tentatively stepped out onto the landing. Mum was standing in the doorway of my room, effectively blocking my line of site, however I was smart enough to realise that alone in my room, the structural integrity of my 'Pandora's Box' had probably lost its fight with physics thus vomiting its foul contents all over my newly decorated bedroom, and it had, BIGTIME...

Apart from the rather large and concentrically shaded (from the middle outward) black, red, orange and yellow chemical scorch mark at the centre of what was once my very expensive (and very new) Candlewick bedspread, I marvelled at the colour of the rest of the room, which was mostly a violent shade of Purple (it had beam mostly cream with a Thunderbirds mural above my bed, which my dad had spent hours painting). "Wow, exclaimed I. "it was brown goo when I mixed it all up!!!". For some inexplicable reason this comment elicited a rather hefty smack to the back of my head and a, "you just wait until your father gets home...".

My dads return from work was a painful one, for me. The following day dad drove all the way to my grandparents house near Chertsey because he needed to have a quiet word...

[Firebottle]

Oops.
Cracking tale Dave, very well told.

My absolute favourite when a lad was a huge Meccano set, I don't know where it came from but had everything in it. Very large individual pieces of various shapes, all the cogs and gears you could wish for, the works.
Wish I knew what happened to it all.

Alan

[brian2957]

Aye used to love Meccano .