Did anyone else want this toy as a kid?

boogieman

Mark1960 said:

We used to make guns from sticks, and branches, and run around the woods playing cops & robbers (Harry Roberts and all that), but I do remember that particular gun from seeing it in the toy shop. The most lethal weapon I ever got my hands on was a spud gun. Can anybody remember them! You had to carry a potato round with you to reload! How bizarre!

Yeah I had a spud gun too. I also had a Sekiden gun, a plastic thing that fired hard gold coloured balls about the size of a pea. They were rock hard, made of clay I think, and really stung if you got hit. Still better than being hit by air gun pellets though.

When you think about it, it’s amazing what you could buy easily as a kid in the 60s : airguns, fireworks, matches, cigarettes (“they’re for my dad”). I was making my own home made explosives from weedkiller and sugar when I was 12. 

ICBM

p90fool said:

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I don't think a lot of people appreciate how much the Second World War formed us growing up in the couple of decades after it. 

We were obsessed with it, it was everywhere, comics, films, TV - it still pervaded everyday life. 

Our playground right up until the early 70s was a blitzed street with staircases sticking up out of the rubble, we had an air raid shelter on the green in between the houses and half my relatives lived in concrete prefabs built to replace the bombed streets.

Playing war games was the most natural thing in the world, as was wanting to own the best toy gun on the street. 

This. I was born 22 years after the end of the war - only as long ago as John Major being PM is now.

One of my teachers at school had been in the RAF during the war, and another had served in Korea. And the Cold War was still in full swing... war culture was absolutely everywhere.

The world has changed, and not entirely for the worse.

boogieman

ICBM said:

p90fool said:

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I don't think a lot of people appreciate how much the Second World War formed us growing up in the couple of decades after it. 

We were obsessed with it, it was everywhere, comics, films, TV - it still pervaded everyday life. 

Our playground right up until the early 70s was a blitzed street with staircases sticking up out of the rubble, we had an air raid shelter on the green in between the houses and half my relatives lived in concrete prefabs built to replace the bombed streets.

Playing war games was the most natural thing in the world, as was wanting to own the best toy gun on the street. 

This. I was born 22 years after the end of the war - only as long ago as John Major being PM is now.

One of my teachers at school had been in the RAF during the war, and another had served in Korea. And the Cold War was still in full swing... war culture was absolutely everywhere.

The world has changed, and not entirely for the worse.

I was born in 1954. Weirdly enough nobody talked about the war at all, well that I can remember. I think they just wanted to forget it and get on with life. I only discovered that my dad had even served in the navy in WW2 after a teacher at school said that most of our dads would probably have been in the forces, so I asked him. My old man had never mentioned it before. 

ICBM

boogieman said:

I was born in 1954. Weirdly enough nobody talked about the war at all, well that I can remember. I think they just wanted to forget it and get on with life. I only discovered that my dad had even served in the navy in WW2 after a teacher at school said that most of our dads would probably have been in the forces, so I asked him. My old man had never mentioned it before. 

The ones who were actually involved very rarely talked about it, which must have made the all-pervasive war-film culture a bit of a trial.

Kittyfrisk

ICBM said:

boogieman said:

I was born in 1954. Weirdly enough nobody talked about the war at all, well that I can remember. I think they just wanted to forget it and get on with life. I only discovered that my dad had even served in the navy in WW2 after a teacher at school said that most of our dads would probably have been in the forces, so I asked him. My old man had never mentioned it before. 

The ones who were actually involved very rarely talked about it, which must have made the all-pervasive war-film culture a bit of a trial.

My brother in law was on HMS Sheffield, in the Falklands.
Out of respect for him, I have never asked about it & he has never mentioned it.
Some things do not change.

EricTheWeary

I was born in December 1964, The Beatles at number one ( how much the world must have changed in 19 years). My parents were both born in 1927 so both would have had clear memories of the war as would my grandparents, aunts and uncles. But, yes, I don't really remember it as a topic of conversation. My paternal grandfather in retrospect obviously had PTSD or something similar but was just known as a difficult man ( although he may have been some degree of difficult before he was shot at by the Germans). He loved Hollywood musicals. War films rarely looked realistic so to what extent they would have triggered anything for him I don't know. They certainly didn't have much nuance: evil nazis, handsome British, wise cracking Yanks, sexy French women,etc. 

I suppose part of giving a boy toy weapons is that one day that he might need to use the real thing. Young vikings given wooden swords so they could swing metal swords as adults. Perhaps in the 1970s I was given a plastic gun and a copy of Warlord because my parents thought I'd be fighting in the trenches one day.           

Kilgore

EricTheWeary said:

I suppose part of giving a boy toy weapons is that one day that he might need to use the real thing. Young vikings given wooden swords so they could swing metal swords as adults. Perhaps in the 1970s I was given a plastic gun and a copy of Warlord because my parents thought I'd be fighting in the trenches one day.           

   

Philly_Q

EricTheWeary said:

ICBM said:

It was a different world back then. Daytime TV films were all cowboys & indians or WWII - an endless stream of baddies being mown down and guns in almost every frame - war comics were everywhere, and it wasn't thought politically incorrect for boys to have toy guns and run around pretending to shoot everyone in sight...

For quite a while my comic every week was Warlord. I was about 11. Just pages of people shooting Nazis. 

Yep, Warlord, Victor, Hotspur.... it was a very different world.

I had a big collection of penknives, even a crappy switchblade, often took them to school.  Any kid could buy them at the local shops. 

When we went on holiday to Spain in the mid '70s, the souvenir shops were full of knives and guns (with caps much louder than the paper-strip types we had in the UK).  I almost managed to persuade my dad to buy me a sword.  I wonder what they'd have made of that going through Customs - probably not much, in those days.

ESBlonde

I was born 13 years after the war, thats the same time scale as since the hanging of Saddam, or the film Borat, or Google buying Youtube, or Stadium Arcadium was a hit album.

Local jumble sales (thats what we used to call car boot sales before everyone had a car), often had old uniforms/helmets/medals etc.

My junior school headmaster was an ex spitfire pilot (and didn't like the war). At high school the Geography teacher was an ex Wellington bombardier who still had a lump of shrapnel burried in his chin. The afformentioned friend across the roads dad was an former desert rat and he too had some schrapnel still in his face. My maternal grandfather was shot in the leg during WW1 and served as a training sargeant in WW2. The curate at the local church we attended had been gassed in WW1.

One of my dearest school friends had 'Austrian' parents living over here, her father had a glass eye and other facial disfigurments from war wounds (aquired fighting for the other side). Nobody commented, he was a bloody nice chap and accepted into the everyday community.

The idea that we were not influenced by those events as children is fancyful to most. I'm sure some families could hide the worst of it from thier children and keep them away from all the TV and movies on the subject, but in those days that was exceptional rather than the rule.

As a child I was the one that played with toy guns, made airfix kits, and read about Colditz/Auschwitz/Arnham/Dieppe etc. However it was both my brothers that later served in the Army rather than me!

stickyfiddle

Philly_Q said:

EricTheWeary said:

ICBM said:

It was a different world back then. Daytime TV films were all cowboys & indians or WWII - an endless stream of baddies being mown down and guns in almost every frame - war comics were everywhere, and it wasn't thought politically incorrect for boys to have toy guns and run around pretending to shoot everyone in sight...

For quite a while my comic every week was Warlord. I was about 11. Just pages of people shooting Nazis. 

Yep, Warlord, Victor, Hotspur.... it was a very different world.

I had a big collection of penknives, even a crappy switchblade, often took them to school.  Any kid could buy them at the local shops. 

When we went on holiday to Spain in the mid '70s, the souvenir shops were full of knives and guns (with caps much louder than the paper-strip types we had in the UK).  I almost managed to persuade my dad to buy me a sword.  I wonder what they'd have made of that going through Customs - probably not much, in those days.

Very little, i'm sure. My dad once got me a model rocket complete with several single-use engines (i.e. actual explosives) and brought them home in his carry-on luggage(!) on a plane from the USA. That would've been about 1995, give or take. You'd be  risking arrest for even bringing those to an airport these days.

EricTheWeary

stickyfiddle said:

Philly_Q said:

EricTheWeary said:

ICBM said:

It was a different world back then. Daytime TV films were all cowboys & indians or WWII - an endless stream of baddies being mown down and guns in almost every frame - war comics were everywhere, and it wasn't thought politically incorrect for boys to have toy guns and run around pretending to shoot everyone in sight...

For quite a while my comic every week was Warlord. I was about 11. Just pages of people shooting Nazis. 

Yep, Warlord, Victor, Hotspur.... it was a very different world.

I had a big collection of penknives, even a crappy switchblade, often took them to school.  Any kid could buy them at the local shops. 

When we went on holiday to Spain in the mid '70s, the souvenir shops were full of knives and guns (with caps much louder than the paper-strip types we had in the UK).  I almost managed to persuade my dad to buy me a sword.  I wonder what they'd have made of that going through Customs - probably not much, in those days.

Very little, i'm sure. My dad once got me a model rocket complete with several single-use engines (i.e. actual explosives) and brought them home in his carry-on luggage(!) on a plane from the USA. That would've been about 1995, give or take. You'd be  risking arrest for even bringing those to an airport these days.

MrsTheWeary lived and worked in Arkansas before I met her, so she left just under 30 years ago. Brought a huge hunting knife in her luggage she's bought over there back with her. 

Bridgehouse

Sassafras said:

I remember when all this was Usenet

FTFY

Philly_Q

axisus said:

I remember desperately wanting the Rock em sock em robot fighting game in the early 70s. Never got it of course, too expensive. I was quite thrilled a few years ago when it turned up in Toy Story 2!

I did have that, but it wasn't called Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots in the UK at the time (just checked Wikipedia and it seems it was called Raving Bonkers, which doesn't really ring any bells).

It was OK.  I think it was reasonably well made, it didn't immediately break but it got boring pretty quickly.

I think that's one of the few things parents are usually right about.  When they say a toy's a waste of money they may just be trying to save cash but they also realise the novelty value of most toys evaporates very quickly.

Dominic

Yes I had Raving Bonkers.....it was great
.........even though it sounds like a 70's Porn Film

Dominic

My Father bought me a 410 shotgun when I was 11 years old .......we often used to beat for the shoot and I would get the chance to use it on Walked -up days or late season Cock only days .I got a lot of shooting experience .
 When I was in the CCF Corps at School I had a Marksman badge from the School Rifle Range for .22 and 303 shooting .I was taken Stalking on some wonderful Estates years ago but I just couldn't pull the Trigger on a Deer or a Rabbit .
We have a Syndicate here on the Farm but I lost the taste for shooting  of any kind 30 years ago.

VimFuego

Dominic said:

My Father bought me a 410 shotgun when I was 11 years old .......we often used to beat for the shoot and I would get the chance to use it on Walked -up days or late season Cock only days .I got a lot of shooting experience .
 When I was in the CCF Corps at School I had a Marksman badge from the School Rifle Range for .22 and 303 shooting .I was taken Stalking on some wonderful Estates years ago but I just couldn't pull the Trigger on a Deer or a Rabbit .
We have a Syndicate here on the Farm but I lost the taste for shooting  of any kind 30 years ago.

snigger, chortle, etc. 

Philtre

When I was a kid I laughed in the face of any other kid who had a Johnny Seven gun.

Because I had one of these...

tony99

I had Stretch Armstrong but it was The Hulk!!

Sassafras

We used to have to check for reds under the bed every bloody night.
Don't know what we were supposed to do with them if we ever found any.

Kittyfrisk

Sassafras said:

We used to have to check for reds under the bed every bloody night.
Don't know what we were supposed to do with them if we ever found any.

Cover them with ducks?