Toys

Here's that tree again, just a few months later in 1967! It's amazing how it grew.

This photo was taken on my 6th birthday and my present is sat beside me. It's a Cragstan tin talking robot. They're worth anything up to £1,000 nowadays but then they cost just a few dollars. There was a shop by the coldstore near to our house that always had toys in the window. There'd be robots, tanks, robotic clowns, battery operated cars - everything a kid could want.

We'd been to friends of my parents and their son had one of these robots and then I got one for my birthday. It could say many things including, 'I am a mighty man with 100 horsepower of energy inside me', 'I am bulletproof too, ha, ha, ha!', I'm leaving now to explore the outer limits, goodbye see you again!' and other things that I've long forgotten. To me it was fascinating. My brother had a walking tin robot that fired guns and we used to have mock battles between them. At the time, there was a Japanese cartoon on the tv called, 'Gigantor', which featured a giant robot. I'd never miss it.

Some inquisitive kids would take their tin toys apart and find that parts had been made from food tins and coke cans. Nothing was wasted over there! The toys there were amazing. I remember having a tin aeroplane, remote control car, trains etc. They all seemed far better than they are nowadays. If I'd kept all of these tin toys, they'd probably be worth a fortune.

I see I've scuffed my knee in the picture and also, I have socks on, we must have been going out somewhere! Incidentally, on the tape we sent to my gran, that I mentioned earlier, I'm saying, 'I am bulletproof too, ha, ha, ha!'