Watched the TV programme 'James Mays top toys' yesterday,did anyone else see it ? what an eye opener it really was,it covered Hornby trains,Meccano,Lego,Scalextrix,Dinky toys,Corgi toys,Matchbox cars,Etch-a-sketch,Airfix kits.
It really did go to show how things have evolved and changed in the toy market over the years and what todays children want & demand,confonted with building a simple crane in Meccano, a group of school children were instructed to go ahead and make one up from a set of instructions and the handful of parts required,what evolved was a disaster ! not one of the groups of children produced anything like the model in the instructions despite its simplicity,once more they expressed their boredom with one youngster saying 'well if that is all youngsters could do in the fifties,it is sad' it was quite obvious that these young ones just did not have the same love or feel for Meccano that we all had ? James Mays then went onto Lego introduced by the Danes into this country ( the UK ) sitting alongside a real Avro Lancaster in a museum,he fashioned a blocky example that he had dreamed up as a child,you could just see the resemblence.
The success of the Hornby/Meccano empire by Frank Hornby was no doubt due to many factors of the time,there were no toys around that offered such a challenge to produce a new model every day,in fact this was one of the advertising points,armed with tiny nuts and bolts people started to submit some very large models to the offices at Binns road,Old Swan in Liverpool,realising the potential Frank Hornby offered large ( for the day at least ) cash prizes for the best model made from a No.10 Meccano set,block setting cranes,heavy locomotives and ocean going liners were some of the hundreds of models submitted to the model building department,and once more quite a few of these were built by young people !
The Hornby railway system was another great success for the boy of the day,large rooms would mean the station in one area with track running along the landing , I know because this is what annoyed my own parents as they struggled to get past a set of points leading into the bathroom !! but what those early toys made up for in a lack of sophistication was the imagination we needed to use as they clanked over the tin track.
The diecast cars produced so well by Dinky Toys were elaborated upon by the Corgi empire who fitted real glass windows,gadgets and other gimmicks,the tiny Matchbox issues started by the MOKO Lesney duo were no real threat,just another diversion into the world of miniature cars.
I cringed as Mays assembled an Airfix battleship,then proceeded to place it into the middle of a pond and shoot it to bits with a shotgun,sheer vandalism,likewise launching a parachute equipped Action-Man from an helicopter from a couple of hundred feet,just to see if the chute really did open was equally un-acceptable,the boys doll that hit the toy world with a vengeance is now a collectors piece.
So where does play value come into the equation,in relation to the grown man ? well it really does have a big influence,quite a few of the things we buy in later life,are purchased due to the flustrations of not actually being able to afford them as a child,thus collections and models are built up to mammoth proportions,and why not ?
You know what they say 'The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.