Halton Memories: No toys for the poor children

By Runcorn And Widnes Weekly News on Dec 4, 09 09:40 AM in 1900-1999

THOSE among us who were around in the 1940s and even the late 1930s will well remember there was wasn't much money about.

Our parents, aunts and uncles simply didn't have the wherewithal for expensive toys and other presents.

That, of course, was a long time ago, but even today there are many families who find themselves hard-pressed to meet the demands of Christmas and all the pressures it can bring.

Local writer Chris Darlington sent me a little story entitled The Original Hobby Shop which starkly illustrates that even in the 1960s there were many who simply had to forego the pleasures of the toys they would have liked to have had.

"I was the little boy who stopped on his way to school to look in the Hobby Shop window and was told off by teacher for being late,' Chris recalls.

"Through the misted-up glass I could see lots of model aircraft and Airfix models.

"I used to go to the hobby shop with a friend of mine, the late Roy Hayes, who always seemed to have enough money to buy Dinky or Corgi cars which were half a crown in old money.

"I remember him buying the new James Bond car which had an ejector seat that fired the plastic passenger up in the air.

"We also looked in Coventry's shop window in Devonshire Square which had all the model train sets.

"Throughout the year I watched all my favourite toys disappear as parents bought birthday presents and even Christmas came and went. Tears filed my eyes because I came from a poor family that couldn't afford to buy toys."

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