Wotans Bones II

The next major milestone in my toy collecting life is something which has appeared many times on the blog, Project Sword Probe Force 1. Rather than show a new, boxed and complete model, this is the original toy, just like my Robbie robot, or rather what remains of it. Another christmas gift from 1967, the peculiar whine from the friction engine still rings in my ears. Probe Force 1 stood out from the normal rockets and spaceships I had seen until this point, most of which would have been NASA designs in books and on tv. Thunderbirds and Stingray and Fireball would be surrounding me and the run up to the moon landing would be saturating the media, but here came a sleek white ship, in a long box, which a cool blue badge and a special paper manual promising further delights and other toys in a whole new world of space toys which i'd been completely unaware of until this point. It would be the following year before I received the Sword Annual and really began my journey into the world of Sword.

Probe Force 1 would soon be followed by Task Force 1, the red dart-shaped ship and between them, they became the basis of an obsession with plastic space toys that would last for the rest of my life. Probe Force has suffered greatly over time, the tyres are lost, wings and tail have been chipped and damaged, the friction drive housing has been pushed in and the nose cone has been lost. Task Force 1 was taken along by me to school on Toy day at the end of term, shortly after i got it and I recall vividly, lying on the wooden floorboards of Parkhill Primary school in Dingle, revving up the engine and driving it around the floor. One of the more well off kids had brought in the large battery operated Thunderbird 4, but I was the only child I ever came across who had Sword. Thunderbirds was passe' - everybody had them - but it was only me with the dart-like red ship zooming around the floor. Due to the size of Probe Force, i'd elected to take the Task Force ship in as it was more pocket sized. As I lay on my chest, powering up the friction drive in preparation to try and reach the otherside of the classroom, an especially enthusiastic push resulted in the back wheel coming off and rolling by itself along the floor. In a spectacularly unlucky and heart rending moment, the wheel found probably the only knothole in the old floorboards and made for it with almost predestined accuracy. Unable to get up of the deck quick enough, I watched in horror as it dropped away, never to be seen again. This was possibly the first in a number of bleak moments in my toy history and something which even now advises caution whn handling precious things!