Back in the Day

Seeing the photo of the Thunderbirds display in that shop window really stirred up memories for me of the heady days of childhood and wonderful window displays chock full of toys. Toys shops have become a rarity nowadays, having been superseded by mass market retail.

I was born in Liverpool in 1962 and my childhood was themed by the space race and every xmas toy shops al over the city would be awash with great toys. Foremost in the toy shop world was Hobbies in Basnett Street in the city centre. It was a large double fronted store on two floors which was rammed with every conceivable kind of boys toy. My dad took me on regular pilgrimages there on the excuse of buying me something while he pored over the trains section. I recently came across this photograph from the mid sixtieson a website of old photos of my home town.

There were a lot of great toy shops in the centre and also a lot of other shops which sold toys as a sideline, such as Woolworths for Spacex and Lewis's for SWORD. Other smaller shops also carried the lesser brands such as L.P, Apollo Moon Exploring and the Moon Traffic series. I recently shared a memory of buying the spacex 'tribute' toys, Moon Traffic from a shop in Liverpool on Bold Street, with Paul Vreede. I recalled buying them from a discount store called 'King Kong' which sold all manner of hardware and fancy goods besides toys. Moon Traffic were always displayed on a rack alongside standard first series Spacex and I recalled cherry picking the few distincly different models from the line which werent minor variations on the tri-ang toys. After a space of a few minutes, the resourceful Mr V sent me a photo (from the same website) of the very street in question, lit up with xmas lights and there of the left hand side is the King Kong, just as I remembered it!