toy hammers on the brain

I was obsessed with hammers a little kid.

My Sisters tell me that I drew them on my parents' home's wallpaper!

Hammering began early with fabulous creative sets like Nail-On Tiles by Spears, who, along with Merit, were a dominant play force in my childhood.

Earlier still was the sheer simplicity of bashing wooden pegs on a cobblers bench with a hefty wooden mallet.  These were everywhere when I was a young basher.

Bigger jobs required more complex tools and I adored plastic hammers and screwdrivers like these old sets. I can still almost feel the plastic handles in my industrious mini-hands.

I have a memory of even more realistic tool sets within my reach. I can see a small metal saw with an L-shaped handle and small wooden handled claw hammer. This may have been in a tool box or even a small tool cupboard that opened like a wallpaper table.

Tools and art went together back then too and the most memorable Sixties picture was Soulet's little urchin with his shouldered hammer. This hung [or is it hanged?] in our stairwell when I was a small malleter.

My teeth took a hammering too as well as a sawing and a wrenching. All my fave tools were available in chocolate in sweet shops! Yay! they looked like these, rough and ready but quite delicious. hand tools never tasted so good!

Did you have any hammers or saws or spanners as a kid readers?