SAMURAIS THROUGH THE POST

 

Salvaged from Christmases Past, these are my two cast Samurai models hand painted in the early Seventies by yours truly.

Not much stuff from my early childhood has survived but some from when I was around 12 years old has.

In particular my martial arts stuff has. I put this down to two things: I collected so much martial arts material, mostly papers and small items, which I'd put in a large document case that's traveled with me throughout my life.

These short metal warriors are two of my most important surviving martial arts toys.

There's a naginata or halberd missing from the right one made by Rubin I think and the Ebira or arrow quiver has broken off the left fellow. 

I remember so clearly getting the figure on the left, a Rose kit, one Christmas in the early 1970's. 

It came in several parts in a small plastic bag and had a distinct and wonderful metallic smell once opened. 

Amazingly I have even managed to hold onto the colour scheme I worked out for this model, drawn on a school timetable! 

This has survived in an old handkerchief box I have pictured below, what I called the 'Budo Box'!

Also in the box is a postal order counterfoil for Miniature Figurines, which I kept after sending off payment for another Samurai model. A postcard from the company, ARGYLE, has survived too. 

It all relates to either the metal Rubin figure to the left in the picture above or maybe the small metal miniatures, pictured below, which have survived in a wooden Indian box my Mum gave me.

This box became the centerpiece of my Cha-No-Yu (tea ceremony) or Iai-do (Japanese Sword) paraphernalia back then when I was 13 and I wanted to be a Zen or Shaolin Monk! Happy days!

The metal figure to the left below is an Orc! I have some more Samurai model stuff [and tons of books] and will dig it out. 

Have you got any samurai models?

KRIS AND THE FLARES

 At the house clearance table I rummaged over a lot at yesterday's boot I saw few other things that caught my eye, which I left because I'm saving up....

...... A Midland Bank elephant money box like this online - the one at the sale was chipped and cracked. 25p but I passed. Does anyone collect these?

A large die-cast Zeroid from Terrahawks made by Bandai [or is it Popy?] as seen here in Wotan's collection. It was too dear for me at £5.

A large food bag of small plastic toys, about 100 I would say: small figures, tiny novelties and about 6 Action Man Flare guns like this online. Again, at £5 it was too dear. Could the flares have been knockoffs I wonder too? I wish I'd have got that bag now! ha ha. The booter's curse!

A small Malay souvenir Kris paper knife like this on the net. I recognised this immediately from my teenage years obsessing about martial arts and ancient weapons around the world. I owned several kukris and a katana back then. I still have the katana, a cheapo copy my Mum got me from Kay's catalogue circa 1972, but I loved it then and still do. Seeing a Kris again was a real joy.

Anything you would have got readers?

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Postscript:

I also passed on this little plastic chunky car, a Burger King AERO Record Breaker from 1989. Very cool design. 25p. I could kick myself! [picture from the net]

JUST WHERE IS MY LOOK-IN KUNG FU MEDALLION?

Finding our old metal star again in the garden in a rare ray of sunshine this month, I just had to throw it at the shed for old time's sake.

Back in the early Seventies I made tons of throwing stars, or shurikens, out of tin cans and loved whizzing them at my parents' wooden fence in the back.

I was a bone fide martial arts nut and devoured the whole scene back then. 

Finding our rusty shuriken has reminded me of another lost treasure that's languishing somewhere in the loft.

It was a free gift with Look-In comic back in May 1974. I was 13 and wanted desperately to be a Shaolin monk like Kwai Chang Caine!

It was the metal Kung Fu dragon medallion, as seen on the comic's fantastic cover.

Somewhere up there is that medallion and cover!

Did you have one too readers?

RONIN HAVE SPOKEN

 Samurai art has completely kicked off its Kabuki since I was young fan.

Back in the Seventies I adored model dioramas like Night Attack by Ronin.

I drooled over Sensei Roald Knutsen's limited edition prints

I fell in love and often copied the drawings in the tome Secrets of the Samurai.

But hurl a shuriken in today's future and you find the same fascination for Samurai, both my own and many others.

This beautiful artwork for example, Clans of the Mountain, is by David Benzal.

But modern warriors, Jedi's and heroes have morphed and merged with old Japan to give us new icons of Bushido.

Instagram's Niserain captured his toy figures to create the sumptuous Samurai War Machine.

In homage to my old Nippon mentors and a nod to the modern wave here's my own Ronin in the Rain.

Have you any Samurai art, models or toys?

ENOEDA SENSEI: MY FAVOURITE SHODAN

A complete diversion from toys but a wholly nostalgic trip down memory lane for me so here it is, Heian Shodan kata from Shotokan Karate executed by the leading Sensei of my teenage years, the legendary Enoeda!

Hi Ya!

Did you do any Shotokan or any martial arts as a kid?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpUAkkrwNVs

THE OLYMPICS ARE COMING!

The world maybe sort of  gripped by Olympic fever soon - if Covid will allow it - as the Games commence in Japan. 

I'm not a sport person by any means but having read that Karate will be included this time, incorporating Kata, I am intrigued and would love to see some Olympic Shotokan or Wado Ryu. Regular readers will know that I was nuts about martial arts as a young teenager and I even considered running away to a Zen Monastery in Northumberland!

I've seen quite a lot of live martial arts in my youth including Judo demos and exams in Stretford, Aikido with Chiba Sensei in Chorley, Wing Chun with Sifu Joseph Cheng in Preston and the pinnacle, a huge Wushu spectacular at Belle Vue in Manchester, which was mind-blowing.

I'd have loved to have seen my old Karate and Kung Fu heroes at an Olympic Games: Gichin Funakoshi, Morihei Ueshiba, Keinosuke Enoida, Jhoon Rhee, Ip Man, Jimmy Wang Yu, Joseph Cheng,  Angela Mao, Roald Knutsen, Donn F. Draeger, Mike Finn, Jim Kelly and of course Bruce.

Still, I look forward to a new crop of Karateka and Judoka pounding the mats in their spiritual home, Japan.

Other sports new to the Games this year include climbing - which I would watch - skateboarding, surfing and baseball/softball.

Like the sunshine World Cup in 1970, I was hooked as a kid by the Olympics that came in 1972. I was 11 years old.

I remember how everyone was just amazing there. Superhumans with athletes like Kip Keno, Nelly Kim and Olga Korbett, who have stayed with me ever since. 

I got totally into collecting stickers for a cool sticker book from those Games in 1972. Do you recall those games? Did you have this sticker book?

Are you taken by the Olympic flame readers?

Published by Esso, my Dad got me the stickers for the book when he filled up the Zephyr or Ford Granada. I was 11 when it came out and it remains my quintessential Olympics possession

WE PLAYED WAR IN THE GARDEN AND DRANK TIZER

Lockdown means I can spend a lot of time in the garden now its Spring. I can't see my Grandkids so I've got to thinking about what I did as a kid lucky enough to have had a garden. It certainly wasn't the gardening that I do now! My Mum and Dad would have done all that boring stuff!

Looking back, like many kids in the Sixties and early Seventies, I spent a good deal of time outside in Spring and Summer. After long winters stuck inside playing with every toy I had to destruction it was great to spread wings wide and get out in the Sixties sun with the family dog Shandy.

What went on outside changed as I got older. As a small nipper I will have stayed near the house taking my toys outside in the garden. I remember playing with Action Man with a mate called Vincent. We would spend hours dressing and re-dressing our 'men'. A favourite of mine was the German Stormtrooper. I still feel the 'click' as the stick grenade pushed into his hand.

Another favourite was the Airfix wonder called Flight Deck. This was basically a flying plane that landed on part of an aircraft carrier. I'd attach the nylon line to the washing line and watch that fighter zoom across the lawn onto the deck, where I think a hook stopped it dead. It was inspired toy by Airfix. Did you have one?

Sometimes we made up outdoor games. Grass slides were fun. We'd slope old planks in between bushes and send tons of grass clippings down them. It was even better with water from the hose. I don't know why but it was just fun. Like farming!

Sometimes I'd geek out and make a ghost train for friends and family to scare themselves silly in. The 'train' was really a group of old doors leant up against a fence to form a tunnel. Victims had to stoop and crawl through it whilst I dangled rubber spiders onto them from holes and made wailing noises. For some reason they always asked for their money back! Just kidding!

Robin, my best mate back then, really did charge for going in his garden. I think it was more his Dad than him. They'd set up various fun fair type stalls like pulling matches from sand and hook a duck and charge a penny for the privilege! I can't remember what happened if you won. Probably a kick up the Arsenal!

Robin and me did everything together. You know what its like with bezzy mates. Besides driving round the streets on our bikes, we played 'kick the can' a lot in the road and as we approached our teens we went up town on a Saturday morning to the Top Rank disco, where we discovered, girls!

I then discovered Bruce Lee. I'd seen Enter the Dragon circa 1973 and I became obsessed. Robin just didn't get 'it' and when I joined a local Wing Chun club it was the final straw and we weren't mates after that. A shame really because the next few years were huge fun with all mates kicking the hell out of each other!

Our garden came into its own during the King Fu craze. It was a big oblong lawn with hedges round and flower beds. It was big enough for decent war games. We mixed things up between large scale western battles, using deckchairs as barricades and wooden rifles sporting gate-bolts and big Samurai skirmishes.

These skirmishes were something else. Armed with bamboo wooden 'swords' we'd attack a sleeping band of enemies, who always woke up in time to give us a decent fight! Proper skin contact was avoided but stick on stick fencing was what we were after, the longer the 'fence' the better! Fatal blows meant falling to the floor and counting to twenty before resuming the fray!

The real ronin action took place when we made Japanese bows and arrows. Somehow it all worked and we even had fancy arrowheads like true Samurai! In reality these where tennis balls so we could feel safe firing them at each other. To gain authenticity we also made armour out of carpet and string chicken wire for the the head and torso. I can still feel the thud of that tennis ball arrow as it hit my chest plate from the other side of the lawn. God, those were good times.

So as I got down to some grown-up gardening and made a veg bed today I threw a surviving shuriken against the shed like I did so long ago when I was 13!

Did you play outside as kids readers?

KYUDO: SAMURAI BOW AND ARROW

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behind the Scenes:

rain making

Director Mr. Blue inspects the hose.

He's happy. Are you?