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BOY BUS CONDUCTOR

I'm pretty sure I had a bus conductor set as a kid.

A cap maybe, perhaps a badge.

What I can see see in my mind's eye is a dull grey tin ticket machine that had a roll of tickets - maybe? - inside and a shoulder strap.

You could pull a ticket out and punch it at the side of the unit, two small holes that were hugely satisfying.

This old Berwick Toys set I saw looks familiar. Did you have one?

You can see more old conductor sets on Transtar http://www.transtar-promotions.co.uk/geoff-and-linda-price-guinness-world-record-model-bus-collection/children-s-bus-conductor-sets-1930-s-to-1960-s/

ED'S TOY HOUSE MOON TEAM

Woodsy,

Many Thanx to your eagle eyes for spotting this terrific little set on fleaBay! As it turned out I was the only bidder and it got here a couple of days ago - complete with lipstick rocket ship. After looking at the Apollo rocket I'm almost convinced the toy company took the casting from a girl's play lipstick and repurposed it into a rocket! It's a nice footnote to the world of small space toys.

Cheers
Ed

Toys n Stuff Blog

USA

Gimme Back My Pellets

 When I was a kid in the Sixties the idea that normal people had guns was something I could never imagine.

Guns were the strange weapons that secret agents whipped out or cowboys spun round and blew. They were on the telly. Britain was a gunless place really.

OK we had toy guns. In fact our house was full of them. Water pistols. Cap guns. Cowboy guns. Plastic rifles. Sekidens and those pellets. Secret Sam and my beloved Johnny Seven. My brothers and I waged war on each other with all these toys!

But again they were all fictional. Toys. They weren't real.

So to were the guns in British rock music as I became a teen. Bowie sang about ray guns and Free about love guns but I never imagined that these artists had guns at home.

That changed when I discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd in the early Seventies. Suddenly entire songs were about real guns and bullets. Saturday Night Special. Gimme Back My Bullets. Gimme Three Steps. All bristling with pistols. These guys sounded like they had guns at home!

At the time my rocker tendencies tuned into Skynyrd's riffs and solo's and their messages of being free as a bird and a simple man and its only later that the whole gun thing dawned on me. These guys were rockers with guns and even more confusing for a teen flower person they appeared to be violent hippies!

I saw Skynyrd live at Lancaster Uni sometime in the early 70's. Ronnie Van Zant bare footed and all. The spat between them and Neil Young amused me and like Skynyrd's guns, any more sinister meaning went over my head.

A couple of years later half of Skynyrd were dead. Victims of a plane crash. I cried as did my best mate Pete.

50 years later I miss everything about my childhood and youth. I still listen to Skynyrd and even now feel odd about their guns.

Gimme a Sekiden with a box of silver pellets and I could rock and roll.

HOT WHEELS MILLENNIUM FALCON CONCEPT SHIP

Woodsy
Have you seen this Hot Wheels Starship they did of the concept for the Millennium Falcon?

Reportedly, Lucas didn't use it as it looked too similar to the Eagle from Space 1999!

Dave

http://littlewarriors-indy.blogspot.com/

SPACEX THUNDERBIRDS TV OPENING

Hi Woodsy
Have you seen this clip, which I have just spotted on You Tube ? 

It is basically the opening credits from the 1960s Thunderbirds, but done with shots of real SpaceX spacecraft and people, rather than the original Thunderbirds craft and puppets. Nicely done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiD8nGD0Q6w

What do you think readers?

HERE I LAY DREAMING LOOKING AT THE BRILLIANT SUN

I've been listening to Elliott Smith's album XO since it first came out in 1998. I bought it as a CD on Amazon in the days when folks bought CD's.

I've always adored XO. I used to play it most on the stereo in the kitchen diner we have, as I wrapped items for Ebay buyers during the winters of the new Millennium, along with other albums from indie artists and from my new musical love at the time, Grunge.

XO was and is a sparkling thing, like a glass herald walking in and starting to sing jewels. I was and still am entranced by the lush folds and beautiful layering that Elliott created as the century closed. Every song is special, sweet, unusual and mesmerising, like when you first heard Lionheart by Kate Bush 20 years earlier or the Beatle's White Album 10 years before that. Fresh, haunting, meaningful.

Listening again to it now in a format Elliott could never have experienced, on my laptop via You Tube with earphones, I'm taken back to those winter nights when I'd play XO, Natalie Marchant's Ophelia, Embrace's The Good Will Out and Pearl Jam's Ten one after the other, as I folded brown paper and bit sellotape into pieces and stuck them on the chair spindle. I was in my early Forties and really enjoyed my music again like I had in the early Seventies. XO holds a special place in that memory.

Five years after I bought XO Elliott Smith was dead. He died of stab wounds in his LA home in 2003 aged just 34. Somewhere I hope he lies dreaming looking at the brilliant sun he sung about.

You can listen to XO on You Tube if you want to too. 

LOFT PROPERTY: COLLECTABLE TOYS AND VALUES MAGAZINES

Do you have problems finding stuff at home?

I do. I've been in the attic twice this week to look for two things, a box of vintage toy magazines and a spare C21 Tank turret. Can I find them? Can I chuff!

The magazines are a large set of the old fab American magazine Collectable Toys and Values, some of which I've never even read.

However there's one I remember reading all the time. It was one of the first vintage toy magazines I ever bought, the brilliant Batman issue.

I'll let you know when I find it but in the meantime here's the cover. Is this a magazine you've read?