Bygones: Every farthing saved for prized die-cast toy lorries
ALAN Fixter got in touch after reading Jeff Beedham's article on local toy shops.
Alan said: "I enjoyed Jeff's article. Out of my pocket money, which was collected from my mother, father, granny and anyone I did errands for, I would save every farthing (four farthings making one old penny, and six pennies, a tanner, or 6d made sixpence or 5p in today's money).
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Wheely good: A range of Budgie die-cast model toys.
"There were no sweets or ice cream for me as I would just go without and think of the die-cast lorry I would buy instead.
"The toy shops would only stock a limited range, but a lot of the cycle shops and newsagents would have models.
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"I remember Bradley's, in Yarborough Road, would have a "Christmas club" and after a deposit was placed on an expensive Dinky lorry a payment card was issued, so I could make regular payments and be able to say 'another seven weeks and it's mine' (as the shop would only have that single one in stock).
"One day, when I was nine or ten years old, I saw in a shop window, in Chantry Lane, one of the Budgie toy Leyland octopus bulk flour tankers shown in the brochure illustrated.
"So, after working out how I would take a hacksaw to it to convert it to a flat 'artic' like my dad drove, I went in and asked the old lady inside (she was 28 if she was a day) to take my deposit and save the rare Leyland for me, but she refused and said: "It will be there when you have saved up," so every week I checked the window.
"Finally, when I had enough money I ran all the way to the shop to find it had been sold! So I came home with the only other Budgie toy lorry they had (a Bedford TK glass transporter) and I never did get one of the Leylands.
"By the way, the Budgie toys were not to a constant scale and the Leylands were only a small 1:76 like the Matchbox Mager series."
Comments
by Leveret2
Monday, April 29 2013, 2:00PM
“I remember running half a mile in those days, to buy an ice cream from the van I'd heard coming; and pulling the coin out of my pocket I was sure was a sixpence ... only to discover in fact that it was nothing more than a farthing!
The disappointment on seeing that little wren is etched in my memory :-)
Happy days, eh ?”