Monday, September 11, 2006

Other toy cars

When I was very young, four or five, I had a whole heap of battered old toy cars that for some reason were kept in an old white vinyl shopping bag which probably looked stylish when my mum carried it around town in the mid sixties.
Among said vehicles were a tin-plate American-style police car about eight inches long, no doubt full of sharp edges, a blue-and-cream Dinky or Corgi ice-cream van with sliding side windows, a tiny Batmobile complete with plastic Batman and Robin, a little electrician's van, and probably about a dozen others. The only ones from that bag that I remember ever being new were a green Tonka beach buggy - like all Tonka toys, so tough you couldn't possibly break it - and a silver-grey American-style car with a neat convertible roof that flipped over into the boot when you turned the door handle.
Most of the battered old cars were undoubtedly quite old already when I had them - it never occured to my to wonder where they came from, but it's quite likely that they once belonged to Malcolm and Jeremy Dunlop, the older boys across the road. From me, they were passed on to Neil Brison, who no doubt battered them even more.... though he went on to work for Jaguar so perhaps I was instrumental in that. Or not.

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