In the 1960s I used to have a Noddy wooden egg cup which I loved and often wondered what had happened to it. A while ago I asked my Mum and Dad if they still had him but despite a thorough search he was no where to be found. They did however find these other two wooden egg cups from the same time made by Fairylite which I also remember well. I’m not sure if they were based on characters, but although one is a bit battered they are both very nostalgic for me.
Fairylite Vintage Wooden Egg Cups
Coincidentally a few months after me bringing these two egg cups home I was at a car boot sale and found the Fairylite Noddy egg cup for £1.
Noddy Fairylite Eggcup
I have been doing some research on the Fairylite company and have found they started around the 1930s producing metal and plastic toys in England. They then seemed to have progressed to importing many of their toys from places like Hong Kong including dolls and dolls houses. By the 1960s they were producing Fairylite Thunderbird dolls which are very sort after today. They seemed to have produced many different egg cup designs in the 1950s and 60s, so many I am amazed I don’t find more when I am out and about. I shall definitely be keeping my eyes open in the future, poor Noddy needs to be reunited with Big Ears!
When I was little my sister had a lovely dolls house our Dad made for her. It had electric lights, a little bathroom, a kitchen and even a little toy 1960s television in the living room. We would play with it for hours. I remember when I was 10 years old and in the top class of primary school, two of us would have to go to the kindergarten class to look after the little ones on our own when it was wet play. (Yes really!). It was such fun we did what we wanted. I would spend the whole hour sitting down on the rugs with the little girls playing with the dolls house. It was enormous and such fun, they hardly got a look in! Our dolls house is long gone sadly, though I have some bits of furniture given to my daughters to play with when they were little.
I have been looking for a replacement for a long time without success until I found this one at an auction. We went to pick it up today and I couldn't be more pleased.
1950s Dolls House
I had bought it to do it up and then sell it on but now I have got it home it is so lovely I'm not sure I want to. All the metal windows and door are intact with a little number 9 next to the front door.
Inside Of 1950s Dolls House The original 1950s heavy embossed wallpaper is still on the walls in perfect condition. The floor has a covering that has been made to look like 1950s lino. When you look through the front door you just want to walk up the stairs. I feel as if I have moved house as I keep thinking where I could put the furniture. This evening I feel like a child again!
Dougal was always our favourite character. He was a little dog who appeared to float along and always seemed to have a put down for every occasion. We called our little Yorkshire Terrier puppy after him in 1971, although the original Dougal in the TV programme was based on a Skye Terrier. The other characters were Zebedee the jack in a box, Brian the snail, Ermintrude the cow and Dylan the rabbit named after Bob Dylan, The two human characters were Florence the little girl and Mr Rusty the operator of the roundabout. I remember one of the first black and white episodes of The Magic Roundabout when Florence met Zebedee and went through to the magic garden which seemed like such a magical concept to me. I remember the children on the roundabout in those first few episodes took a bit more of an active part! They certainly didn't as the episodes progressed. Apparently though their names were Basil, Paul and Rosalie. I found this Magic Roundabout mug at a car boot sale dated 1967 showing how popular it was at the time.
1960s Magic Roundabout Mug
For everyone who feels as nostalgic as I do about The Magic Roundabout I have added three episodes from the programme below that I found on YouTube. The first is an early black and white charming French version when Florence went into the magic garden for the first time. I remember the English version of this so well. The second is an early episode called The Rocking Chair and the third is a later colour episode from 1970.
I never wanted to be a Brownie when I was a child, I didn't really fancy going somewhere else after school that was regimented and I thought would be strict. The one thing I did really envy about Brownies though was their uniforms. They always looked so smart and the badges appealed so much to the collector in me. I found this photo at a car boot sale of three little 1960s Brownies. They look so sweet.
1960s Brownies
The closest I ever got to a Brownie uniform was dressing my Amanda Jane doll in her little uniform and pretending she was at Brownies. While I was at a car boot sale last year I bought this Burbank doll in a Brownie Uniform from the 1960s. After all these years I still think the she looks very smart.
One make of books that takes me back to childhood almost more than any other are Ladybird books. I still have so many, some from when I was a child, but many have been given to me over the years by friends whose children have grown up, for my children when they were younger. Even though the stories are very dated now, my children loved them and I had such pleasure reading them again.
Ladybird Books From The 1960s
One of my favourites was Mick The Disobedient Puppy who was a little poodle puppy always getting in to scrapes. However he managed to save his family from a fire and all was forgiven, he was the hero of the day. I loved this story as we had a little poodle too,
Ladybird Book Mick The Disobedient Puppy When I was at a jumble sale I discovered another Ladybird book from my childhood. It was in lovely condition and I couldn't resist buying it. It was called Tiptoes The Mischievous Kitten.
Ladybird Book Tiptoes The Mischievous Kitten
Every little picture takes me back. It is a lovely little book telling the story of Mr Moffat who bought a kitten called Tiptoes as a present for his baby. Tiptoes is very naughty and Mrs Moffat is in despair. They discuss getting rid of her and she runs away only to return home a long time later a grown up and sensible cat with kittens of her own.
I entirely blame Mr Moffat for being so irresponsible to buy a kitten as a present for a baby! I'm sure everyone has a favourite Ladybird book and this is definitely mine!
In many of my baby photos in 1960 and 1961 a little black doll appears. It must have been quite a precious toy as it is in lots of photos. I have no recollection of it at all so it can't have survived very long but looking back I often wondered what it was. Recently whilst searching through ebay I came across one. It was called a Blinky Winky doll.
Me As A Baby With The Blinky Winky Doll
After a bit of searching I found out it had been the most popular toy to be made in Japan in 1960. Manufactured first as a baby's plaything, this little doll soon became a craze with teenagers and housewives. In thirty years of searching around every type of sale, I have never seen one which makes me think they were not that good quality and haven't survived. However they are not that uncommon or expensive on ebay so they are out there. I'm sure if I ever found one I would not be able to resist buying it.
A few months ago I went to a scouts jumble sale. I was very pleased to find this little Spears Tell Me game my sister and I used to play as young children. As I picked it up I told the two little boy scouts behind the counter that we had played this for hours and hours when we were young. They looked at this little box incredulously and smiled politely. Of course we didn't have the internet in those days I found myself saying apologetically as I paid my 20p.
1960s Spears Tell Me Game
1960s Spears Tell Me Game
I carried on down the table and picked up an old Dunlop wooden tennis racket in a wooden press. Again I felt very nostalgic as it was exactly the same as the one I had at school. As I put it down on the table, as if I hadn't been made to feel ancient enough, I heard one boy scout say "What is that, some sort of snow shoe?" "Oh no" replied the second scout "It's a tennis racket from the olden days." Oh dear.
I'm always looking out for old toys , or just any nice old item, that I can buy cheaply and restore. When I say restore it may not be everyone's idea of restoration as I like old things to look old. Probably fix up is a slightly better way of describing it, I still like the item to look as if it has been played with or used over the years.
When I was seven years old I had a toy farm. I remember it very clearly as I loved it so much. It had a base with farm buildings and I collected lots of farm animals with my pocket money. Most of these farm animals were made by the company Britains and it says a lot for the quality of them as not only did they survive me playing with them but my four children as well. Sadly the base of the farm was thrown out years ago but we still have a lot of the farm animals. Just waiting for a farm!
Yesterday at a car boot sale I spotted this farm for sale. It was only £1 which I thought was a brilliant price and perfect for a fixing up project. I think it is older than the 1960s farm I used to have but lovely and very well played with. You can almost see the little children over the years moving the farm animals around in it. I can't wait to start restoring it.
Vintage Toy Farm
On the subject of fixing up I set to last night with the Pelham puppet the Drunken Scotsman who I have found out is called MacBoozle (!) and started unknotting his strings. Forty five minutes of untangling and here he is almost as good as new. I am on the look out for a replacement tam o'shanter for him which he has lost. He has also lost his bottle of drink but maybe that is for the best!
My idea of a good morning out is when we go off searching for my retro bits and pieces. I do buy on ebay but not very often as it is much more expensive than car boot sales. You have to have perseverance at car boot sales but it's such fun standing at the entrance to a large field on a Sunday morning looking at cars in the distance never knowing what you may find. Even if I don't find anything nice, the thrill is in the search for me and I have found some wonderful treasures over the years.
My big love though is Jumble Sales. It's something about the wait outside and the doors opening and that feeling you have a limited time to find the bargains and in my case constantly trying not to be rude and pushy as it was drummed in to me as a child to always be polite! I've lost count of the amount of times I apologise when people push into me. The thing with Jumble Sales is £5 and you feel like a millionaire, who needs to be a lottery winner!
Local Jumble Sale
I can pinpoint the moment my love of jumble sales started. I was five years old at school and our teacher told us tomorrow there would be a Bring and Buy Sale that we could attend at the end of the day and we could look round before the parents came to pick us up. I had no idea what a Bring and Buy Sale was but it sounded exciting. The next day my Mum gave me a three penny bit to put in my little school purse and off I went. I can still remember how I felt as I looked around the tables of goods that day. I couldn't believe I could possibly afford any of these beautiful items with just threepence and was too scared to speak. One kindly Mum who was serving asked me if there was anything I liked and I chose a little bead purse. She asked me how much money I had and when I told her threepence she said that was just how much it was. I was overjoyed.
Women At A 1960s Jumble Sale
I can remember clearly skipping all the way home with my Mum regaling the wonders of Bring and Buy Sales to her. When I got home I ran upstairs to examine my wonderful purchase. Inside the purse there was a little zip pocket. I unzipped it and inside was a shiny sixpence. I couldn't believe it a beautiful purse and a profit as well. That was it, I was hooked and still am.
Strangely for me I haven't kept the little bead purse but I still have the school purse I took the three pence to school in.
In the 1960s I remember that dogs were all called names like Whisky, Brandy, Rex and even Rover. Non of the gender specific dog names of today. Dogs often wandered about all day and then returned home to their owners in the evening. I don't think dog wardens existed and the lack of traffic on the roads mean't that they were relatively safe to wander. Our little poodle Whisky however was far to precious to us to allow her to wander about. She was the original pampered pooch.
In the 1960s poodles were everywhere! There were poodle ornaments, poodle china, poodle toys, plastic poodles and even poodle headscarves. All clipped in different cuts, there was a poodle parlours in every town. Whisky was as pretty as a poodle could possibly be with her little "lion cut". I was so proud as a child walking her about. She would go on all our holidays with us at a time when dogs were allowed to go in so many more places than now. Every holiday snap has her little face looking up at the camera. I took this photo with a little Box Brownie camera that used to belong to my Mum. We were on holiday in Devon at the time, obviously with not a single car on the road.
Whisky The 1960s Poodle
Now all these years later I can't help but stop and talk to poodle owners when I'm out and about. These days pedigree poodles are not nearly as common as they were, they all seem to be poodle crosses ending in oodle or poo. I'd love another poodle one day but in the meantime I make do with poodle collectables from the 1960s. I bought this poodle print in the local charity saleroom. It reminded me so much of Whisky.
I couldn't resist this kitsch poodle ornament I found at a car boot sale. Any poodle lover out there would just love to own this!
