HM Armed Forces are here! Move over Action Man.....

[NARSES2]

I was the pre Action Man generation, and I always found the idea of "boys dolls" a little odd  We played "war" with lumps of wood shaped to look like guns unless you were really lucky and dad had brought home a souvenir from the war 

At family do's I'm often reminded of one of my older relatives referring to my Action Man as a doll once.  I was aghast & assured them that it could not in any way or form be a doll, because what would I, as boy, be doing with it???

Toy guns knocked out rougly carved wood!  Really crap bows & arrows made from sting & a bent stick, that your mate would swear blind he once shot a rabbit with!  Boats roughly hewn out of a bit of 2x4, with nails sticking out of the turrets for guns!  I was born in the era when toys were starting to get quite sophisticated, but you still couldn't beat a chunk of wood or cardboard!

One of my memories was when they were doing building work on the estate and me and my mates wre in a "Knights in Armour" phase (probably the origional Robin Hood or William Tell inspired us) so we used dustbin lids for shield and made maces from bit's of 2" by 1" with a ball of clay (mud) on the end into which we stuck 6" nails liberated from said site - how we never damaged ourselves is beyond me 

The estate also had communal dustbins. 6 foot circular tall things on wheels with a lid that had a smaller lid (cupola) set in the top. Made a great tank when pushed by a group of your mates, could even be used as a charriot if we were playing Romans - mum got a tad anoyed with the smell though 

And Thomas your'e a Dane so I thought lego was compulsory  Again I'm a little to old to have had lego as a kid 

[Mossie]

Lego was another staple when I was a kid, one of several things that got me modeling, I liked to make things.  Mecano was good, but a little more fiddly & you could build elaborate stuff much more quickly with Lego.  So was chunks of wood & nails, although me & my mates always tried to build go-carts, but the wheels would fall off because our mechanical knowledge was sorely lacking!

I think I was spoiled for choice as a kid, video games & sophisticated toys like Transformers & electronic toys were just kicking off, action figures were well established & a lot of the more traditional toys were still around, as well as the ones we made ourselves.  Also the film & TV tie-in thing was really getting going to, Star Wars especially (although I wasn't allowed those, always told it was because they were 'fragile', read expensive!), as well as Masters of the Universe & others.

[lancer]

Actually saw some of these new Armed forces 'action figures' in Asda this afternoon. The uniforms and equipment are pretty much spot on, but they still can't hold a candle to good old Action Man!!! I saw an RN diver RAF Falcons para team member and a morterman complete with 81mm morter and DPM desert cammo It also had a nicely moulded assult vest too. Still a dyed-in -the -wool Action man fan though!!

[Mossie]

Did anyone elses Mum use to knit or sew new outfits for their Action Man? My Mum used to get a sewing magazine of some kind (Super Stitch rings a bell) & got the idea from there I think. 

[Nick]

My Gran used to knit clothes for my Action Men. She bought the patterns from a local sewing shop. I think I had the only cricket playing Action Men ever.....

Was good when she did the Mountaineer and Ski gear cos then I could pretend they were Norwegian Resistance fighters going to blow up the power plant under the stairs. Mum wasn't impressed when the power went out while Sunday dinner was cooking!

[NARSES2]

although me & my mates always tried to build go-carts, but the wheels would fall off because our mechanical knowledge was sorely lacking!

Ah I've some stories about go-karts  Best one's had pram wheels from those big expensive "Princess" style prams of the 50's. My mates mum was a little miffed though when she came out to see if his baby sister was ok and found the pram containing said sister proped up on bricks - and know I wasn't living in Liverpool at the time 

The good old days - you could leave babies outside in their prams to get the air with no problems (apart from someone nicking the wheels) and there were so few cars on the estate that if a game of football/cricket got stopped more then once a day by a car we got the right hump 

[lancer]

Ahh go-carts...  such fond memories, as well as more than a few scrapes and bumps from when the brakes failed or fell off. Then it was a case of hold on and pray you didn't hit something too hard!

[Mossie]

It was kind of lucky that I rarely managed to build one, I would have half killed myself.  Me & my mates were just crap!  My Dad was always fishing if he wasn't on shift, my mates Dad had been thrown out by his Mum for messing about with a girl half his age & the other lads came to visit from nearby villages so we never had anyone to help.  We'd raid the wheels from the nearest council dump but we'd be lucky if we ever found four good matching ones.  I think the only time we actually managed to get anywhere near complete, one wheel was bigger than the rest!

Brakes!  What were those???    Like I say, good job we never built a proper one!

[BlackOps]

I still have an occasional adventure or two with my Action Man and Gi-Joe figures.



You can never have enough cool toys! Don't even get me started on how many Legos I own!

[SebastianP]

I can kind of remember owning an Action Man figure or more likely one of the various ripoffs, but mostly me and my brother went with the 3 1/2 inch GI Joes, Legos and Transformers. If there had been better availability of Action Man stuff at the time, I think it might have been a bigger hit with us, seeing as mom was pretty good at sewing clothes for dolls etc (she *did* make sleeping bags for some of the 3 1/2 inch figures, for example, as well as some really neat parachutes and stuff). If I was a kid today, with the same mom and the same interests, I'd most likely have an army of full size Joes and Dragon figures, with custom uniforms etc. :-)

SP

[Nick]

Is that a Yeti in the background?

[jcf]

The 12" Action Man of the 1960s was the UK licensed version of Hasbro's G I Joe, the original 'boy's doll'.

[BlackOps]

Is that a Yeti in the background?

The Yeti helps to keep the Action in Action Man 

[jcf]

One of my memories was when they were doing building work on the estate and me and my mates wre in a "Knights in Armour" phase (probably the origional Robin Hood or ...

Would that be Fairbanks or Flynn, or perhaps the 1912 version ? 

[Mossie]

No, he means the original-original, Chris was there in Sherwood Forest!