5 Toys I Wanted As A Kid - 1960s Edition

Nothing Changes...Kids Are Suckers For Toy Advertising

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Dear Santa...

Growing up in 1960s Scotland was a somewhat door experience. They used to say that whatever decade England was in, Scotland was 10 years behind that, and - looking back - it certainly felt like a black & white 1950s world to me.

I'm not moaning about it, I had a wonderful - somewhat idyllic - childhood and I was spoilt rotten by lovely parents whose only flaw was that they tried hard to get me 'edifying' toys! LOL

However, there were windows into our wildest toy fantasies, and these were our comic books and Television... But as it turned out, this was very much a double edged sword... (Especially for out poor parents!)

5. Buyer Beware! The Comic Book Advert Scams

In the 1960s my favourite comic books were 'Casper The Friendly Ghost' and 'Sad Sack', but aside from the stories themselves I was obsessed with the exciting looking adverts they had in the back pages.

There were all sorts of toy ads that were guaranteed to get the young lad excited enough to send off their pocket money saving in the hope for a toy with matched the colourful advertising. After all, they were in our favourite trusted comic books, they must be terrific! (Foreboding.)

For me, the ones which were particularly desirable were the promise of huge plastic soldier armies. There was the American War of Independence set, the American Civil War set and - my favourite - the 100 'foot locker' set!

All these years later - when I saw what these play sets actually comprised of - I guess I thought myself lucky that I was never able to send away for any of them. I can only imagine how disappointed any kid would have been when this crap landed on their door step. 😟

Still, it could have been worse, check out some of these other period comic book scams...

4. Britains Army Land Rover

As a youngster I had a pretty decently sized fleet of Matchbox, Dinkey and Corgi military vehicles. All of these companies - luckily - managed to keep *most* of their toys reasonably affordable (with one exception, which I will discuss later) and so whichever vehicle I desired I was lucky enough to own... Bar one!

All of the aforementioned diecast metal vehicles came in - approximately - 1/72 to 1/56 scale (I believe) and this is part of what kept the price down. If you wanted anything bigger to most affordable option was the 1/32nd scale Airfix plastic vehicles, but even these were a bit pricey. But king of the posh kids army vehicles was undoubtedly the Britains Army Land Rover!

Britains military toys were accepted as THE cream de la cream - even their toy soldiers, painted as they were and with metal bases , were things of beauty (their WW2 German and US Army sets were masterpieces).

I drooled over the toy Land Rover through the glass of our local toy shop, but it was entirely unobtainable at the price it went for at the time. I'm not sure what it was about it, but as a kid I found the machinegun mounted jeep a hugely exciting thing. It would have been the centrepiece to my collection of cheaper Airfix 1/32 toy soldier army.

Perhaps it was this unobtainability that made it all the more desirable, but boy was it a damned cool toy. But, in my own funny way, I kept my eye firmly on this Land Rover and - secretly - my ambitions were a lot bigger - the amazing Britains 155mm gun. But even as I kid I knew this even more expensive toy was defiantly out of my reach, so the Land Rover somehow seemed distantly obtainable (spoiler - it never was)!

3. Daisy 'Red Ryder' BB Gun

One of the biggest differences between being a kid growing up in the UK as compared to a kid growing up in the USA was -perhaps - the reasonable expectation to have early access to a gun! 😂

Culturally, natural expectation are wholly different in Blighty and even in the areas of the UK that are more tolerant of gun ownership ('the countryside') children's access to any kind of gun is very much viewed as something determined by age and assessment of their level of responsibility. Sucks to be me eh? I was never culturally in the right traditional vocational group and I was certainly never 'responsible' (I was, in fact, a twat).

So - in actually - I got what I deserved... No gun.

Now, of course, I am not talking about a firearm, I'm talking about a 'BB' gun - an air gun - which might seem a more reasonable wish, but certainly not at as a pre-teen. Unfortunately, thanks to those darn American comics again, I was seeing that American parents had a slightly different view on the subject, which I found *very* frustrating!

Being too young to understand 'cultural differences' all I could see was the injustice of it all. As it turned out, I eventually got a gun. It wasn't the Daisy Red Ryder, it was the good old British GAT (Americans should close their eyes now, lest they bleed), I was in my teens and my equally irresponsible 😉 big brother bought me it for Christmas! 😁

2. Action Man Ferret Armoured Car 

In my small circle of childhood friends prestige was gauged by how many Action Men and accessories that you owned! 😆

I only ever owned one Action Man, so I was most defiantly at the bottom of the pecking order. So my boyhood dreams were all about climbing that pecking order by having the very best Action Man accoutrement available at that time... The Action Man Ferret Armoured Car.

None of my friends had the armoured car and so with it - I thought - I would impress my friends and be a central guiding player when we all got our small 1/6th scale army together (better than that flashy show-off 'M' - I won't name him but he knows who he is - and his four Action Men and his extensive wardrobe of outfits)! Kids eh! LOL

Above: One outfit I am glad to say that I did own
was the Highland Regiment uniform! (Dress parades
only for this one. LOL)

1. Johnny Seven 'O.M.A.' Gun

Unquestionably, the single toy that any boy growing up in the 1960s coveted - thanks to our goggle-eye obsession with TV - was the legendary Jonny Seven Gun.

This toy had an almost mythical status among lads of my age at the time as no-one had actually ever seen one 'in the wild'. There were whispered rumours of a 'friend's friends cousin' owning one, but these fanciful claims were met in the school yard with the correct amount of derision that they deserved.

It was not until I was well into my adulthood and the advent of YouTube that I was able to see a 'review' of the creature. And I'm glad to say that - unlike many of the toys marketed to kids in the 1960s - the Johnny Seven exceeded my expectations. 

And that is my 'wish list' for me as a kid in the 1960s.