As Christmas races towards us (yet again) at breakneck speed I thought it would be a good time to wallow in the nostalgic glow of some of the presents we received as kids back in the day. A big part of most kids Christmases in the 1960’s – 1970’s were the stocking fillers. In general these were low priced toys that were fun additions to the main present. Some of my favourites "fillers" from a time long gone are noted below:
Letraset Action Transfers were an extremely popular activity toy from the 1960s to the mid 1980s. They consisted of a printed gatefold cardboard background image and a transparent sheet of coloured dry transfers that featured figures of people, animals, vehicles, sound effects (explosions), weapons etc that you could apply to the background image in order to make your own action scenes. I still remember seeing my first set (Space Adventure) on a visit to the Lewis’s department store in Glasgow in 1966 (photo below). The above picture is the 1969 advert for Action Transfers (by Frank Bellamy) that appeared in comics like TV21 (issue 242) and SMASH etc.
Above: the Space Adventures transfer sheet.
Above: the Space Adventures cardboard background where you would add your transfer to create your own adventure.
Above: The "legendary" Lewis's department store in Glasgow from circa 1966.
Airfix M00/00 scale figures were a staple toy for kids in the 1960’s- 1970’s and they were one of my all time favourite toys as a child. Airfix produced hundreds of these sets (and still do) including Astronauts, cowboys, (Native American) Indians, Knights, WW1 and WW2 soldiers, Napoleonic figures, farmstock, civilians etc. Each box contained a set of carefully detailed and moulded characters in various poses that were attached to a thin plastic rod which you would simply twist to detach the figure. I had many of these sets but my favourites were the Foreign Legion (below) which my brother bought for me for Christmas 1967 and the Roman soldier and Scots Highlanders (sadly, I can't find a picture of these) which I also recieved as a Christmas present at this time.
Above images all taken from Ebay
Good Luck Trolls, sometimes called Gonk trolls in the UK were a worldwide phenomenon in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Originally produced by the "DAM Things" company (named after their creator Danish woodcutter Thomas Dam) these little characters were made in sizes ranging from just two-and-a-half inches tall up to 10 inches, with squat bodies and inset, brightly coloured hair that stood on end. Trolls were a big hit with both young boys and girls (of all ages) in the 1960’s and were another regular stocking filler. These fun characters had a revival a few years ago following the success of the DreamWorks “Trolls” animated movies, just proving that you can’t keep a good toy of the imagination down. Early 1960’s Trolls (with glass eyes and Icelandic sheep wool for hair) can cost upwards of £50. One of the most popualr "Trolls" was the pencil topper which seemed to be everywhare in the late 1960's to early 1970's.
Small puzzles were another of those toys that seemed to appear in my Christmas stocking. The most popular of these small puzzle toys was probably sliding number/ letter puzzle set.
As I swapped, gave away or threw out all my Action transfers, puzzles , Trolls and Airfix figures loooong ago all the above images are taken from the internet.
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