Years ago when we were little and Britain only had one motorway (unimaginatively called the M1), we used to have to travel to Wales 'cross-country', and at the Hampshire/Berkshire end of the journey was a road somewhere round the back of Reading (I think?) which we used to use to get across to the old A4 'West Road', it was called Seven Bridges Road, or eleven...twelve maybe? Anyway - the bridges were all little culvert/stream types of the hump-backed variety. Our Father would announce our arrival at the start of the section and we would count-off the bridges as he drove over them a bit too fast, leading to squeals of delight from my Brother and I as our little bums (we were between 4/5 to about 7/8 during this period) left the seat, sometimes we would hit the roof of the car with our heads!
But the point of this anecdote it that in order to become airborne, you had to hold your arms out, as if they were anchored to the window or seat, the effect was greatly reduced, a lesson our little SA-men here seem to have learnt. Once you realise they are playing hump-backed bridges, you can't take them seriously! "Yetz Hans, schnell, schnell....Whoooooaaowh! Wieder Hans, wieder!
5 comments:
Weird the way they had loads of toys like thses..still, maybe not a lot different to the subtle Propaganda of barbie´s (not Klaus)and Action men.
I remeber a particually nasty humped backed Bridge near arborfield....once, taken at Speed it almost took out the car i was travelling in. Pretty terrifying...The resulting skid marks were really big..and the car tyres left some quite Long ones as well:-D
Hugh, those are fascinating figures - a really neat category of collecting. And quite unlike the Bauernnmalerei dollhouse stuff I got in Good Ol' Deutschland
Hi Paul - Probably the same road! It was somewhere round there, I can't remember where the road was now and whilst I've driven them myself as an adult, all those old hump-backs have been flattened-out or replaced with concrete culverts, so the road is all but history.
Also I can't remember if we used to go Arborfield/Wokingham, Stratfield Saye/Swallowfield or Mortimer/Thatcham to get to the A4 in those days? All replaced by the M3/M4 corridors or the Swallowfield bypass now!
Hi Ed - well, I think the table might be doll's stuff? I remember a shop in the Europa Centre down at the 'Zoo', which was stuffed with wooden craft-ware and there are some very different styles.
When I find somewhere to live (read; when I find a job that pays rental amounts of money!!) and get my stuff out of storage I have some wonderful bears that are unpainted and carved in the style of the big 4-6 foot ones you get as hat-stands in old Barvarische pubs, but tiny (HO/OO) and the carving is scaled down with - obviously - a very sharp blade making tiny little nicks.
Another unpainted style I like which needs a sharp blade are the trees where they curl the 'waste' down the trunk to make the branches, they use very soft but fine-grained pine-wood.
Then there's the stained cookou-clocks and nativities, the big glossy nut-crackers...I have a soft spot for wooden toys, timeless, even with Swastika armbands!!
H
It's really nice that each of the men can take a turn at driving - I like that. Very fair. Tony
Do you think that's it? They're not playing hump-backed bridges...they're playing brumm-brumms!!!
H
Post a Comment