C is for Corgi Civil-Response

When you ring 999 in the UK the nice lady or gent on the other end of the line always says "Do you want the Police, Fire or Ambulance service caller?", so we will look at them in that order...

We've looked at the police several times in recent months - well; going back a year or more (where the hell does it go?!), and the mounted one was in the first Corgi post the other day, The other two - badly sculpted - propylene pairs came with a late Corgi Juniors play set toward the end of Corgi 'proper', there was a third pair in day-glo orange (fire personnel?).

The day-glo traffic cop at the rear came with several vehicles as my brother kept getting him and his set of traffic-cones and folding road signs in a plastic crate - Range Rover, Ford Transit van...and others? He is also designed to match the ambulance crew from the same era (late 1970's-early '80's) shown below.

The firemen came with the superb Corgi No.1143 American La France Aerial Rescue Truck, one of their best sellers despite also being one of the pricier "...wait 'till Christmas..." items in the catalogue!

The US cop is perhaps a Noo Yoiker with that hat, or LAPD? and in the flanking shots both he and a medic type are on the mystery card we will look at again...

A round-up of the stretcher cases and bearers from Corgi over the years. I could spend a while trying to make sense of them but won't for several reasons. Firstly the websites I visited in researching the figures don't always seem to get it right themselves being more interested in the vehicles as stand-alone playthings or mint-boxed investments. Secondly some of these seem to be interchangeable with late Dinky (who were bought by Mettoy) toys, thirdly; I will post a vague list at the end of these Corgi posts; some of the contents were subject to change and finally; some of the items came with more than one vehicle or in more than one set.

The carded example is giving a clue if you know UK domestic brand trade-marks! Note also the scale-down top-right.

The late sets all went with this day-glow set-up, all part of the craze for motorway emergency vehicles as the M3 and M4 started to open up the nation to visiting other bits of itself with a little more ease!

Some being moulded in orange-red vinyl, sometimes painted, the green one is a softer synthetic rubber and is probably another Hong Kong copy. Again there was a smaller-scaled version.