T is for Tresco's 'Triffic, Tube-operated Tepid-Tub Toys, or . . .

. . . S is for Suck-it-up You Suckers and Blow-off!

Brian Berke's name keeps cropping-up at the moment, but that's because he keeps sending me brilliant images and examples to work from. Today's is a case in point . . . he sent three images of his divers, and I wrote back saying I'd dig out what I have here to 'fill-out' the post (knowing I had a submarine), well, turned out one of my Hong Kong divers was different, and I had two slightly different 'subs', in addition I found a couple of old feeBay images in the archive, I wouldn't usually use, but as the story is told by the stuff already in the folder, I've added them for research purposes and completeness.

If you didn't get one of these from your parents - and I'm talking to anyone between the ages of nought and about seventy here, as they are still available - you probably have a case against 'mum and dad' for mental-cruelty, deprivation and abuse of position as parents in order to prevent you obtaining your full human right to an unencumbered childhood!

Brian's two divers; on the left a Hong Kong copy (both British - see comments), and on the right a Tresco original from the 1960's with its box to the left of them both. My memories of these were that you had to really blow to get him to rise, and really suck to get him to dive, the result being that you got itchy ears . . . and the odd mouthful of soapy-water!

Brian's Crescent 'berserker' giving us a sense of scale, they are about 75/80mm depending on the origin. Below is an evilBay image of the box I remember from the 1970's, we definitely had these as 'consolation' prizes at someone else's Birthday party.

Birthday parties were a win-win when I was a kid, you took an Airfix kit - he probably already had and was only going to ruin with too-much tube-glue and gloss bottle green paint - which your parents had paid for and you left with a bath toy, a Marx six-inch Indian, a balloon and a bag of sweets or a giant-lollypop . . . Bargain!

I have a Tresco (on the right) and a Hong Kong figure that has been upgraded from the traditional deep-sea diver, with a modern pressurised helmet and scuba tanks . . . if you have scuba tanks you don't need a line to the surface do you? Clearly that didn't occur to the sculptor!

There was also a Submarine, again originally made by Tresco, and much copied by HK makers, I have definitely seen this recently somewhere, I tried The Works but it wasn't there, I'm sure Google/eBay/Amazon will provide, if you have youngsters of your own and don't want to be sued!

If you got too much water in them, they would eventually split, as the weight was a ferrous lump of cast-iron and flaked to twice its size once the rust had got a hold. The other feeBay image shows the Tresco box. The original has finer-etched details, but is otherwise no different to the clones, as the clones were kept (and priced) with the pocket money novelties, it's easy to see where all our toy companies went . . . to the knackers' yard . . . or should that be Kowloon Knockers' yard!

Everybody had one of these . . . didn't they?

Thanks to Brian for all his help and contributions.