E is for Educational Supplies

I think most of us have a grail of some kind; I'm talking about that thing from childhood we've been looking for ever-since we last saw it, or possessed it; or something which we let go back at the start of our collecting; maybe a bargain someone snipped-us to with a longer or faster arm on a dealers table; those things which tick something bigger than a mere 'box'.

This could be considered mine, or one of mine, there are a couple of other things I'm still looking for, but it has been one, since before I was a collector, or, since we are talking my having deciding I was a collector in '77 (the sponsored silence story I've bored a few people with already!), maybe the thing that actually got me collecting, subconsciously, in the first place?

In point of fact; I don't think we've had the story here on the Blog, so at the risk of sounding repetitive to my mates, I'll tell you now; I 'knew' or realised or decided I was a collector while playing with my tin of soldiers during the hour's sponsored silence for the Queens Silver Jubilee at Heckfield Village Hall . . . Church Hall? At Heckfield Church's 'Village' Hall!

Yeah! All the parents getting together and shutting their kids up for an hour - in both senses of the word! Except for my mate Miles from Laundry Lane who got told-off for whispering three times, then got chucked out! How do you get chucked-out of a sponsored silence?!! He only had to keep it shut for 59-and-a-bit minutes . . . someone thinks Miles' is a newsreader now, on the flickering cod's eye, which would be rather apt!

But anyway back to '77 and the parentally-enforced, angelical silence of a hall full of children; we had all been told to bring something to keep us amused or occupied (in silence Miles; silence!) for the duration (an hour is very long at that age, especially when doing something enforced - I can still remember every minute of it), all the sensible kids took a book or a puzzle or some comics . . .  I took my tin of soldiers.

Now, this tin was an old army bulk-biss'quit tin - large, silver, square thing with a big round lid like a works coffee tin - full of small scale toy soldiers, and - in a silent (or near silent - Stop it Miles!) hall, every move of my hand produced a noise which seemed to eco round the rafters like a grenade going off!

As a result, I decided that rather than play with them (I was thirteen, and girls were watching!), I'd tip them out quickly in a single crescendo,  and then sort them into piles, as it was a while since I'd last had them out.

In the sorting I ended up with various piles, and realised (or decided) that it was looking like a collection, and decided to collect, an 'occupation' I got seriously started-with later that autumn, buying some old 1st version Airfix blue-boxes and a square-boxed Strongpoint at the Swap Shop in Saffron Walden, which I followed with six sets of Atlantic WWII from the Toto Lotto in Neuhausen ob Eck, the following January!

On the day, my piles consisted of Airfix, Hong Kong, Marx Miniature Masterpieces, some based AFV kit-figures and a few odds such as Minimodels cowboys & Indians and a small red polyethylene pick-up truck with white wheels, I'd nicked from primary school!

So we go back about another seven years;

Way back to when I was six or seven and attending Heckfield Village Primary School (Mrs. Nash's class), long since sold-off and converted to posh dwellings for the Tory-faithful under Thatcher, there was an old, round biss'quit tin full of little things which would have failed the modern tests of H&S inspectors.

Due not only to the 'choking hazzard' but that several of them were of a size where jamming up the nose or in an ear was an equal possibility! However, there they were and they provided hours of time-wasting for moi, as you could hide behind the low-bookcases and play quietly with them until going-home time!

I have to confess I once stole, filched, pocketed, palmed the aforementioned little pick-up truck, (which I now seem to have misplaced but I know it's somewhere in the stash), however I was always looking for the rest, remembering them as 'something to have' for 'the collection'.

And earlier this year I spotted them on feebleBay, on a buy it now, lost them - even as I was eMailing Bill from Moonbase about them - only to find the next day that they'd been relisted at a reduced BIN, which I promptly coughed-for . . . this is them!

As they arrived; I think the croquet mallet is a Christmas cracker or gumball-machine, capsule-prize, I don't remember them in the tin, but then I'd forgotten most of these, especially the racing cars, which I have been collecting separately for years!

I had in fact seen them several times but not put two-and-two together, while I've always remembered the tin and the delight I got from its contents, apart from the fact that there might have been some horse racers, and that there were other vehicles besides the pick-up (which remained familiar due to its being around!), I couldn't remember what the figures looked like; for years I thought they may have been the same as the Hong Kong Kibri/Leyla copies I had in that other tin (the sponsored silence was years after I'd left 'primary'), but the truth was, there were no figures to speak-of, apart from the race-horses which were the only accurate part of the memory . . . and explains why the six-year old me didn't filch a bunch of people to go with the pick-up!

So, animals first and we might as well go clockwise; elephants; little lambs (which look like horses, except the accompanying horses look more like horses! Cats, which are standard capsule-prize fare with a charm-loop; Scottie-dogs - ditto, but lacking the loop; the horses themselves; these would later get small charm 'bars' down their backs and finally; the pigs, one of which - in orange - we have seen here as a Question Mark, you may remember me highlighting the truncated trotters.

Clearly these are also capsule toys, they are also Christmas cracker novelty-inserts, they were probably thrown from windows at kids in the streets of Malta on hi-days, holidays and Holy days , they may have ended-up in Piñata or Sobres, but bulk, as here, they were supplied to the old Local Education Authorities (LEA's), or county-council stores (?) to issue to primary schools as teaching aids - sorting and counting probably . . . not that I remember doing anything more than fiddle with them in a more aimless fashion . . . maybe I was indulging in a subtle self-exercise of hand/eye coordination!

None of these have any mark beyond the odd mould-release, pin-disc remnant. Both the cats and dogs are quite common as designs with many similar ones out there.

These have definitely also been supplied to board-games, in which capacity we saw them on the old Other Collectables Blog, now merged with and hidden somewhere on this site! But new colours have extended the number of team possibilities in the project mused-on last time we looked at them.

I had half-remembered the mounted jockeys and again I suspect they may have been supplied to games companies in the past, but as - these - learning-tools, they - like the racing cars - come in a wider palate of colours.

The rabbit is actually a hare, and he's an old design, I have a polystyrene one from a probably earlier tranche of these, and a phenolic or cellulose/celluloid one clearly carrying a stop-watch, who must be the Mad March Hare, late for his very-important-date and possibly from an early (when did the book or movie come out? 1940's/50's?) board game, so this mould might have been inherited by whoever was behind all these.

I had already picked up a few of these over the decades, but due to the fact that this was one of several bags of capsule/board-game riders, they hadn't triggered a memory by themselves, most of the ones I've picked up in the past will be board-game rather than school lot, looking at the colours?

Transport; The little 'Lake Geneva' pleasure-boat was Bill's 'pick-up truck' memory, he could remember err . . . 'liberating' a yellow one from his primary school, and he's North of the Watford Gap, so it was clearly a common item in the late-1960 to early/mid-1970's inventories of LEA's all over?

The London taxi-cab is another which has seen service as a capsule-toy, and I have a clear-plastic one somewhere with a charm-loop. The Pick-up truck went with the five in the bottom left shot, but I've also managed to get some green ones from Adrian Little a year or two ago and another lot this autumn, so they are below now - this shot was the better ones in the June/July bulk 'school lot' this year

Back in 2015 I took these from an evilBay auction, I had bookmarked it intending to bid, but things intervened as they do and it slipped-by! I recognised the pick-up truck (it's like mine), so knew that at least the vehicles were 'right', but as the seller had two Wacky Races cereal premiums and several Crescent-for-Kellogg's Guards Band premiums in the lot as well, I still didn't make the connection with the other items!

This is how I remember the vehicles in our lot at Heckfield; all red with white wheels, and I don't remember our having had Land Rovers, if we had I would have stolen all of them! No! I would have had one instead of the pick-up!

But if I was nicking, and Bill was nicking, chances are everyone was helping themselves to their 'favourite' and with all the farmer's sons who attended Heckfield back then, the Land Rover's had probably been liberated several terms, or even years before I got my tiny little infant's hands on the tin!

Note the darker-blue for boats and taxis.

These were also part of the lot, again we have new colours; a herd of swine in the same orange as the one which we saw before (From Chris Smith I think?), a flesh-coloured racehorse, a dark maroon elephant matching one of my racehorses and - most obvious - the cats have now been given bases, or had they formally been based? I suspect the former.

The white elephant is a buckshee cracker/gum-ball thing, as may also be both the poodle and the two little green horses, but those latter two may be from these; now I know what I'm looking for I'll keep an eye out for them, building an archive of images to get a more definitive picture of what was sent out to schools at the time.

Funnily enough, I have that green horse - as a design - in two larger sizes equating to 30/35mm and HO-OO, both in hard phenolic resins, the larger size drilled for a wagon (or chariot)'s drawbar, so it's obviously an old, possibly just post-war, design from someone?

If it was Bell, then Merit (J&L Randall) might have been the supplier of these later ones? Although if one HAD to choose a name for the supplier's the obvious candidates would be Galt or Scotland's Thomas Salter I think?

A quick return to the vehicles, there are points of connection between these and both W. Germany (Jean-Manurba-Layla-Heinerle group) and KOHO-marked vehicles of similar size, along with Hong Kong copies, so there's another whole post there . . . maybe next year?

There only seem to be four vehicles in the line, a Series-1 Land Rover with slab-sides, the pick-up (Morris or something more American?) and two 'posh' cars, a Bentley type and a Citroën or a Cord Roadster - it's a bit Batman'y?

While red bodywork with white wheels seemed to be 'it' for years, other colours were clearly made, will probably prove just as common and can come with a variety of wheel-colours including a very pale blue - centre of lower shot, although - as you can see - black and white wheels seem commoner.

Final line-up for now, with the pinky-red and powder blue ones we've already seen, the darker blue in the feeBay lot maybe and other colours probably out there, there will be 15+ in the end, probably all the colours of the race hoses/elephants, and maybe black and white?

Which leaves the question . . . if you are over - say - 48'ish but under - probably around - 60'ish do you remember all these from primary/junior school . . . or did you have something similar but different? AND . . . did you 'liberate' your favourite!