OPINION Moulders of men
A man of mindful nostalgia, David Smith commemorates some genuine giants in the world of one his favourite childhood playthings: toy soldiers
I’VE WRITTEN about toy soldiers many times, both on ToyTalk and in these pages, and I’ve never made any secret of the fact that they were among my favourite childhood toys. With that in mind, it
was quite a shock to find out that some of the key figures in the world of toy soldiers had recently passed away (thanks to Peter Evans and Paul Morehead at Plastic W
it, these people had provided some of the most pleasurable hours of play in my childhood and are now doing the same for my two boys. George Musgrave was
a sculptor for Herald, Crescent and other companies, before setting up Gemodels himself. Charlie Biggs was the
arrior
magazine for alerting me to this, and for providing the information that follows). Despite my enthusiasm
for toy soldiers, I’m not an expert and I’m a little ashamed to say that these names were new to me but, without my knowing
genius who came up with the idea of placing a plastic figure on a metal stand for the Britains Deetail range (you could get them for 10p each when I was a boy and I spent many hours staring at the ranks of these soldiers in toy shops, trying to decide which to buy). Ronald Cameron earned a reputation as one of the
David Smith runs the consumer-focused toy news site T oyT
best anatomical sculptors around when he crafted many of the iconic Airfix soldiers (he also worked for Britains).
It’s not surprising that he knew his way around
the human body, he also produced erotic and nude figures (I didn’t play with any of those when I was a boy). Norman Tooth designed almost all of the Timpo/ Model Toys ranges and invented the overmoulding technique, which allowed different coloured plastic pieces to be moulded together so they didn’t have to be painted.
All of these important industry figures passed away between November 2012 and September of last year – that’s less than a year to say goodbye to four genuine giants who happened to specialise in miniatures. And I can’t finish without
also paying tribute to the man known as the Godfather (in a good way, not the Marlon Brando way) of plastic soldiers. Roy Selwyn-Smith died in 2006 after a brilliant career with Herald and Britains. Toy soldiers may not be quite so prominent in the lives of children in our modern world but these men will undoubtedly be missed.
alk (
www.toytalk.co.uk) and is the author of the book, 100 Classic T Naughty but nice
Playtime PR’s Lesley Singleton takes a bite from the alluring forbidden fruit that is ‘Games for Badults’ and explains why it’s always fun playing the ‘bad guy’
A PARTY game for horrible people. With that gem of a strapline emblazoned across the box, surely nobody can doubt that Cards Against Humanity (CAH) isn’t for the faint-hearted? Yet that didn’t stop a certain newspaper from getting its knickers in a twist recently about the ‘vile dinner party game’. I’m unashamedly a CAH
fan, and equally passionate about consumer choice: if a group of grown-ups want to play a game which openly claims to deliberately cross certain lines of taste, surely that’s up to them? And the true beauty
of CAH is how it, like many other games in this growing ‘Games for Badults’
subset, cleverly and quite intentionally manages to leave those actual lines very much in the hands of the players: the game can only be as offensive as the people who play it. CAH is the most popular
game at Board Game Club, so much so that, at the July event, we’re introducing a gong at timed intervals to ration players’ time on the game. This is no one-off or isolated incident; plenty of other grown-up party games are gaining ground in the popularity stakes. Superfight, a title we imported from the USA especially for Board Game Club, controversially claims it will “cost you all of your friendships” whilst still
hitting the right level with groups of mates ready to battle with their black-and- white cards. While Linkee remains
popular with quiz fans and rapidly cements its place as a modern, interactive classic, there’s a new kid on the block by the name of Accentuate – a card-based game where players guess accents being mimicked by other teammates It enjoyed an impressive debut at the last Board Game Club, trading on the fact that it’s about the most embarrassing, uncomfortable to play, squirm-inducing game to date.
So what is it about these ‘Games for Badults’ that makes them so alluring?
For me, it’s not just the stylised packaging and promise of controversy; it’s the winning combination of interaction and flexibility that brings an exciting level of personalisation rarely seen in the boxed games sector. Flexibility stems from the rules, which are easily tweaked to fit the friends, and often facilitate further interaction via crowd- sourcing or bolt-on packs to extend the game-play Increasingly, we’re seeing
players encouraged to remix their own content for the games, be it new questions for Linkee or different accent choices for Accentuate. Such games are popular because the players have a stake in how fun, offensive,
Lesley Singleton is head of play at Playtime PR and co-founder of Board Game Club. She can be contacted on 01234 752 663.
www.toynews-online.biz July 15
brutal, embarrassing or friendly they really are. It’s a winning formula and
an exciting year for adults bored of bridge and looking for more than personalities stuck on a post-it note.
oys.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60