Reprinted from the Chipping Norton News.
   
    DON DAVIDSON

Will I ever ‘grow up’? Most unlikely, I enjoy playing with Dinky Toys, along with Corgi Toys and other makes, too much! Four times a year, every year for the last 10+ years, I’ve organised Collectors Toy & Train Fairs at Top School (Chipping Norton School – the comp – for those who don’t know the local vernacular). Here like-minded juveniles of all ages can buy, sell, swap or just stare longingly at reminders of their childhood.

So, ‘How did it all start?’ or just, ‘Why?’ I hear you all shout. Well, many years ago as a child growing up in Northumberland, every week I used to save my pocket money and about once a month I bought a new Dinky Toy and had amassed quite a collection by the time I was fifteen or sixteen. (Nerdy bit here – ‘Dinky Toys’ is actually a trade name even though it is often used to describe all toy cars & vehicles; a bit like ‘Thermos’ for vacuum flasks or ‘Hoover’ for vacuum cleaners.)

However when I was fifteen or sixteen I began to discover other ways of amusing myself rather than whizzing toy racing cars across the school play-ground, so the collection was swiftly consigned to the garden shed. A year or so later when the shed was needed to house a full size car the toys ended up going to a local church jumble sale. Oh, if only I had known then what I know now! All that survived was a small model of a Hawker Hurricane aeroplane; the only Dinky Toy left in my possession.

That state of affairs existed for many years until Liz Read, the Head of Lower School at the Top School (where I used to teach as some of you may recall) decided to have a charity jumble sale. Our office was used as the main collection point and soon was filled with a glorious melange of unwanted ‘treasure’. In the bottom of one rather tatty cardboard box I discovered three Dinky Toy racing cars, all in very playworn condition. Two were ones I’d had as a kid and the other was one I’d never had the chance to buy; my local shop was small and never carried the full range.

Anyway I purchased these three wrecks for a couple of quid from Liz, took them home, restored them to their former glory and that was when I became infected by the collecting bug! This condition has steadily worsened over the years to the now nearly critical point of not only being a collector but a ‘Toy Fair Organiser’. For those who do not know, a Toy Fair is very similar to an Antique Fair where a number of dealers spread their stock out on tables in the hope that members of the public will come and buy, or even bring something in to swap, for some of it. The main difference being all the dealers have never grown up themselves and so the atmosphere is not so ‘sacred’ or ‘refined’ as is the case at certain Antique Fairs!

Why not come along to our next fair to see what your old toys, if you’d bothered to keep them, would now be worth; but beware the collecting bug can be very infectious!