1: Action Man
Action Men, Grrr, they were rugged toys that could take a battering. I personally rode around on an Action Man Armoured Car until I was about 10, the thing was indestructible. But men were more rugged then – just look at them. Beards, scars, beards, chunky hands, and more scars. They don’t make them like that anymore.
2: Mad Rugs
There must have been some serious acid going around in the 1970s, and carpet designs of the time are a testament to its strength. Just look at them, mad! These are some of the tamer ones that were doing the rounds at the time, I tried to add some wilder ones to this picture but they made my monitor go funny.
3: Sindy Dolls
It’s hard in these times Barbie mad times to think of any serious contender for the doll champ crown. But there was a time people would say “Barbie? Who’s she?” That was because every girl wanted to be like Sindy. the UK’s doll queen of the 1970s.
4: Fake Coal Fires
Environment be damned, get those coal powered electricity stations belching out the power, because we’re all about the stylish fake coal heaters. Warming up kids with their cosy orange glow and rotating light effects, nothing quite says 1970s living room chic like one of these bad boys.
5: Proper Lego Blocks
I buy my children Lego, and they follow the instructions duly and create exactly what the Lego makers tell them. This is usually some play set with 100s of bespoke pieces that can only make that one thing. Then they go back in to the box and are never played with again. But in the 1970s, there was no instructions, and the mostly blocks made up of double units, and a big green base, and a window frame or two if you were lucky. And that was great…
6: Fun With Your Nuts
Many of us cut our engineering teeth on Meccano, but mainly we cut our finger tips, trying to hold the one side of the bolt as we tightened the nut. If you were lucky enough to have had that second spanner to hold the nut, then the chances are you’d cut it making a lethal flying machine or pretend gun. Either way, blood would often flow at some point in your Meccano career.
7: Super Super8
Home movies night meant one thing. A tense wait for the screen to be set up, a tenser wait to see if the film projector would work, and a lot of imagination as there was no sound, and you only had a 15 minute highlight reel of a film you’d seen in its entirety in the cinema. We only had three films, a silent gladiator feature, a cowboy feature and an under-exposed family film shot on the beach. We’d watch them all through, then in reverse – and be thoroughly entertained every time.
8: The Continental Quilt
Back before Tog ratings and Duvets, our main warmth came from some artificial fabric built quilt. Stuffed with white wire wool, they could often be like a firework show in the dark, as the build up of static electricity from the plastic materials in the quilt caused sparks when moved. Most of us just had the one quilt, but if you were posh you had a two quilts, both of which were continental, one of the summer and one for the winter. We only had the one…
9: Better In Stereo
If it wasn’t cased in wood, or chipboard with veneer, it wasn’t any good. Big chunky decks, big chunky speakers, spinning platters and direct drive tape mechanisms that could chew up a 100 metres of cassette tape at the hint of the slightest bit of dirt on your heads. Keep you MP3 players and streaming, you had to work for your music in my day.
10: Wall Of Shelves
To show how classy you was, you needed somewhere to store your nick-nacks and ornaments for everyone to see. Forget IKEA, everyone then was into the melamine laminates. What better way to display cart horse sculptures, brass rubbings, the 5 books you owned and your collection of vinyl records than on one of these monstrous units? These units were often the focal point of the front room (the posh one that you never used) and as such, still stand proud in many a terraced house to this day, mainly because they’re built solid and too heavy to move.
