When we were young, my younger brother and I were taken by dad to the seaside on a beautiful summer's morning, one that became greyer and less bright the closer we got to Folkestone. I have no idea why we went on that trip without mum or our older brother, but the memory of the rain and the Rotunda amusement arcade remain clear, especially the greenish plastic water-squirting cigars we managed to extract from the crane game. With their red plastic tips and 'Made in Hong Kong' in small raised letters they were everything we needed, something to squirt water around with. However, even by then, the the toys we possessed that were marked as originating from Hong Kong seemed to be cheap and easily broken, while those proudly bearing 'Made in England' were fine quality items, or so it seemed at the time to me at seven and brother David at five.
But where are those English manufacturers now? Were they really competitive, producing the kind of goods we really wanted at prices our parents could afford, or was my analysis biased by being limited to reading the manufacturing locations on a plastic cigar, a plastic horse and cart, and a blue metal tractor? Was this enough to reinforce an idea commonly found in the society around me that plastic was bad, and foriegn bad too? Was my pleasure greater in playing with metal English toys than plastic foriegn ones? Why, then, do my memories equally contain plastic and metal, foreign and domestic toys? Is this of any importance to me now, as an adult, or is it OK to love plastic as a child and then to learn that quality lies in other materials as an adult?
No comments:
Post a Comment