Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be… 

Park the Health and Safety regs, reload the stereotypes, put a Slade LP on the record player and smoke a couple of Major over your typewiter. It’s time to go back to the ’70s, baby!

There’s a rule that clothes don’t count as Christmas presents until your teens when Santa doesn’t believe in you anymore.
There’s also a secret Santy clause: this didn’t apply to the sought-after snorkel coat.

Designed for sub-zero arctic expeditions the parkas featured prominently in the 1968 thriller Ice Station Zebra in which Rock Hudson played a submarine captain, giving them instantly credibility and making it perfect for autumns in Inchicore.
This wonderfully ridiculous parka got its name from the hood, which formed a long snorkel when fully zipped. You couldn’t see or hear much in your blue Lord Anthony coat, with orange lining and fake fur collar but you were cool while also keeping warm riding that Raleigh Chopper around your ‘hood, something far more important to a Dublin schoolkid than road safety.

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Palitoy were responsible for many iconic Christmas gifts including the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Tiny Tears, a cute plastic baby doll which little girls could fill with water and watch cry, and pee.

First launched in 1966 Tiny Tears, which fell into a natural babylike position when held, went on to win “Toy of the Year” an impressive three times but was so expensive that Irish dads were known to whimper too, handing over a significant part of their weekly wage to pay for the doll, and later her sisters Teeny Tiny Tears – and then Teeny Weeny Tiny Tears! Palitoy were the ones really taking the p*^#!

40 years on dads are calm on Valium and the innovative doll proudly sits among the children’s exhibits in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Books have always made great presents and hardback Christmas annuals from publishers such as Fleetway and DC Thompson, based on TV shows or weekly comics like Roy of the Rovers, Dandy, Battle, Tiger, Bunty and Judy were popular gifts.

The first Beano annual was published on the outbreak of WWII and in the ’70s the colourful covers featured the likes of Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids. Today their grown-up fans happily fork out not just for the annual but also mugs, T-shirts, slippers, and other merchandise featuring these characters.

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Whether you dreamed of togging out for the Dubs in Croke Park or scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup final at Wembley a good pair of football boots was essential to put on a show like Tony Hanahoe or mimick the style of Johnny Giles.

Lace up these beauties from Northamptonshire-based manufacturers Gola, among the first to bring a sports brand to the leisure market, and the rest was Roy of the Rovers – literally. Gola sponsored Roy Race and his Melchester Rovers chums from 1981 but the company soon found itself unable to compete with cheaper Far East imports. Today Gola is reborn as a premium leisurewear brand.

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One of the most instantly recognisable toys of the ’70s began life in Italy as the “Pon-Pon” in 1968. Invented by Aquilino Cosani of Ledragomma which made toy rubber balls, the inflatable “Space Hopper” as it would be known here was an extension of that product, with a pair of ears to allow kids to hold on as they played boing-boing.

Already a hit in the USA a bright orange kangaroo version of the toy made by Mettoy (Mettoy-Corgi) arrived in the UK in November 1969 and soon captured the imagination of children in Ireland. It’s now available in adult sizes via Amazon and other retailers.

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The success of the Star Wars movie in 1977 was matched by the popularity of the merchandise that followed it, no more so than the 3.75 Inch and 12 inch action figures from Kenner, who produced them only after a rival toymaker turned the licence down. In the initial run Kenner turned out an astonishing 300 million units and eventually ensured that every Star Wars character captured on celluloid was also immortalized in plastic, and the range proved hugely popular with Irish children.

Their sales led to George Lucas having the money to make the other Star Wars films, meaning kids’ desire for toys helped Hollywood keep the story of Luke, Leah, Han Solo and Vader alive.

In June one of only two known surviving handpainted Boba Fett figures produced in 1979 (part of a run discarded in a box at Kenner for employees to take home) became the most expensive toy in history when it sold for $520,000 at auction, a record soon smashed when an even rarer Boba Fett model with a firing rocketpack went under the hammer for $1.342m.

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“We decided to make scale model miniatures that looked just like the trucks a little boy might see passing his house every day,” explained Lynn Baker, one of Tonka’s founders in 1953. The company’s name was inspired by Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis, USA and within 20 years annual sales reached $102.1 million ($787.21 million today) as the indestructible yellow Mighty Dump Truck became a staple in every lad’s toybox.

Inevitably the trucks also carried their young owners down hills for brief, thrilling rides which between you and me could end in A&E, but your Tonka always emerged unscathed, ready for more adventures.

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Based on the earlier US GI Joe Action Man, an 11.5 inch tall, fully articulated action figure – manufacturers Palitoy banned the word “doll” among staff! – first appeared at the British Toy Fair in 1966.
10 years later Action Man boasted eagle eyes that moved from side-to-side via a slot in the back of his head, flocked hair, and gripping hands that could hold a bewildering range of guns and gear.

Palitoy later offered military uniforms of all kinds, mountain rescue, Arctic exploration kit, Transport Command vehicles like a Jeep, a motorcycle, a tank, a helicopter, a boat, and even a submarine which could dive and surface in water, while the range of figures here (retailing for the equivalent of about €40 today) included a black soldier named Tom Stone, an encouraging sign in the less-enlightened 1970s.

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Gift buying for boys? Easy-peasy in pre-PC 1970s. Just get the youngfellah a shooter. Not a real one of course. That would be irresponsible. An exact, firing replica is grand.

Toy fireams don’t come much more realistic than the Airfix FN FAL, a scaled-down version of the free world’s answer to the AK-47, used by Ireland’s Defence Forces and the armed services in the UK (for purists their L1A1 SLR model differed slightly) that fired silver bullets from a magazine.

Attempting to bayonet your little brother with the attachment provided would cause the barrel to snap and peace to break out but if you didn’t fancy replacing it with another rifle Airfix also made a deadly copy of the Thompson Submachine gun, allowing you to channel your inner Al Capone.

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Inspired by the American motorcycle of the same name the iconic Raleigh Chopper appeared in the UK in 1969 and came in several models, but the popular MK2 topped letters to Santa from Ireland and had three speeds via a funky gear stick, available in groovy colours like Infra Red, Ultra Violet, and Fizzy Lemon.

The Chopper’s distinctive long saddle had a sticker warning not to carry passengers (which every kid ignored) and the smaller front wheel meant pulling a wheelie was nearly impossible, but that didn’t matter. Simply riding one made you the coolest boy or girl on the street anyway.

Raleigh eventually sold 1 million of these machines, which saved the company.

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Heavily advertised on Irish telly, Stretch Armstrong was a simple toy that brought joy to children everywhere after its debut in 1976. Stretch was a blond, All-American wrestler wearing black trunks who could, in Dublin terms, be reefed out of it from about 15 inches to 60 inches.

The latex rubber figure was filled with a gelatinous substance similar to corn syrup which allowed it to hold the shape for a few moments before returning to the original form.

And that was it. Basic. Brutal. Almost 70 versions were produced internationally because auld Stretch appealed to all younglads’ violent instincts, and most importantly was smoking-in-the-school-bikesheds level craic.