Wet Friday. October 11th

 

We thought that we would do a London walk today but it was pouring down so we decided to do an indoor activity instead. We went to the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. It wasn't as good as we thought it was going to be. We were expecting it to be an historical look at childhood but it was just a museum about toys and aimed  at children, lots of questions and things to play with.

However,there were a few things which caught my eye

Remember these? 

They have the little record player for sale, £40 now. Wish I'd kept it!

After the war china dolls were a rarity and most of our dolls were "rag dolls" I had a gollywog , just like this one. Robinson's jam had little silver gollies that you could collect and they were highly prized. Despite what legions of politically correct numpties say, we didn't actually call black people gollywogs, that came along much later after the seed had been sown by the  do gooders. As far as we were concerned it was just a toy like any other. Makes me a bit sad to see a much loved toy behind glass in a museum because they are now considered too offensive 😕

 

Instruments of torture.

 

These hideous things were nearly the death of me! We lived near a family that were a bit "odd". There was a mum and two boys called David and Norman. The family surname was Brander, so we kids called them Brandy Balls, a popular sweet back then. We used to dare each other to run past their house and shout Brandy Balls at the top of our voices and then run away before they came out. I don't think they ever did come out, but we just scarpered and never looked back to check. One day my friend Heather Wheeler said I could borrow her skates. Never skated before but thought it looked easy enough. These little beauties could be altered to fit your foot. There was a screw underneath that loosened to make the base longer to fit. Heather had feet like a fairy and so they had to be made bigger for me. The buckle on the straps was knackered so she tied it round my ankles instead. The front part was pulled really tight to compensate, and knotted with a gazzilion knots.I was expecting her to help me along. Wrong!! She pelted off at the speed of light yelling Brandy Balls at the top of her voice. I tried to run after her and these things promptly fell apart. She hadn't done the screw back up, so I was running after her with them tied to my little skinny ankles, making a diabolical racket as they dragged after me. The Branders came out that time.Don't know what scared me most, them,or the fact that I couldn't undo the piggin skates!  

    St  Pancras.
 

We weren't in the museum for long,so as we still had the afternoon to spare we went along to St Pancras  Station. It is huge,more like an airport really.The whole area around Kings Cross has been redeveloped. Instead of being nasty and a bit seedy it has been transformed into a very upmarket area with shops ,bars and restaurants, most of them very expenive.The champagne bar here is often featured in TV programmes.  £65 a bottle so we gave it a miss!

                                                       This statue is huge. Supposed to symbolise what travel is about, hello ......and goodbye .

        Around the base were other figures but it wasn't so easy to work  out what they symbolised

        Some were clearly soldiers,not sure about the rest.       

                      

         

Euro Star platform.

 There were little figures on the clouds but we  couldn't  see what they  were supposed to be doing. You can see how big the statue is. It is on the second floor which is where the trains leave from.The Euro Star leaves from here too.

There are also pianos,randomly placed and by the looks of it randomly used by any one who can play.

Very odd.