MORE COLOURFUL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 26, 23 November 1943, Page 5

MORE COLOURFUL

j TOYS FOR CHRISTMAS WOOD WELL TO THE EOltE Christinas toys, for New Zealand children this year will present less of elaborateness, more of colour and enough variety to please all tastes even before the war. Although more expensive than usual, the toys are almost all of the. unbreakable, hardwearing type. Most prominent is a type of toy which will bo seen more and more as time goes on —New Zealand-made wooden toys. Brilliantly painted and of '"square-cut" design, these toys which range from quaint jointed dolls to miniature wheelbarrows, battleships,, tanks, lorries and even larger playthings, are sure to delight to-day's children. Toy soldiers and miniature war equipment direct from the war zone are the latest craze with New r Zealand children. AVhakatane toy shops have stocks of all kinds of leaden soldiers in various lighting attitudes, mostly plain gilt or silvered, but some of the old "red coat" type which are always popular.

Modern mechanical warfare is refleeted in tlie strong demand for the latest, models of tanks, aeroplanes,, Bren-gun lorries and motor cycles,, and these may be obtained, either in British-made metal toys or New Zealand-made wooden ones.

Dolls this year are smaller,, but more cuddly, and therefore twice as lovable, as the old stiff china type. They are made of stuffed cloth dressed in the brightest gowns and given pleasing names. Even more numerous arc stuffed felt animitls, elephants, rabbits, dogs and cats, patched in the most fantastic colours, which a child will lind much prettier than the original British-made fluffy animals for very small children appear also to be plentiful.

New Zealand children will not go short of toys this Christmas,, but children left behind in Britain are going to go without their toys so that they may be exported to help pay for the war. In London the world's- largest makers of toy soldiers, who used about 3QO tons: of lead to make 12,500,000 items a year,,

are. now working entirely upon export orders, and many of these arc' for New Zealand.

The United States is buying five or six times as many British toy soldiers as it did before the. War, and children there are showing special interest in the Anzac soldiers in the Near East. Young Xcw Zcalanders are keenly interested in boxes: of their own infantry regiments.