TOY MAKING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1942, Page 6

TOY MAKING

BRITISH CHILDREN BUSY. In England’s New Forest, Hampshire, children carved wooden animals so that their younger brothers and sisters would not have empty stockings this Christmas. Most of the men who usually carve these models have been called up for military service and their places have been taken by children just leaving school, who look on the work as play. They make toy horses, huntsmen and hounds, lions, tigers, bears and other animals from timber grown on land which has been Royal forest of the Kings of England since Norman times. The toy trade of Britain is helping in this way to meet the shortage caused by war work. The shortage is so great that in one of London’s largest department stores the Christmas display of toys only filled a small corner, about one-fifth the size of the whole floor of 8,000 square feet, which it occupies in peace time. The reason is that many of Britain’s toy factories are now making war equipment, from Mills bombs to highprecision engineering; while those which are still producing toys are allowed to sell only a small proportion to Britain’s own shops; the rest have to go overseas to help to pay for the war.

Instead of model aeroplanes, Britain wants full-size fighters and bombers; in place of little motor cars she needs great tanks and armoured vehicles; instead of lead soldiers, real men armed with rifle and anti-tank guns.