Toy & Model Shops

Prior to collapsing in a wheezing heap, I was actually enjoying my traditional late summer two-week break. This normally entails visiting our favourite haunts within daily travelling distance (i.e. not in Cornwall) of home and stuffing Minime’s face with ice cream. One family tradition that dates back at least five years is a trip to the seaside on the Swanage railway. The Norden park and ride is good for a picnic (everybody clears off so it’s quiet), the train ride is fun and you can stop at Corfe along the way. A nice day out that pleases us all.

Swanage is not that great, to be fair. Crowded and a stoney beach, it was never my favourite place to go as a kid but it has one thing no other town has: John’s Toyland, a surviving toy shop from my childhood that still sells Airfix kits. In fact, they are still in the same place at the back of the shop. The relevance to this blog, is that it was where I bought my first packet of Airfix Union Infantry which became the nucleus of my ACW armies. Although I did not know that at the time because it was a few years prior to 1977!

So I thought I would make a list of all the late, great, shops of my childhood that supported my early wargaming activities, of whatever size or scale. I’m keeping it to anything I visited up to 1983, which was when I discovered mail order.

So how many do you recognise?

Addlestone
Addlestone Models - just looked this up and it’s still open! Last I was there it had closed, but it is the other side of town. So not quite the same...
Newsagents next to Transatlantic Plastics - open, but no Britain’s or Timpo!

Aldershot
Concorde Models - closed
ESDEVIUM games - now the games shop, not sure if it does anything historical.

Ascot
Jackson’s - closed

Boscombe
Woolcos - closed - this includes the toy shop in the mall by the fountain!
Noah’s Ark - closed

Chertsey
Model shop - closed

Egham
Woolworths- closed
Sadly, I cannot remember the name of the toy shop by the old fire station, but that has closed, as has the bike shop where I bought my first 1/32 British paras.
The Ironmongers across the road from Magna Karta Skool - closed

Harrow
The Model Shop - closed

Ringwood
Lunn’s - still there, but only art supplies. I emptied them of Airfix ACW in 1978...
Streets - closed
Woolworths - closed

Staines
Woolworths - closed
Gamleys - closed
Taylor & McKenna - closed
Debenhams - probably closed now
Johnson & Clarke’s - closed

Weybridge
Green Shield Stamp Shop - closed