I have many people to thank for an idyllic childhood.
Foremost, and it goes without saying, I thank my parents followed by my siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts and my two cousins.
Thereafter, I would include a few best friends but shortly after I would have to include the likes of the person or persons who individually or collectively 1) put the liquorice sticks into the sherbet fountains, 2) counted and then carefully placed the hundreds and thousands onto the top half of a Fab ice lolly,3) made the decisions behind what mix of things to put in to a lucky dip jamboree bag, 4) dipped the stringy Spanish sweet tobacco into the coconut strands,5) put the bubbles and bits of corroded metal into the Irn Bru, 6) moulded and hand painted the scar on my Action Man's cheek, 7) packed the collectable football cards into the packets making sure that a stick of bubble gum was also included and 8) rolled up tightly the thin dotted strip of explosive caps for firing in my cowboy pistol amongst a million other things.
Of course, in those times in the 1960's and early 1970's it is highly likely that a person rather than a robotic machine will have done these things.
Huge factories will have been hives of activity and providing total employment for a nation. I respected those who provided me with my childhood goodies and playthings even though they were completely anonymous and possibly untraceable if I had been minded to write a letter of thanks.
I was by all accounts a polite little boy, well schooled in manners and quick (with the exception of Christmas 'thank you' letters to Uncle David and Auntie Brenda) to acknowledge when someone had helped me on my way. My parents told me when older that I was always asking to be able to write a letter to someone called Wally Whyton who was apparently my favourite singer/songwriter/performer on the radio when I was about 6 years old.
I regard, now, these unsung heroes of a post war industrial Britain with fondness but tinged with regret that the individuals, the production lines, manufacturing premises and whole communities are likely to no longer be there.
The old company names are still around, Barratts, J Lyons and others but any resemblance to founders and geographical locations is likely to be far detached if at all resident within these shores.
A major part of my childhood revolved around my collection of toy cars.
I cannot recall a time in my formative years when I did not have a small die cast model car, van or other vehicle in a pocket, a sticky palm or within grasping distance. I could play for hours, alone and more than happily with my ever expanding and varied box of toys. I was in my element lying on my stomach, arms out in front pushing the car along and dribbling with the most authentic engine noise that I could manage. This could equally be in my bedroom, in the living room, on the lawn or prone in a dusty flower bed.
In fact it could be anywhere.
I did not give much thought to where the model cars came from apart from being aware of the names of the two dominant brands, Matchbox and Corgi. For all I knew they could have been made as a by-product of the actual car manufacturers, for example, made out of leftover parts of Austins, Citroens, Mercedes and all of the rarer and exotic sounding names, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Ferrari.
Car ownership was pretty local and parochial in the 1960's and possessing a die cast replica was the closest that you could get to the real thing which you were highly unlikely to get a glimpse of on the neighbourhood streets, well at least in sleepy areas, of Oxfordshire and Suffolk.
I was overwhelmed with nostalgia just yesterday in having the opportunity to put an actual name and personality to someone who had contributed to my development and who in a roundabout but definite way has made me into the well balanced person that I feel that I am now.
That person was Marcel van Cleemput.
Who?
Marcel van Cleemput.
I know, I had never ever heard the name before but he was, from 1956 to 1983, the chief designer for Corgi Toys.
It was he who laboured to turn previously solid castings of cars into very sophisticated, for the under 12's, models with see through windows, opening parts, buttons and knobs to raise headlights, turn the front wheels for realistic steering actions, give the impression of flashing headlights using simple glass tubes, interchangeable parts for vans and lorries and so much more to excite the imagination.
I speak again from personal experience. I was only required to provide the means of motion and the sound effects and Corgi and Mr Cleemput more than ably did the rest.
He was in a state of continuous design and really tapped into what children were interested in particularly the motoring icons of TV and in the movies. His James Bond DB5 from the 1964 Goldfinger film was a mini engineering marvel in reproducing the real thing with rotating number plates, a pop up bullet proof screen on the boot, retractable machine guns and of course, that ejector seat.
The process behind the battered but beloved contents of my biscuit tin full of toy cars was equally fascinating.
Mr Cleemput claimed to be able to develop toys from drawings, models and moulds in 12 to 15 months with his team of 80 staff whereas his main rivals often struggled to do the same in under 2 years. The actual global car makers soon saw the synergy behind commissioning a Corgi model to be available simultaneously with the launch of a new full sized model.
With hindsight the 1977 Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me Bond film represented the peak for the Corgi empire.
I was 14 in that year and saw the film more than once but felt myself a little too old and mature to buy the bright white Corgi made car with multiple gadgets.
It was only six years later that a combination of cheap foreign manufacturing and the arrival of computer games to provide stimulation and excitement for subsequent generations of children over and above a rather inanimate toy by comparison saw Corgi go into liquidation.
A smaller scale business in making limited editions and collectables kept the name in the public domain. I
n 1989 Marcel van Cleemput wrote 'The Great Book of Corgi' as the definitive guide to the illustrious back catalogue. Remarkably he had been involved in each and every model rolling off the scaled down production line in his 27 years at the company as Mr Corgi himself.
I am grateful for being able, now, to acknowledge Mr C as one of my unsung heroes. As always , I am too late in being able to write him a letter of thanks because his story and the realisation of its overlap with my own life came from his Obituary following his death in March this year.
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