GET READY FOR ACTION - In A 'Knock-Off' Capacity...

Still to get him a jacket and boots

If memory serves (memory backed up by checkable data), my family holidayed in Rothesay back in June of 1970.  While there, I bought a cheap Action Man 'knock-off', but whose face was the double of AM's nearest rival, Tommy Gunn.  Its arms were rubber with wire inside, though the legs bent in the traditional 'riveted' manner, while the torso didn't move at all.  For some now long-forgotten reason, I'd taken a pair of boots from Pedigree's Captain Scarlet figure with me on holiday and fitted them to the figure, but due to them being so tight and inflexible, I inadvertently pulled off its feet when trying to remove the red-hued footwear.

After retrieving the feet, I angrily threw the boots into the sea from Rothesay Pier, an act which still makes me recoil in horror at my callousness even after all this time.  (Luckily, I've now got two replacement pairs.)  I tried a hardware store in Rothesay and managed to make a temporary repair with a couple of small nuts and bolts, similar to ones in a Meccano set.  At a later stage, back home, I took the figure along to the lockup of a friend of my brother's (while he was there) to see if the feet could be pop-riveted back on.  No success, so the ankle nuts and bolts remained for however long I retained the figure, though I no longer recall just how long that was.

I was only 11 years old at the time, which nowadays would no doubt be considered far too old to own an action figure, but I was unapologetically still a mere child who, subconsciously at least, steadfastly refused to grow up.  But wait, I'm perhaps overstating the case; it's probably more likely that I was just blissfully unaware that I should - grow up I mean.  The following year we holidayed in Largs, where I bought yet another action figure - a superior one to its predecessor - and it strikes me as odd that the last two action figures I ever purchased as a youth were both bought when I was on holiday.  Thirteen years were to pass before I bought another one, and that was a brand-new Action Man I got for half price (£7 or thereabouts) from a local R.S. McColl's in 1984.  I still have it too, though it's not shown here.

Why buy it at that age?  Because it was reported in the newspapers that Palitoy had recently announced they were no longer going to produce 12 inch action figures as they felt kids were no longer interested in them.  I therefore decided to obtain one as a memento of what seemed to me - drama merchant that I was - to be a passing era.  However, a new 12 inch version of Action Man returned in the early '90s, this time made by Hasbro, the original manufacturer of G.I. Joe in 1964, who was renamed in the UK as Action Man a mere two years later.

Around four years back I managed to acquire a replacement for the 1971 figure (above), and just a few days ago, I also got my hands on a replacement for the one from 1970 (top of post).  (Remarkably, the wire in the arms remains unbroken.)  The rivets through his ankles were a little bent and corroded, and didn't quite close over properly on the inside - so I removed them as both joints were slightly loose.  Isn't it odd that 53 years after the fact, I detached the second figure's feet (though this time deliberately) as I had with the first one?  I used a couple of plastic 'pegs' from a couple of spare parts to re-attach the feet, which will serve until I find some spare metal rivets, though, truth to tell, it would be fine just as it is.

Any point to this post?  Not really, I just wanted to say how pleased I am that I've managed to reclaim yet another item from childhood and, by doing so, feel closer-connected to that long-gone period of my past, which, sometimes when I'm caught unawares, doesn't really seem that long ago at all.  However, the spell (for that's what it is) is a gossamer one, and it only takes the slightest intrusive distraction to shatter it and return me to the present.  At least until the next time the spell holds sway - these are the moments I live for.