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| Copyright Harry Hyndman and relevant & respective owners |
There is a time in relation to one's relatively recent past when things don't seem particularly long ago (mainly because they aren't), and then, somewhere along the line, it one day eventually and suddenly hits you that something you tended to still regard as a nigh-on 'contemporary' occurrence actually took place several decades (and houses and neighbourhoods and friends and relatives) ago.
Such was the case with my brother's 1966 Christmas gift of Pedigree's action figure, Tommy Gunn. My brother was 12 when he received this gift and it really wasn't very long before it passed into my hands. It must have been around 25 years later before I was able to source a replacement in my quest to re-acquire as many items from my childhood as possible, and when I did, the intervening years vanished in a flash.
Initially, at least. Then it dawns on one precisely the gulf of time which has elapsed since 'then' and 'now', and it's hard to adjust to feeling two different and contradictory notions at almost exactly the same moment. It may feel like only yesterday, but you know it was much longer ago than that. The capacity of the human mind to allow opposing concepts to co-inhabit is truly astounding.
But enough of all that self-indulgent philosophical tosh.
Today I took possession of a hardback book called Tommy Gunn Collectors Guide by Harry Hyndman and my mind immediately returned to, first, 1966 (and 'our' original Tommy), then the early or mid-'90s (and my replacement). I ordered the book on the 5th, it was (according to a date in the back) printed on the 6th, then despatched on the 8th, and was meant to be delivered on the 13th (tomorrow, Sunday). However, it arrived today, and I'm certainly not complaining about that.
There must be other Tommy Gunn collectors out there who'd enjoy this book, but rather than tell you all about it, I thought I'd let the spiel on the back cover speak for itself. The original figure was on sale for only around two years (between 1966 and '68) before metamorphosing into Captain Scarlet, so there are probably loads of grown-ups out there who never knew about him when they were kids. Palitoy's Action Man captured the attention (and money) of children of the time, so I feel like I'm the member of an elite club who was 'in' on something that passed most others by.
Incidentally, that's my own Tommy in the last picture. Aren't you jealous? No? You should be! If you'd like a copy of the book, jump over to Amazon and type the title into their search box.
(Click on images to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.)
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4 comments:
Thanks for posting this, as it reminds of of a toy I'd forgotten all about! I had a Tommy Gunn circa 1966-8, as well as at least 4 Action Men of the same era. I really loved the Action Men (and still have them to this day), although I never felt the same affection for the Tommy Gunn (I think because I didn't like the uniforms and equipment as much, for some reason). One of my Action Men, which was acquired second-hand from a friend, is actually a GI Joe - almost identical, but by Hasbro rather than Palitoy.
I didn't buy my first brand-new Action Man until 1984, AM, when I was in my mid-20s, though I had a couple of 2nd-hand ones around 1969 or '70 - acquired from a neighbour and friend of my brother's for 50p (I think). Before that, however, I had my brother's Tommy Gunn, and then later, a Captain Scarlet figure acquired from a friend in a swap for an Action Man.
Nowadays, I have a couple of Pedigree Tommy Gunns, a couple of Captain Scarlets, and several Action Men from the '60s right up to the present day. Oh, and I've also got a few Zodiac Tommy Gunns, including the talking one. I'm too old to play with them, but owning them makes my childhood seem not so far away.
I had a Tommy Gunn figure as a kid but I wasn't that impressed with it compared to Action Man. TG if I recall, wasn't as detailed facially and his hands were molded and didn't move. It also seemed a lot smaller than Action Man. I don't seem to remember TG being available in the shops for long and can't remember ever seeing any TG uniforms at all.
Andrew, I had a GI Joe as well, it was actually my first Action Man that I got for Xmas around 1965\66.
Tommy Gunn's face is reputed to have been based on a real person, McS, but Action Man's face looked a bit tougher - and not just because of his scar. AM's hands were also moulded and didn't move, until a few years later he was given gripping hands. I've seen Tommy described as both a 12 inch figure and an 11 inch one. However, Action Man's height changed when the shortened his shins for some reason - then he'd have been more or less the exact same size as TG. My figures aren't to hand at the moment, but when I eventually dig them out, I'll compare the sizes of both characters.
Tommy had a more realistic figure than Joe (to give AM his 'real' name), but around the late '70s, Palitoy changed it to something very similar to Tommy, describing it as more 'realistic' on the boxes. When AM was first released in 1966, the demand was so great that Canadian G.I. Joes were repackaged in Action Man boxes to be sold in Britain.
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