The Many Faces of Palitoy Exhibition

Almost a year ago I posted a blog about my visit to the Star Wars toy exhibition that took place on the former Palitoy site in Coalville, Leicestershire. In this year's exhibition, many of the other toys that Palitoy are also remembered for were being showcased: Action Man, Care Bears, Girl's World and Pippa. 

A few Star Wars toys were included too, such as the Death Star play setting and the Imperial Troop Transporter.

I grew up in North West Leicestershire so all of the Palitoy toys were very familiar to me. Most people who lived in or near Coalville knew of somebody who worked at the factory, so Palitoy toys were usually given at Christmas. There was a factory shop in Owen Street - the building still stands today. Like everything you grow up with, I imagined the Palitoy factory would always be there. Then - suddenly it had gone. 

One of the big events every year in Coalville was the Trade Exhibition. I attended a few of these as a kid. You could see what new toys were being introduced each year, as businesses tried to predict what was going to be 'the next big thing'. I recall the Merlin game being on display there.

On end-of-term school days when children were allowed to bring their toys in, I remember Strawberry Shortcake, Pippa, and Girl's World being brought in when they were popular.

My personal favourites were Action Man, Pocketeers and the Treehouse. I didn't have one of these but coveted one. However, I did have a Treehouse Playground, which was great fun too.

Action Man dressed as a coal miner: In recognition of Coalville's industrial heritage

Pocketeers fishing game

What a great nostalgic exhibition!

Star Wars: May The Toys Be With You

I am writing this blog after a visit to ‘May the Toys be With You’, an exhibition of Star Wars toys that was held at a conference centre in Coalville, Leicestershire on the original site of the Palitoy factory where the very toys were manufactured in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

Incredibly, but perhaps not surprisingly, all the merchandise on show came from the personal collection of one Star Wars fan, Matt Fox. For anyone who was around when the first Star Wars films were released between 1977-83, or who had any of the toys, this exhibition would have been very nostalgic. For those who were local to the Palitoy factory off Jackson Street the sense of nostalgia would have been two-fold.

Palitoy was the home of Action Man, Tiny Tears and Pippa – the latter a diminutive fashion doll, and much cooler than Barbie in my opinion. Children from North West Leicestershire (like myself) lucky enough to have had relatives and family friends who worked at Palitoy were inundated with staff-discounted toys. There was also a factory outlet on Owen Street where you could buy these figures. Incidentally, the Rex Cinema, which was literally a light sabre’s length away from the factory, is where I saw the original Star Wars movies.

Film historian Peter Biskind argues that Star Wars proved young audiences would go to the cinema to see a film without big-name Hollywood stars. And that although merchandising tie-ins with films had already existed for several decades, Star Wars alerted the studios to a larger scale of merchandising through items such as T-shirts and action figures. Good or bad, this gave film studios from then onwards an incentive to replace complex characters with simple figures that could be turned into toys (Biskind, 1998: 341).

According to information given at the exhibition, approximately 300 million action figures of Luke Skywalker et al were sold between 1977 and 1985. Intriguingly, there is a legend that unsold leftover toys were sent to landfill and could be worth a fortune if they were dug up today. If only us kids had kept all our Star Wars figures – preferably still in their blister packs!

My last remaining Star Wars toys

Bibliography:

Biskind, Peter,1998, Easy Riders Raging Bulls, How the Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, London: Bloomsbury