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My parents didn't have loads of cash. Dad was a self-employed hod carrier (often rained off in winter) and mum a sewing machinist. But they certainly made an effort at Christmas. When I was 10 I got this:
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And when I was 11 I got this:
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Both cost a lot of dosh back in the day, 1980 and 1981 and I absolutely treasured them. Will never forget the feeling of glee and excitement when I got my mitts on these fabulous presents.
What did you lot get for Christmas as kids?
Raleigh Grifter
Spesh Hardrock sport in purple. I'd been riding across the South Downs on a Falcon 10 speed racer up until that point and that Hardrock was the most awesome thing ever. I polished it every day, rode it to school and from Eastbourne to Cuckmere every weekend. Sadly the U-lock was cut and the bike stolen about a year later from outside a friends house. I was devestated. I think I was 13 or so at the time.
TCR (Total Control Racing) slotless truck racing set. Not entirely sure why the word "Control" featured in the name 😕 They'd only go round corners on the outside lane due to centrifugal force, and if you tried it at more than half speed the trucks (complete with trailers) would fling across the room 🙂
Oh and got one of these... (and I can *still* remember the theme tune for Dizzy)
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Transistor radio when i was 7
Claude Butler Majestic when i was 13.
Awesomes. Rock'n'roll'n'bikes.
My first 2 wheeled bike at the age of 6.
Father Christmas skulked into the room ( smelling of beer), tripped over my sister's toys, so I got to see him place the treasured present by the window.
From that day on I was hooked.
Red BMX that Mum had hidden behind the curtains 🙂
I learnt to ride without stabilisers the very same day...
+1 for the ZX81.
Enjoyed equally a few years later when I got a Spectrum 48k.
Those were the days.
Let's get serious now. Introducing...the Action Man Assault Tower...
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Not me in the pic, just googled it. The assault tower came with a zip line & everything. It was ace. Until my best mate fell backwards onto it & broke it.
2 or maybe 3 years ago my dad took me cycling on Christmas day. 60 miles around London, on road. Christmas lunch was a few sandwiches that had been in our back pockets for a couple of hours, under an archway, in the rain, next to a tramp. Its a tough ride, cause of how London is, all the stopping and starting, means you get really knackered and it takes hours longer then a normal 60 miles would.
It may sound weird, but its the only Christmas I can really remember.
A talking Action Man when I was 5 or 6 😀 , which my sister broke after about ten minutes 😥 .
Most other presents weren't up to much... 😥
ewok village or AT-AT
my nephew plays with them now (although my 11 month old boy is planning a take over bid)
awesome
Tamiya Sand Scorcher, i must have been about 12 😛
I loved it, wish i still had it they go for a fortune now, real cult stuff.
Manta Force cruiser thingy:
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The next year I got an amazing little base thingy to go with it:
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HELL YES
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An Emmelle Lazer in when I was about 13. I've ridden mountain bikes ever since.
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http://80stoyshop.com/images/mk1tuff.jp g"/> [/img]
That is all!!
My mum had a significant win on the bingo one year and so informed me that I could choose a brand new bike!! OMG (or whatever the 1983 equivalent was.. ACE! maybe)
Imagine my surprise when I woke up to a fully loaded Raleigh Equipe with 11 gears and an electric siren..
Somehow the guy in Halfords had disregarded the fact that I had magazine cuttings and pictures of the Raleigh Bomber in Raleigh colours on my bedroom walls... and that I had wished for it every night and dreamed about it and that I had pretty much spraffed my kecks about the Bomber for at least 2 years..
and somehow this Halfrauds bozo had convinced my naieve mother that no young boy would choose a mean and tough functional Bomber over the effete and flimsy and in my eyes completely pointless road race replica..
being the kindhearted and thoroughly grief stricken but dutiful little boy that I was.. I passed off the choking and the burning tears that sprang to my eyes as gratitude.. I sobbed a ridiculously melodramatic thankyou and promptly turned the ridiculous drop handlebars upside down and literally rode the wheels off it time and time again for the next 5 years until my first after school job enabled me to replace it with something more suitable...
The melodramatic and tearful thankyou went down in family history as a sign of my all round goodness.. and I have perpetuated the myth until the truth slipped out during some friendly banter with the old crow a few years ago!
Let's get serious now. Introducing...the Action Man Assault Tower...
serious - LOL, THIS is serious
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johnny Seven - wicked, and the white bullets really hurt as well, as my wee brother would testify
Action Force Headquarters.
Made of card and slotted together, but still amazing.
Shortly after my parents twigged that Action Force was all about men with guns and I didn't get any action force or military related gifts ever again.
"mmmm a book on the wildlife of the serengetti, let's see if it can make an effective helipad for the action force helicopter!"
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holy crap, is that legal? (the big gun thing above) I do also have good memories of spud guns and my mate's sister (no, not like that)
I don't know how old I was, but I couldn't get to sleep at the end of christmas day knowing I could still be playing with this instead:
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yunki - Member
being the kindhearted and thoroughly grief stricken but dutiful little boy that I was.. I passed off the choking and the burning tears that sprang to my eyes as gratitude.. I sobbed a ridiculously melodramatic thankyou and promptly turned the ridiculous drop handlebars upside down and literally rode the wheels off it time and time again for the next 5 years until my first after school job enabled me to replace it with something more suitable...The melodramatic and tearful thankyou went down in family history as a sign of my all round goodness.. and I have perpetuated the myth until the truth slipped out during some friendly banter with the old crow a few years ago!
😆
pedalhead
[url= http://www.stuffwelove.co.uk/johnny_seven.htm ]Johnny Seven - OMA One Man Army[/url]
oh and this
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except mines was silver, much cooler
about a dozen men for the ejector seat, all gone by boxing day IIRC
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Loved that machine!
http://www.tamiyaclub.com/car.asp?id=67
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Mine also had the uprated independent front suspension kit.
Still looks awesome today!
Vertibird. It was brilliant!
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This was pretty damn ace too.
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But the toy I never got that I always wanted, the one that yearned for with all my heart, was this one.
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That my parents didn't get me that toy is almost certainly the reason I'm a social cripple with some very dark thoughts about people.
OP - that Seiko is great, do you still have it? My bestest ever present was this bad boy:
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One year I got a pair of boxing gloves and my brother got some roller skates.....we shared them half a pair each.
They were taken off us by lunchtime
Samurai beat me to it with the Evel Kneivel - it was a great toy, I had one.
My mum wouldn't get me a bmx or grifter though 🙁
This
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The first thing I did was barrel roll it racing my cousins and rip the mirrors off 🙁
and [url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/gadgetfreak2000/3539979983/ ]This[/url]
Which i do rebuild periodically 🙂
Mine was the ZX81 also. Fantastic.
10 PRINT "I AM A PROGRAMMER"
20 GOTO 10
30 END
Has programming moved on much since then? Just wondered as I'm thinking of a career change and it would be good to get into software.
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I don't think there are words to adequately describe how cool this was when aged 8. All the kids in the road where outside showing their news toys and I'll never forget the gasps of amazement when I rolled out of the garage on one of these.
I had one of those flight deck thingies where you could launch a plane off the deck of an aircraft carrier, I think I probably broke the catapult mechanism.
After that it was probably one of the first ever Sony Walkmans with Orange headphone covers.
Scalextric, all my rellies scoured the ads in the back of papers & bought me 2nd hand kits ... I went from no kit to 150 bits of track & 10 cars in a day.... oh the excitement... then the stress when I was in bed & could hear my Dad & Grandfathers playing it.
Luckily Mum stopped them 🙂
Samurai, did you steal my toys?
I loved that helicopter and Evel K.
The other thing I loved was one of these. '84 Pistol Pete. My dad gave it away when I was at uni 😥 Now as rare as the proverbial.
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@ Gingerbloke (and anyone else interested)
Bigtrak is back in production (along with Stylophone).
0 guesses who knows the bloke who owns/runs Dubreq Ltd. 😉
</blatant advertising> 😉
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I had the Capture Copter (the one on the left). Looking on the web these were from 1978 so that would mean i was 3 when i got it.....all i know is that it was bloody big and hard for me to pick up. Lasted ages too
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+1 for the ZX81.Enjoyed equally a few years later when I got a Spectrum 48k.
Another remembered ZX81 pressie here as well.
I also moved onto a Spectrum later. I built my own though - I worked at the weekends in my uncles garage which had a plastics re-cycling place behind it. They got a pile of junk in from Timex in Dundee (who assembled Sinclair kit) and the manager asked if I could do anything with it. I managed to build about half a dozen working Spectrums from all the crap they got, gave one to the manager, one to my uncle, kept one for myself and sold the remainder. Quite a lot of cash back in the days I was a teenager.
Still got the ZX81 and a Spectum up in my loft, along with a couple of BBC Micros.
http://www.skatehut.co.uk/acatalog/Bigtrak.html?gclid=CKegzrW4p6ICFUcA4wodWUdRSQ
The price now is pretty much what it cost back in the late 70s. If they are selling them again, I'm getting one!
Next best was probably an Atari console, but that was a "shared" present between me & my brothers.
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thought this was v cool compared to the stunt bike that everyone else had