Meccano was an English boy's
publication dealing primarily
with the Meccano erector-set.
It was published from 1916 through 1981.
Read about Meccano on Wikipedia. Since I was a boy when boys were boys, I got Meccano kits for Christmas, as you can imagine. Being poor, we only got the in- expensive kits which limited one's creative talents somewhat. Nevertheless, Christmas morning found me on the floor behind the sofa building cranes and stuff. Building cranes was quite easy. They had a handle to turn the string with the hook. After turning the stupid thing several times, it was time to dismantle and make into a racing car. Since I didn't have enough bits to make a racing car, I made a wheelbarrow instead. I then lost interest and turned my attention to my new Dinky cars and other stuff. Since I never had enough bits to make, for example, a model of the Queen Mary, I put them aside hoping that as the years passed I would accumulate enough bits to build my dream model. As each year passed, I usually got new bits only to discover tha the bits I got the year before had been lost or traded for marbles or something. So, I gave up on Meccano-ing but always read the Magazine because it always had lots of articles and ads for things I couldn't afford.
This page gives you an idea,
in case you needed one, of
what Meccano models looked
like on the rare occasions
when one was actually comp-
leted.
You can imagine the disap-
pointment of many boys who,
after saving their pennies
and buying their first
Meccano set when they opened
the box to find it only
had enough bits to make a
mousetrap or something.
Visions of gigantic models
of the Queen Mary and Blackpool
Tower remained visions.
You might notice that the
most expensive kit was 400/-
which in the arcane currency
of the time translates to
20 pounds. Needless to
say I never had one.
(7/6 "seven and six" means
seven shillings and six pence.
400/- is four hundred shillings
and no pence - 12 pence to the
shilling and 20 shillings to
the pound)
Although the copy says that
"The World's Happiest Boys
are Meccano Boys", that, for
some reason did not apply
to me.
Although the thought of
saving-up to buy more bits
was appealing, it was more
appealing to spend any money
which came my way on toffee,
instead.
In addition to being dashing,
and smart, and intelligent and
good-looking, the English certainly
are imaginative.
The inventor of this remarkable
airport, Captain Frobisher, gets
high marks in the imagination
sweepstakes for this invention.
The whole thing could rotate
so as to always face the wind
when there was one.
It might have been a good idea
to be able to rotate so that one
end was over a vacant lot so that
aeroplanes running off the edge
wouldn't land on a skyscraper.
It would of course, be helpful
in controlling the building of
buildings too tall for the vicinity.
With some further development,
it could, perhaps, be geared so as
to rotate at great speed. This would
serve to accelerate the aeroplanes'
speed and ensure an actual take-off.
Although not suggested as a Meccano
project, it would have required
a massive number of bits.
If you thought Meccano was expensive,
check out the prices for these trains.
I can't imagine how the "Happiest Boys
in the World" would feel when they
engaged in "The Most Fascinating Pastime
in the World". It must have been sheer
bliss.
No bliss for me though. I could never get
into trains, so to speak. They kept falling
off the tracks and were a pain to re-rail.
On top of that, they kept uncoupling from
each other.
The ad says "each locomotive is fitted
with a powerful motor that will pull
heavy loads at high speeds". This was
written before Truth in Advertising was
invented.
Even the cheapest Loco-only Hornby was
8/6 - can you imagine how much toffee you
can get for 8/6. Needless to say, it was
toffee-time not train-time when I was
rolling in pence.
"keen-eyed young men juggling with wonderful pieces of apparatus, which to the uninitated appear to be intricate robots of graduated dials, knobs and valves". Sounds like a keen place to work, eh? This article is worth reading just to give you an idea of how things were in the days when Boys were Boys and girls worked on assembly lines. Judging from the picture of the massive machines used to make Bakelite cabinets the place looks more like a place where they made battleships. Bakelite was the world's first plastic and was shiny, brown and smooth. Click on the wireless to read all about Bakelite.
I am not sure if I would have
found the manufacturing process "Romantic"
since I usually thought about Glynis
Johns when having romantic thoughts.
Click on Glynis to read about her in Wikipedia.
I would have preferred that I had an article about English aeroplanes but this is all I have. It doesn't matter that much because the frogs just copied the English planes anyway and gave them un- pronounceable names like Breguet- Wibault and Dewoitine. Some of these planes of the thirties were made of spruce and plywood. I suppose if you crashed you could build a fire from the remains to keep you warm in the wilderness - try that with a 747.
Of course, when Boys were Boys, Girls were Girls. There were girls all over the place when I was a boy. Since girls were never any good at fence-walking, stream- jumping, tree-climbing, Meccano-ing, railing-scaling, train-spotting, etc., we didn't pay much attention to them - until later. . . They also had funny names like Maureen Duckworth and Margaret Fazackerly, and Eileen Swyer-Sexey. None of these names are made up. The management of Meccano, however, did not look down on girls considering them to be a source of income since girls were usually more sensible than boys and would spend their money on doll stuff rather than toffee and Meccano. So, they advertised girl stuff.
Each issue of the magazine had articles detailing how to build a particular model. This particular issue covered autogiros and, remarkably, a model of a schoolmaster caning a schoolboy. This form of punishment was perfectly acceptable when Boys were Boys and was a powerful inducement to toe the line. The worst ever dished-out to us by the Nuns of school were knuckle-raps with the edge of a ruler, or palm-slaps with a strap. Bottom-caning was not known to us. This was, of course, when Political Correctness was unthought-of. Ahh, the good old days. Click on the 'giro to read about them in Wikipedia.
And, of course, a few pages of ads at the back of each issue.
