BBC James May My Sisters Top Toys
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00:00As a boy, I should have been very happy.
00:03I loved my toys, boyish things, mechanical and constructional stuff,
00:07demanding spatial logic and ingenuity.
00:10All would have been well, had I been left in peace.
00:13But first, I shared my childhood with an elder sister,
00:16and then later, another one came along.
00:19I was the filling in an unsavoury sister sandwich,
00:22and barely a day passed without the horrors of their namby-pamby toys
00:26interfering with my playtime.
00:30MUSIC
00:49I'd like to say, right from the start, that I was a good brother,
00:53and most of the time, my sisters and I played together very happily.
00:57As a very small boy, I indulged my big sister by joining her dolls' tea parties.
01:03I think he was a willing participant, because there was always food.
01:08James and I would actually eat something,
01:10and I'd have to pretend with my dolls that they were eating,
01:13and I used to put the cakes up to their mouths.
01:16I taught my little sister to respect her elders.
01:20He once pretended to throw my teddy off a boat.
01:24It must have been going on a ferry somewhere,
01:26and I think he held it over the side and then brought his hand back with it not being there,
01:29but he put it down somewhere, and then came back and went,
01:31''Oh, I've dropped it.''
01:33I can remember going, ''Quite mental.''
01:39Like generations of children before us, toys defined our lives,
01:43especially at Christmas, when toy-driven euphoria reached something like fever pitch.
01:48The windows are powerful magnets that lure the kids inside
01:51to get a close-up of all the marvellous things on sale
01:53in this enchanted world of Christmas presents.
02:00Some toys delighted all three of us.
02:02Lego, for example.
02:04My little sister would suck the bricks, I'd make something like an aeroplane,
02:07and then my big sister would make a hospital.
02:11And how boring is that?
02:13Good for dive-bombing, though.
02:17James!
02:19As a little boy, I wasn't concerned with the politics of sex.
02:23I probably barely realised there was a difference between girls and boys.
02:27But my sister's toys reveal that there was.
02:30Their toys actually tell us something about the history of this nation,
02:35and, more importantly, its womanhood.
02:40Let's begin at the beginning, when Britain was an industrial superpower.
02:44Men were men, and women stayed indoors.
02:47The only evidence that the two sexes had anything to do with each other
02:50was the odd baby.
02:52The main problem with babies is one of weight.
02:55They are very heavy to carry.
02:57They move around a lot, apparently, and they leak down your arm.
03:03So, prambulators were invented.
03:05One Yorkshire company cannily named its prams after royal palaces,
03:09and an early celebrity brand was born.
03:11Every mother in the land wanted one, and so did all their daughters.
03:15Silvercross got to work.
03:17And the result was this,
03:19a perfectly scaled replica of its popular Balmoral model,
03:23renowned for its springy suspension, its elegant paintwork
03:27and its very sturdy chassis.
03:29All this just to push that piece of plastic around.
03:33What a waste, because for my money,
03:36and for that of any self-respecting schoolboy,
03:38there was, is and only ever will be one good use for a pram.
03:44And it's this, to plunder it for the parts needed to make a go-kart.
03:52So, here's the plan.
03:54A boys' school and a girls' school are going to compete against each other
03:57to see who can make the best go-kart out of the toy pram.
04:01In the boys' corner, Ermiston's boys' grammar,
04:04and in the girls' corner, Skipton Girls' high.
04:07Here is your pram.
04:09The rules are very simple.
04:11You must use as much of this as possible, but especially the wheels.
04:15You must have functioning steering, you must have a working brake,
04:18no engines or motors or anything like that,
04:21and you have to nominate a team of two, one to drive and one to push off.
04:25Any questions?
04:27No.
04:28Sure?
04:30Off you go.
04:42Have any of you ever built a go-kart before?
04:46Not a go-kart, but we've designed an electric racing car.
04:50Have you?
04:51Yeah, in school.
04:52What, and built it?
04:54Yeah.
04:56In the olden days, few girls would have dreamt of building a go-kart.
05:00I built one, but my sisters didn't, and I didn't expect them to.
05:04Boys and girls did different things from one another back then.
05:09In school, for instance, boys did woodwork, metalwork and engineering.
05:14Girls did domestic science, housework and cleaning.
05:18It wasn't until the 70s that the old barriers began to tumble,
05:22and then only slowly.
05:24Presumably you've built go-karts before.
05:26A bit of sledge, which is pretty much similar, except without wheels.
05:29Is that because you couldn't find any wheels?
05:31Yeah, that's probably the reason.
05:33I'm staggered that you can stand there as a man
05:36and tell the world you've never built a go-kart.
05:38But we've built one now, which is essentially...
05:41Well, because somebody told you to.
05:46Are you confident in your design?
05:49Actually, I don't know. Yeah, I am. You have to be, really.
05:53One of the things I was always taught at school
05:56was that when you paint, the brush should never actually leave the surface.
06:01Look at that.
06:03You young people, you just don't know anything.
06:09That's beautifully painted now.
06:12You're still lifting the bristles off the surface.
06:14I'm sorry.
06:16It's probably, I don't know, 30, 35 years since I last built a go-kart.
06:21But I could still do it, though.
06:24But why bother when there's a factory down the road that can do it for me?
06:28Silvercross produce 4,000 of these toy prams a year.
06:32They're hand-built and hand-painted,
06:34so my go-kart should look pretty pucker.
06:37When this model was introduced in the 1920s,
06:40it was actually made out of wood.
06:44But then, during the Second World War,
06:46the pram factory was commandeered to make aluminium panels for Spitfires.
06:51And after the war, they thought,
06:53well, we like the aluminium, it's light and it's strong,
06:56and so they stuck with it.
06:58And the great thing about this is,
07:00if we have another war, you can simply hand your pram in
07:03and they can make it back into a Spitfire.
07:07But back to our war.
07:09The day of the girl-boy go-kart battle dawns.
07:12The 300-metre course awaits.
07:17This is the start line.
07:18There is another line down here, marked in black tape.
07:21This is the limit of push-off.
07:24Shortly after the starting line is their first obstacle to manoeuvre,
07:28the cattle grid,
07:29closely followed by a biohazard, two kilos of horse manure.
07:34This is the chicane.
07:36It's made out of old tractor tyres.
07:38The point of it is it's a test of braking efficiency and control.
07:43This blue bollard marks the position of egg gate.
07:47It's two rows of eggs extending from each side of the track
07:50with a gap in the middle which is just a few inches wider than the kart.
07:54If they hit an egg, it's a two-second penalty.
07:57And finally, the finish line, beyond which, in case of brake fade,
08:01is the hay bale wall of destruction.
08:04The teams will take it in turns to race against the clock.
08:08They'll have three attempts. Best average time wins.
08:11Your call.
08:12Heads.
08:13It's tails.
08:15First or second?
08:17Second.
08:18It's you.
08:19Come on, girls.
08:22Good call.
08:23The girls' kart is built around the principle of sturdiness and weight
08:27and features an impressively engineered steering system.
08:30A few final preparations,
08:32then the girls position their kart on the start line.
08:37Five, four, three, two, one, go.
08:44Crikey, they're off to a good start.
08:46They're really karting down there.
08:49Coming up now to the first obstacle, the cattle grid.
08:52Whoa, yes, they're through there.
08:55Past the biohazard.
08:58Approaching egg gate now.
09:00Yes, they're clear through there with no breakages.
09:03Now what about the chicane?
09:05Yes, good manoeuvring.
09:11After two more runs, the girls record an average of 57.9 seconds.
09:16Not that I'm telling them that.
09:18No, they'll have to wait until the boys have raced.
09:21And although their kart is a simpler and lighter affair,
09:24history suggests that genetic engineering will be the key.
09:27Five, four, three, two, one, go.
09:35Oh, dear. The men show a slight lack of commitment at the start.
09:41That looks slightly less wussy.
09:43The cattle grid. Oh, yes, that's good.
09:46Hang on, there's something not quite right with that wheel.
09:50Oh, for Pete's sake.
09:56What have you done?
09:58We've just built the whole thing.
10:00We were bossing it then as well.
10:02So you've completely demolished one wheel?
10:04Yeah, maybe two.
10:06You bledden-footed buffoons.
10:09Listen, you're representing blokes in this
10:12and you... Crap.
10:14Right, on the basis that they're useless,
10:17I think it's up to me to defend the male sex in the Silver Cross Bentley.
10:23Ta-da!
10:25What do you think?
10:27Leather interior.
10:29That's a belt to hold the bonnet on, it has.
10:31Suspension, see, a retained frame suspension.
10:34That handle is the brake, that's the pushing-off handle.
10:37Are you going to fit?
10:40Are you going to fit in that?
10:42I do fit in that, yes.
10:44That's some engineering.
10:46It's good, isn't it?
10:48In my lucky crash helmet, I enter the Bentley
10:51and muster the courage of a ten-year-old boy.
10:54Five, four, three, two, one, go.
11:10Oh!
11:14I lost control.
11:16More speed.
11:19Through the X, missed.
11:23Now, I hate racing drivers' excuses,
11:26but that was a useless push-off by a traitor to his sex.
11:30Still, maybe using my head will help propel me a bit further.
11:34I use the mass of my head as a pendulum.
11:39Oh!
11:43Smile!
11:45CHEERING
11:47Well, that didn't go quite as well as I'd expected,
11:50but after another two runs, I consult the race official.
11:54How did I do?
11:56Average time, 59 seconds.
11:58Oh!
12:01Cos I know your average time, 57.9.
12:05CHEERING
12:09But I think my go-kart looked more stylish than yours.
12:13No!
12:15Would you agree, though, that a go-kart is more fun than a pram?
12:18No.
12:20Who said no? Me.
12:22You'd rather have the pram? Yeah.
12:24Why? Cos it's more girly.
12:26Ladies and gentlemen, a proper girl.
12:31And back in the 50s and 60s, girls were proper girls.
12:35My elder sister Jane and her friends played with their dolls endlessly.
12:39I never played with them. I was a boy.
12:41We did not do the same things.
12:43There's always been a long tradition of girls' toys and boys' toys.
12:46Some say it's nurture, some say it's nature.
12:49Right-thinking people like me know it's somewhere between the two.
12:52Feeding, changing nappies, it's horrible.
12:56Ask any woman how this could possibly be a game.
12:59Yet every generation of little girls falls for it.
13:03Once children enter the world, they're treated very differently,
13:07depending on whether they're a girl or a boy.
13:10And right away, people start to buy different toys for girls and for boys.
13:15So just imagine, for instance, what happens when a boy picks up a doll.
13:19I mean, my little boy, he likes playing with the doll's prams, things like that,
13:23but if my husband saw him, no chance.
13:28One approach we've taken is to look at another species,
13:31vervet monkeys.
13:33We brought toys into enclosures,
13:36and what we found was that, like human children,
13:39the male monkeys spent more time with the cars,
13:43and like girls, the female monkeys spent more time with the dolls.
13:48One thing this suggests to me is that these toy preferences,
13:53although they are socially influenced,
13:55aren't entirely determined by society.
14:00No amount of social conditioning would ever have made me
14:03even vaguely interested in playing with this, Tiny Tears.
14:07It's the doll that redefined dolls,
14:10and it did that by crying.
14:12I rest my case.
14:14The baby's name is Tiny Tears.
14:16The people in marketing wanted a flexible doll,
14:19a 16-inch doll that was more flexible and more lifelike.
14:23So I was asked to look at that and see whether I could come up with any ideas.
14:28Well, that's how Tiny Tears was born, really.
14:31Tiny Tears, Tiny Tears
14:34You're my very own baby
14:37I'd seen Tiny Tears in the toy shops,
14:40and at that time I didn't have a doll at all.
14:43My brother was a baby, and I'd just gone through the experience
14:47of having a baby brother in the pram,
14:50so I felt as though I related to Tiny Tears,
14:53and she did things that babies did.
14:56Tiny Tears is crying because she was wet and had to be bathed.
14:59This is a Tiny Tears head, and it has a crying mechanism inside.
15:05This is the reservoir for the water,
15:07and the tubes carry the water to the eyes,
15:10and the water would come up along the tube into the eye,
15:13and it would come out of the face.
15:15The overflow water would go into the body,
15:17and that would make the doll wet.
15:20She was a lovely doll because she is so like a real baby,
15:23and when you lie her down,
15:25her little joints allow her to sort of flop,
15:27her little legs flop and her little arms flop,
15:30just like a real little baby going to sleep.
15:33No study of dolls would be complete without this one, Barbie.
15:37She first appeared in 1959,
15:39and her popularity remains undiminished almost half a century later.
15:44In fact, it is now reckoned
15:46that the global Barbie population is almost a billion.
15:50With a billion Barbies on the planet,
15:53I've calculated that it would take an eight-year-old boy
15:56317 years of non-stop work to pull all their heads off.
16:03The success of Barbie lies in that, like Cleopatra,
16:06she has proved to be a woman, or doll, of infinite variety.
16:10The role of women in society and their burgeoning aspirations
16:13are mapped out in the way Barbie has reinvented herself.
16:18Now, I've never played with Barbie,
16:20but I have studied her quite carefully,
16:22and I can't help noticing that there's something...
16:25not quite right about her.
16:28I reckon if you scaled up Barbie's vital stats,
16:32she would be an impressive 36, 18, 33,
16:36which all points to one thing.
16:38She simply wouldn't be able to stand up
16:41unless she was wearing Action Man's rucksack.
16:45Back in the olden days, before plastic was invented,
16:48toys were made of honest materials like wood and wool.
16:51Their honeyed tones enlivened only occasionally
16:54with a splash of red, yellow or green.
16:57But then, in the 1970s, the whole world of being a girl
17:01was infected with a terrible parasite.
17:04It was... the colour pink.
17:07Sweet spot.
17:09If you're a boy and you go into a toy store
17:11and the whole part of that department is pink,
17:13you know you do not go there.
17:16But go there I must, if I am ever to understand
17:19the formative years of the mind of woman.
17:22I was once given a pink shirt, which I've never worn.
17:26It's not a macho thing, I just really don't like the colour pink.
17:30So I've come here to confront this particular chromatic problem.
17:35I'm sorry, but that is hideous.
17:37And in my England, it would be outlawed.
17:40In Victorian times, pink was for boys.
17:43And even into the 20th century, pink was considered a boys' colour.
17:47The symbols we have for things are purely conventional.
17:50They're learned and handed down.
17:52Pink for girls, blue for boys.
17:54Pink for girls, blue for boys.
17:56Pink for girls, blue for boys.
17:58Pink for girls, blue for boys.
18:00Pink for girls, blue for boys.
18:02Pink for girls, blue for boys.
18:04If everything you do, from your baby clothes through to your toys,
18:07to your teddy bears, is coded that way, it becomes part of your life.
18:16What is the pink thing? What's it about?
18:19Little girls absolutely love pink, sparkle, flutter, glitter.
18:23I don't know, it could be associated with fairies, angels, butterflies,
18:28anything of that variety sells enormously well.
18:31And does pink sell better than yellow?
18:34Absolutely. They definitely go towards the pink spectrum.
18:38Even lilac and white with specks of pink won't sell as well as pink.
18:43Pure pink is it.
18:45Well then, I'm as confused and nauseated as when I arrived.
18:49I simply don't get it.
18:51But here's where the backlash begins.
18:56Fortunately, most girls grow out of pink and baby stuff.
19:00But only to move on to the next phase of female evolution,
19:03which is emulating their big sisters and their mums,
19:06putting on make-up and doing their hair.
19:10Sixties designer Les Cook went to the New York Toy Fair
19:14looking for inspiration for a new kind of doll.
19:17On the way home, he looked in a department store window
19:20where he spotted a mannequin's head.
19:23Eureka! He realised that a whole new doll wasn't necessary at all.
19:27He could make his fortune out of just a head mounted on a plinth.
19:31He called his creation Girls World.
19:34It is completely gruesome.
19:38Martin, look at me!
19:40Les knew that small girls loved playing with people's hair
19:44and fooling around with make-up.
19:47Trouble is, willing victims are always very hard to come by.
19:51So here was a severed head that never struggled or complained
19:54and could be abused for hours on end.
19:57Genius.
20:02I did have a Girls World, but I think it must have been my sisters.
20:05Or it was second-hand.
20:07Because when they got older, Girls World,
20:09the make-up didn't used to come off.
20:11So they were already sort of half done.
20:13And the bit where you pressed the button and their hair grew
20:15used to get stuck, so you'd have a big lump of long hair sticking out the top.
20:18And I think I got to the stage where I just used to draw on it with felt tip.
20:22And the packaging promises that some styles can be easily achieved
20:26by anyone over the age of four.
20:28So it should be a real pushover for a group of eight-year-olds, then.
20:32Right, this afternoon, we're going to be looking at this toy here.
20:36Possibly your mum's might still have one, but they'll have played with it.
20:39This is alien territory for me, and to understand this toy,
20:42I have to somehow get into the head of an eight-year-old girl.
20:46Right.
20:51This is year four of a primary school,
20:53and I'm hoping they can give me an insight
20:55into what it is about this ghoulish toy that is so appealing.
21:00Now, I'll be honest with you.
21:02I wear make-up. It's all part of being a media pons.
21:05But I've never put make-up on anyone else,
21:09and I've never styled any hair.
21:11Obviously.
21:13However, there are some instructions.
21:17So I'll have a go.
21:20Push the strand of hair between the bends in the applicator.
21:24Slide the beads.
21:26While I attempt to do this by the book,
21:28my other classmates tap into some kind of intuition
21:31that means they seem to know exactly what to do
21:34and how to do it straight away.
21:38I'm usually fairly dexterous.
21:40I can build fantastic scale-extric circuits.
21:42But this thing has utterly defeated me.
21:44I have failed the practical, and I'm struggling with the concept.
21:48Do you think this looks like a real face?
21:50No.
21:51It doesn't, does it? But why doesn't it?
21:53It has green eyes.
21:55Well, we'll soon sort that out, because I can make them red.
21:59The doll's appeal clearly has nothing to do with realism.
22:03So why do girls like it?
22:05I like messing with their hair.
22:07So it's the hair bit that you like best?
22:10Yeah, messing with it.
22:12How many marks would you give this out of ten as a toy,
22:15compared with all the other toys you've played with?
22:18Nine out of ten.
22:19Nine? What about everybody else?
22:21Nine out of ten?
22:22Eight out of ten.
22:23Ten out of ten.
22:24Ten out of ten. So you all really like it?
22:26Yeah.
22:27You really do like it? Because I think it's really boring.
22:31That's because you're doing it rubbishly.
22:33Is that what it is?
22:34So I never wanted to be a hairdresser anyway.
22:37But I wonder, could these ghastly heads be a useful vocational tool?
22:45Right, I'm going to give you 30 minutes
22:48to turn Girls' World into Miss Girls' World 1975.
22:52Do anything you like.
22:54Go.
22:56Did you ever have one of these when you were small?
22:58Yeah.
22:59If you hadn't had one of these,
23:00do you think you'd have still worked in hair and beauty
23:02or would you have done something else?
23:04I think it really did help.
23:05Because if I didn't have the dog,
23:06then I wouldn't really know about the whole hair industry.
23:08I wouldn't have been interested.
23:09So when I got older and got to school,
23:11then I started looking into hair more.
23:13So it really is an inspiration to some girls.
23:16But then I have an agenda.
23:18I have an agenda.
23:19I have an agenda.
23:20I have an agenda.
23:21I have an agenda.
23:22I have an agenda.
23:23I have an agenda.
23:24But then I have an egalitarian moment
23:26and realise that the manufacturer
23:28has made a glaring marketing blunder.
23:30So you're a bloke and you're a hairdresser.
23:34Did you ever have Girls' World when you were a kid?
23:36No, never.
23:37So you were at a disadvantage?
23:38Yeah, slightly.
23:39Be honest.
23:40Did you ever practice on the dog, your brother?
23:44When it was raining and we couldn't go out,
23:46maybe on the dog.
23:49Great.
23:50So the boys have got dogs and the girls have got dolls.
23:53Now, how have our stylists got on with their plastic heads?
23:58Ah, variations on the beehive.
24:02And the bob?
24:04Well, I think we've arrived at a handy career hint
24:07for all young and aspiring hairdressers and beauticians.
24:11If you want to get ahead, get ahead.
24:15I had a traditional-style doll's house
24:18with little cloth pupil that went inside it.
24:21My grandparents bought it.
24:23And I played games and enjoyed putting them to bed.
24:28Doll's houses have been with us for over 500 years
24:31and they were never invented for girls to play with at all.
24:34Originally, they were replicas of real houses
24:37commissioned by wealthy property owners
24:39as a way of showing off their properties.
24:42Today, a grandiose one could set you back £2,000,
24:47which is quite steep for a glorified box.
24:51After World War I,
24:53the royal family pushed the boundaries of doll's house technology.
24:57It was given to Queen Mary in 1923
24:59by a group of friends and artists,
25:02a gesture of national goodwill
25:04following the abomination of the 1418 war.
25:08It took 1,500 craftsmen four years to build and furnish.
25:12When it was displayed at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924,
25:16over a million-and-a-half visitors queued up to see it.
25:20The doll's houses most parents can afford
25:23are, of course, much more modest.
25:25But even in miniature, their development reflects
25:28the values and aspirations of tomorrow's owner-occupiers.
25:32This British-inspired doll's house
25:36This British example is from 1963
25:39and has come to be seen as something of a design classic.
25:42Its designer, Roger Limbrick,
25:44came up with it in response to a social problem.
25:47At the time, childcare was unheard of,
25:50so mothers set up their own nurseries in church halls and community centres.
25:54The open-sided design meant that two or more children
25:58could play with it at the same time.
26:00There was plenty of room for hands and little elbows.
26:04Everything had to be packed away at the end of the day,
26:07but this could be dismantled and put into a box no bigger than a large book.
26:13I really like this.
26:15It's very tasteful and minimalist and cool in that Scandinavian sort of way.
26:19And more to the point,
26:21it looks remarkably like a toy garage I had when I was a boy.
26:27For today's little girls, the doll's house experience
26:30is something altogether more plastic.
26:33Take this one.
26:35It's the Sylvanian family's rather magnificent gaff.
26:39These animals in human mufti arrived from Japan in 1987.
26:43It was toy of the year, three years running.
26:47The original name for this mass-produced community was the Calico Critters,
26:51which is terribly misleading,
26:53because what we have here is idealised English country life.
26:57Look at the afternoon tea on the table and the grand piano.
27:02It's bizarre.
27:05But obviously the most important component in a doll's house
27:09is not the house itself or the furnishings or the little people who inhabit it.
27:13It's what's going on in the imagination of the child playing with it.
27:17And this is what worries me,
27:19because what on earth is going on in the mind of someone who plays with this?
27:24Someone like my little sister Sarah.
27:28When I was about five years old, I was given a tree house,
27:31which is a massive green plastic monstrosity,
27:34and I absolutely loved it.
27:36My brother hates it.
27:38He thought it was the most disgusting, ugly, hilariously bad toy in the world,
27:42and laughed at me constantly for playing with it.
27:45The feature that differentiates this doll's house from any other,
27:48well, apart from that it's a tree, is this handle on the top.
27:52I can never quite see the point of that.
27:59I have a bit of an issue with the inside of it as well.
28:02You see, the child is the same size as the parent,
28:05and the parents are the same size as the dog.
28:08As an illustration of bad scaling, it's fantastic.
28:12I think if James had to see one of those green plastic tree houses again,
28:16he would probably smash it to pieces.
28:18He absolutely loathed it.
28:20This handle is actually the key to understanding the tree house's appeal to girls,
28:25because it makes it a glorified handbag.
28:28Still, that also makes it a lot easier to take it to a place it's never been to before.
28:39I'm a bit nervous about this, in case it's really, really rubbish.
28:42And I used to love it so much.
28:45Oh, it's fantastic, though.
28:52I wonder if it still works.
28:54Oh!
29:04Little sister, look away.
29:07Little sister, look away.
29:38LAUGHTER
29:44Unlike the tree house, there are one or two toys that I remember only very dimly.
29:49Fuzzy Felt is one of them.
29:51I think I had a couple of goes when I was a small boy,
29:53but my little sister, on the other hand, was very much into it.
29:57And once again, it relies on the ability of children to fill in the gaps
30:01between the rather crude shapes.
30:04This, for example, is technically two triangles separated by a rhombus.
30:10Or is it a space rocket?
30:12It's ironic that such a touchy-feely toy owes its very existence to World War II.
30:18Whilst our boys were fighting overseas,
30:20the women supported the war effort on the home front.
30:23It was in the garden of this Buckinghamshire house
30:26that a team of mothers, led by its owner, Lois Allen, made parts for tanks.
30:31It was while Lois Allen was hard at work making felt tank gaskets like this one
30:36that she noticed something.
30:38The offcuts were very slightly sticky, and this gave her a brilliant idea.
30:43When she cut up pieces of felt into shapes
30:48and put them on the back of a table mat, they stuck there,
30:52and the children could have fun making shapes
30:54and then take them off and make another picture, and so on.
30:59After the war, Lois launched her invention as Fuzzy Felt.
31:03It was an instant hit.
31:05The most successful time for Fuzzy Felt was in the late 70s.
31:10We employed 70-odd people,
31:12and we were producing about a million boxes per year.
31:19Fuzzy Felt was known to be a girls' toy, and I know it's a very, very thin line.
31:23You could say, oh, there's an art, there's a creativity to Meccano,
31:26but compared with nicely coloured pieces of felt, boys didn't like that.
31:30It wasn't somehow chunky enough.
31:32But also, when you're a boy, there's always another boy, real or imaginary,
31:35looking over your shoulder saying,
31:37girls' toy, girls' toy, so you don't do it, do you?
31:40I suppose it does have a sort of 1950s innocent charm about it, Fuzzy Felt,
31:45but I don't know if it can really survive in the modern, sophisticated playroom.
31:50I wonder what the fuzzy logic of today's eight-year-olds would make of it.
31:54Here's how to find out.
31:55Take a box of Fuzzy Felt to a class of children learning animation
31:58and give them a picture of me for inspiration.
32:01So he disappears in his car and lands on a volcano.
32:05And he gets caught by an octopus.
32:08A three-headed octopus with 16 legs.
32:11We could have the zombie octopus, like, and then he's got the bat.
32:15Then he goes back in time to the dinosaurs,
32:19smashes into a tree as he comes down.
32:23He meets an alien and the devil and he goes back to home.
32:28Well, with storylines like that, I'm expecting a blockbuster.
32:37Space. At least I think it is.
32:41And that must be me arriving in my intergalactic pickup truck,
32:45with my dog, obviously.
32:47Ooher, you're not from the Clangers, are you?
32:50Poor you. I think it might be wise to fuzz off.
32:53Rocket? Thank you.
32:56Phew, that was a close one.
32:58A new planet, a new tractor.
33:01Oh, no, this one's populated by felt aliens as well.
33:04I'd better escape while I can through this lightning storm.
33:08In fact, I'll hide in this hollow mountain.
33:11Oh, no, I won't.
33:13Better traverse the space-time continuum through my handy time portal.
33:16Whoa!
33:19Ah, now, this is much better.
33:22I think I'll go and have a snooze under this yucca tree.
33:25Oh, my word. Oh, what?
33:28Oh, no!
33:30Thanks, kids.
33:32Well, there you go.
33:34People often say to me,
33:35War, what is it good for?
33:37And there's your answer. Fuzzy felt.
33:43One toy combined my sister's love of arty stuff
33:46with my obsession with technical things,
33:48and it was...
33:50Spirograph.
33:52It was invented by Yorkshireman Dennis Fisher in 1962.
33:56Fisher earned a living designing improvements
33:59in bomb detonation equipment for NATO.
34:02His spiral graphic product was intended as a drawing tool
34:05for industrial companies, but he couldn't find any takers.
34:09So he did what any profit-hungry bomb maker would do.
34:12He turned it into a toy.
34:15Now, I should have loved this.
34:17It used epicyclic gears like a Sturmey Archer bicycle hub,
34:21and it looked impressive.
34:23The box is very promising.
34:25It says,
34:27a simple and fascinating way to make a million marvellous patterns.
34:30But one word in that statement is a bit of a fib, to be honest,
34:33and that word is...
34:35simple.
34:37With a very steady hand, you had to turn the little cogs,
34:40all the different shapes around it, very, very carefully.
34:43And I think James always had more of an eye for detail than me.
34:48But just when I thought I'd cracked it,
34:50a cog would slip and ruin the whole thing.
34:54I do find it faintly perverse
34:56that something intended as a design tool
34:59should turn out to be so flawed in terms of its own design.
35:03I never created a single brilliant thing with this,
35:06but maybe, just maybe, some students can in a place like this.
35:12I'm taking Spirograph to a class of art and design students
35:15to see if they can conquer its shortcomings.
35:18I'd like to have a go, because I don't actually believe that it works.
35:23Since they're arty, you'd expect this lot to be pretty adept
35:26at anything involving a pen.
35:31But even they can't do it.
35:38Oh!
35:40What is it that makes it difficult?
35:42It's really easy to slip. Yes.
35:44And you're looking at the image you want to draw,
35:47or the image you want to make,
35:49but you also have to think about going round in circles.
35:52Which, oddly enough, is how I feel about the instruction manual.
35:56Don't be put off if the patterns and the instructions that follow
35:59look too difficult for you.
36:01They aren't. Well, I'm sorry, but they are.
36:05Look at that!
36:07No wonder there were so many mass murderers in the 70s.
36:10Spirograph went on to become toy of the year 1967,
36:14and so far, I've no idea why.
36:17How are you doing? Hang on a minute.
36:20This may be a television first.
36:23No, there's definitely something wrong.
36:26Oh, no, I can see, there's a... Yes.
36:28You did slip there, didn't you?
36:30You have to half watch the wheel,
36:33half watch the spiral,
36:37and then half watch yourself.
36:40They're as bad at it as I am,
36:43but there are artists who do know how to make Spirograph work.
36:49Leslie Halliwell, who, incidentally,
36:51was born in the year that Spirograph was invented,
36:54uses it to create huge artworks.
37:01It is, she admits, a bit of an obsession.
37:07There we go. One Spirograph.
37:12Congratulations.
37:14I think that may be the first flawless piece of Spirograph in history.
37:18Right, here we go.
37:20That's it. Slowly, slowly.
37:23Do it slowly. Steady, slow and steady.
37:26Getting a bit stuck in one place there.
37:29That's terrible.
37:31What happens when you're doing one of your massive ones
37:34that we looked at earlier has got, say, 20,000 of these in it?
37:38What happens if you get near the end and then you make a mistake?
37:41Well, that happens, that's part of the work.
37:44And if you look closely, maybe you'll be able to spot some of those flaws,
37:48but I think that's part of the human element of the work.
37:52That means you have, in effect,
37:55embraced the fundamental flaw of Spirograph,
37:58which is that it doesn't really work,
38:01and put a positive spin on it, or a positive twirl.
38:05To be honest, I've always thought of Spirograph as a girl's toy,
38:08and actually boys can't do it, as I've proved.
38:11It's the interesting thing about the Spirograph,
38:14even the language of Spirographs.
38:16You've got the gears, the wheels, all those different elements.
38:19It's the language, really, of boys, isn't it?
38:22It's techie.
38:24Then, on the other side of that, you have the pattern that you make.
38:28Girly.
38:30Possibly girly.
38:32I was a bit conflicted about it.
38:34I think children do find...
38:36Oh, look at that.
38:38Oh!
38:40But I think that is pretty much spot on.
38:44That's fantastic.
38:47Now, a purist such as Leslie would never interfere
38:50with the integrity of the original art tool.
38:53However, those cunning art and design students
38:56have come up with the next big thing in the Spirograph art canon.
39:00Whatever that means.
39:02And they've done it by cheating, frankly.
39:05That is, using a computer.
39:07What have you got there, then?
39:09It's an interactive Spirograph piece.
39:11It has a camera so it can put your face onto the Spirograph.
39:14Eh? What?
39:16Would you like to have a look?
39:18That's my nostril.
39:20And that is my mouth.
39:22Yes. Is it changing when I speak?
39:24Yes, it sounds sensitive.
39:26That is... Whee!
39:28That's brilliant.
39:30Has a piece of plastic Spirograph been anywhere near that
39:33or have you just done it with a software thing?
39:36No, we have used a Spirograph, but onto a graphics tablet.
39:39Right.
39:41So it gets drawn straight onto the computer.
39:43Well, I do have to say,
39:45this has overcome the elemental flaw of Spirograph,
39:48which is that it doesn't work.
39:50And that does.
39:52It's time to unveil
39:54the world's first computer-generated,
39:56voice-interactive Spirograph art mural.
40:01Yeah!
40:06Very good.
40:17Fantastic.
40:23So, you see, actually, Dennis Fisher's idea was very good.
40:26It's just that he left a few things out of the Spirograph set.
40:29The laptop computer, the art student,
40:32the camera, the projector
40:34and the 1950s preserved historic building.
40:37Other than that, spot on.
40:44Back in my day, we were happy with a good book.
40:47In fact, reading was one of the few activities we did together in peace.
40:52When I was five, my mum took me up to town to join the big library.
40:56And it was there that I discovered
40:58the greatest writing in the English language,
41:01the complete works of Ladybird.
41:04Ladybird books were a phenomenon.
41:06By 1973, 20 million copies a year
41:09were coming off the printing press in Loughborough.
41:12We all read Ladybird books.
41:14I mean, anybody who read at all
41:16was probably taught to read on Ladybird books,
41:18so we branched out from the Peter and Jane's,
41:20which were the reading scheme,
41:22out into the more interesting ones.
41:25The book's success was the result of a winning formula.
41:28Each book was the same size, a small format to keep costs low.
41:32Ladybird books were very recognisable
41:35and I think when you see them all lined up on the shelf,
41:39you knew what you were getting.
41:41Each one had 56 pages and 24 illustrations.
41:45The price remained the same for 29 years, two and six.
41:49The price was good, the subject matter was easy to see,
41:53there were levels you could take your child through
41:56and you also knew it was a very safe world.
41:59Over the years, Ladybird books have sold hundreds of millions of copies
42:03and they've been translated into over 60 languages.
42:06But for most young readers, my sisters and me included,
42:09the main attraction was the illustrations.
42:15Oh!
42:17Oh!
42:20Oh!
42:25Sorry, I might get slightly emotional looking at that.
42:31That has just made me five again.
42:35The thing that amazes me,
42:37and I think this is why I got my first Ladybird book, which was this one,
42:41the story of Henry V as I thought it was,
42:44it was actually the picture on the front and then the pictures inside
42:47that made me say to my mum, oh, I want this book.
42:50They are staggeringly good illustrations, they are true artworks,
42:55they're not dashed off, they're things of beauty.
42:58They certainly are and that's because they were done
43:01by top dollar commercial artists of the time.
43:04Many of them did Ladybird as a sideline
43:07while working for big clients in the Midlands car industry.
43:11Others illustrated popular boy comics such as The Eagle.
43:15I suppose we should make an effort to talk about a girl's Ladybird book.
43:18Maybe, yes.
43:20I think actually this was my sister's favourite, Cinderella.
43:23I may have even read it to her once when she was very small.
43:26Do you have the pictures from this?
43:28A lovely picture from the front.
43:30Well, it is very, it's very, very familiar,
43:33but it doesn't move me in quite the same way that the story of Flight does,
43:38to be brutally honest.
43:40I can understand that.
43:42A lot of people find this one incredibly evocative of their youth.
43:46I think she was modelled on Brigitte Bardot.
43:49I really loved Ladybird books, particularly the Cinderella,
43:52because I think it was so exciting, they were so colourful and vibrant
43:55that as you turned each page, she starts off in rags
43:58and then she goes to three different balls in the Ladybird book
44:01and there's three different dresses and every time you turn the page
44:04there's a big pink dress and a big silver sparkly dress.
44:07It was just fantastic.
44:09And that really just made people swoon.
44:12They wanted dresses like that.
44:14Yeah, girls, we have girls here.
44:16What, more than the picture of the Montgolfier hot air balloon?
44:18I think it's quite possible. Tosh.
44:21What's your favourite Ladybird book?
44:23Magnets, Bulbs and Batteries, actually.
44:25Really?
44:27It shows you how to do dangerous experiments.
44:30It did? It certainly did.
44:32I love a particular illustration, here it is,
44:35where you're instructed to cut apart a battery
44:39and then you have to lick some kind of battery device
44:43so you use your tongue as a conductor
44:46and I just don't think you'd be able to do this nowadays.
44:50I always liked the How It Works series.
44:53So did the MOD.
44:55They had hundreds of copies of the Ladybird book of the computer
44:58printed with plain brown covers
45:00so their employees could read it without feeling embarrassed.
45:05The interesting thing is, even when you're an adult
45:08and you think you're well-informed and technically minded,
45:11a Ladybird book is still the best place to start.
45:14They wanted to have a book for every subject
45:17and I think they pretty much did it.
45:19The thing I always admired about Ladybird books
45:22was that they were great social levellers.
45:24They were for the people.
45:26Here is a very old one, Things to Make, and it says...
45:36So even if you were poor, you could be happy.
45:39In fact, if you could rustle up one onion,
45:42a pen and some writing paper, your life was complete.
45:46So let's have a go at making invisible ink for secret messages.
45:51Cut the onion in half and squeeze the juice into a bowl.
45:59It does say in the introduction to the book
46:01that these activities will keep children occupied for hours and hours.
46:04I can see why, really.
46:08Using this juice as ink, write a message on the paper.
46:11Allow it to dry slowly by itself.
46:21Now you can astonish your friends
46:23by holding the paper close to the heat from a lamp
46:26and your message will appear.
46:30It's still quite secret, this secret message.
46:34Maybe you can only read it if you're wearing a tank top.
46:37So let's have a go at making a pair of stilts.
46:41You will need two syrup tins, a nail for punching holes.
46:45Here's one from a pint of nails that my dad bought earlier on.
46:48Two long pieces of string, there and there.
46:51First, of course, because these are new tins,
46:53we have to empty out the syrup.
46:57Crikey, this could take a while.
47:05There. Now, people born during the war needn't worry
47:08because I'm going to use all of that later to make some delicious flapjack.
47:16First, punch some holes in the side of the tin near the top.
47:20Remember to ask a grown-up to help you with this
47:23or use round-ended safety nails.
47:26Of course, when I was a lad, there wasn't any health and safety.
47:29We used to collect shells on the beach.
47:32Unexploded ones.
47:34Next, thread a piece of string through both holes of one tin
47:37and tie the ends together so that the knot is inside the tin.
47:42And because I've read the Lady Bird book of the Boy Scout,
47:45I'm going to tie the two ends together in a reef knot.
47:53There. Now, here's a modification they don't actually suggest in the Lady Bird book
47:57but that I'm going to make as I now weigh nearly 13½ pounds.
48:01Nearly 13½ stone, which is to put the lids back on
48:04just to ensure the tins are as rigid as possible.
48:12There you are. Each tin is now effectively, in engineering terms, a monocoque.
48:18So, all that remains is to road-test this syrup-tin-based stilt solution.
48:25Ruddy kids these days don't know what they're missing.
48:28I think they need YouFace and MyTube and video games.
48:33I need some tins, string, a bit of coal to eat.
48:40When girls get to the age of about 11, something weird happens.
48:44The pink detritus of innocent childhood is cast aside
48:47and instead of spending hours dressing up dolls,
48:50they suddenly spend hours dressing up themselves.
48:53In fact, they do something that boys avoid at all costs.
48:56They grow up.
48:58When I was secondary school age, I started getting interested in how I looked.
49:02And then your first kiss with a boy,
49:05that was what we all used to concentrate on in the playground.
49:09It was such a fascination for us.
49:11You start to see the signs just before Christmas.
49:14I want a mobile phone and more lip gloss.
49:16Girls stop asking for dolls and start asking for things you don't understand.
49:20Well, if I ask her to come to the party, then she'll bring him.
49:23Then they start whispering and being secretive about completely irrelevant stuff.
49:27And if you wear that new dress, he's bound to fall for you.
49:29Boys are suddenly left behind by girls, oblivious to what's going on.
49:33Girls suddenly need to talk all the time.
49:36So I said to her, you fancy him, don't you? And she said, of course not.
49:39And it sounds like they're saying the same thing over and over again.
49:42Of course she does. She was all over him.
49:44At the same age, a boy might still be happy making the air fix Concorde.
49:48You know, the big 72nd scale one with the complicated instructions.
49:51Do you think this colour suits me?
49:53The doll's house becomes nothing more than somewhere for girls to dump their clothes when getting ready.
49:58It's fab, but will my bum look slim in this?
50:00Can't wait to see Freddy. So buff.
50:02For some reason, girls suddenly want to go out.
50:05And that's when boys who have become dads get nervous.
50:08Where are they off to?
50:10And it's that growing up thing, the thing that girls do so much faster than boys,
50:14that finally and cruelly shuts the lid on the pleasures of their toy boxes.
50:19Generation after generation of boys will continue to play with their toys until well into their dotage.
50:24But girls, and that includes my two sisters, they miss out on all that.
50:29I think it's a real shame.
50:37I've saved my little sister's toppest top toy until last,
50:41because it's the one that had the greatest impact on my life.
50:45Of all Sarah's toys, it's the one I loathed and despised the most.
50:49Not because it was girly, not because it was sissy, but because it was crap.
50:54It provided an uninterrupted soundtrack to my childhood that I simply couldn't turn off.
51:00And here it is.
51:02Major Morgan, the electronic organ.
51:06What a piece of...
51:10It was given to my sister one terrible Christmas.
51:14I must have been about six years old when I got Major Morgan, the electronic organ.
51:18I didn't really understand what it was at first, but basically it plays nursery rhymes.
51:24When you press different letters, it plays the note.
51:28So you can play Three Blind Mice really simply.
51:31Major Morgan had little cards that you slotted into one end,
51:35and these helped you to destroy dependable centuries-old tunes.
51:39So when you're quite young, it's a really easy way to play a tune, and I absolutely loved it.
51:43It's so exciting. I play with it every day.
51:45In fact, my brother used to steal it from me and hold it out of my reach.
51:49I think because it was really annoying when I used to play Three Blind Mice all the time.
51:53I hated it because back then I was learning music,
51:57and I knew this wasn't a proper musical instrument.
52:00It has no soul, it has no capacity for expression,
52:03and it has no accidentals, so you can't play proper tunes on it.
52:07It failed as a toy, it failed as a musical instrument,
52:10and it was fit for no purpose whatsoever.
52:13Except, perhaps, target practice.
52:16But before we consign the cheap, nasty, tone-deaf plastic major
52:20to the great charity box of toy history,
52:23I'm going to give him one chance to redeem himself with a special one-off performance.
52:29And to help me, I'm going to have the backing of an enthusiastic school orchestra.
52:42It's out of tune.
52:44Is it a musical instrument?
52:46Oh, no, absolutely not.
52:48It's just a toy?
52:50It looks like a toy to me.
52:52What about tonally?
52:54It's not a particularly beautiful noise, is it?
52:56It's not very expressive.
52:58No. One sound.
53:00Are we agreed it's rubbish?
53:02I think so.
53:04The hour of the performance approaches, and what could be the major's last stand?
53:09This is the first time I've performed with any sort of orchestra for over 20 years,
53:13and I'm playing a very unfamiliar instrument,
53:15so I'm actually rather nervous about it,
53:17especially as these people have practised very hard,
53:19and their orchestra is actually rather good.
53:21Right, major, this is your last chance to prove yourself.
53:24Be straight, be tonally accurate, and don't let these people down.
53:55ORCHESTRA PLAYS
53:59ORCHESTRA CONTINUES
54:18ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS
54:28ORCHESTRA CONTINUES
54:59ORCHESTRA CONTINUES
55:11For 30 years, he was a plastic novelty discarded at the back of a cupboard,
55:16and now it transpires he's an orchestral soloist.
55:20I'm absolutely staggered.
55:23David, you're the arranger.
55:25Yeah.
55:26Major Morgan did that little Beethoven...
55:28I was impressed, actually. I was pleasantly surprised.
55:30I wasn't expecting it to be in tune, and it was in tune with the orchestra, so...
55:34Thank you very much for allowing me to play with your orchestra.
55:38I'm still... To be honest, it made me slightly emotional.
55:41Aw.
55:42I got a slight lump in my throat when the tune started,
55:45and I thought, not only is that one of the best-known tunes in the world,
55:48it's coming out of one of the worst musical instruments in history,
55:51and it still sounds brilliant.
55:53ORCHESTRA CONTINUES
55:56That astonishing vindication of Major Morgan, the electronic organ,
56:01brings to an end this rummage through my sister's toy box.
56:05I've weighed up their merits, I've weighed up their faults,
56:08and in conclusion I feel forced to say that my toys were much better.
56:13But, of course, I would say that because I'm a boy,
56:16and, more importantly, I'm a brother.
56:19Happy Christmas, everybody.
56:21Right, you ready for this, Jane? I think so.
56:23OK. One, two, three, four.
56:27ALARM BLARES
56:46THEY LAUGH
56:47It's terrible!
56:51ORCHESTRA CONTINUES
57:09Car conversations are great.
57:11You'll see that when Robert Llewellyn is giving a lift to Rob Brydon
57:14and Jeremy Hardy in a while at 8.30 tonight.
57:17Next, though, it's QI.
57:19ORCHESTRA CONTINUES