Memory Lane Part 4 - Toy Shops In The Steel City, Part 3

 Well, as we alight from the 'City Clipper' on Pond Street and head back along the bus shelter which fronts the Peace Gardens (an ironic name, I assure you), we se Beatties of London, a Mecca for all kinds of serious hobby products, and today we may find something new.

It's been a couple of years since we slipped the timestream where we had just come out of the Co-Op with my nan, and on this overcast day, we are here with my best mate at the time, Alan Staniforth, about to run across Pinstone Street to Beatties:

The pic above is a little later, after the long, wooden bus shelter was pulled down and replaced with these horrible tube steel and perspex monstrosities, but we can see Beatties, so lets cross the road and try not to stand out in our skinny fit jeans, denim jackets and wannabe, Hippy pretentions which at this point are starting to show, as we seek to emulate people like Stanny's elder brother Dave, who was a biker and in our eyes, rather cool and getting us into stuff like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Quo and Deep Purple... 

Beatties was, at that time, bigger than Games Workshop, and was a chain of bloody excellent model stores staffed by enthusiastic modellers who knew their stuff.

Sheffield was managed by an absolute tyrant called Geoff (who will feature in this history in a year of so) who could be a complete bastard, and I think he hated kids. 

If you went in on your own, it was like running the gauntlet, but, go in with a nan or parents intent on throwing open the coffers on their first born, and he couldn't do enough.

We hated and feared him in equal measure.

Graham and Bob however were brilliant staffers who would talk for hours about all things model related with enthusiasm and knowledge. Geoff spent most of his time in the office, doing whetever he did in there, so unless he was watching on the CCTV, we could have a great laugh with the staff there.

I'd been hgoing there since the 70s for mostly model railways and paints. I was fiercely loyal to Redgates for my Airfix military themed kits, but I did start to buy my Tamiya 1:35 scale stuff from Beatties, as well as my first radio control car.

It's a fact, that when I made loads of friends from all of the city, as we all discovered gaming in what was such a seemingly natural 'evolution' we all realised that for probably a decade or more, we'd probably passed each other, oblivious to each other's existence, in stores such as Redgates and Beatties, and we had all gone through a similar initiation of Airfix, Tamiya, Hornby and Action Man.

Small world...

Well, today we're in Beatties to look at the new games for the Atari console and more importantly so that Stanny can get some spares parts for his Tamiya RC car. His experiment with pushing panel pins through the rear tyres, to create what can only be described as an offensive weapon upgrade has not gone to plans and, rather than the extra traction he expected, the car just digs into the ground and goes nowhere.

We head down the right of the T-shaped shop floor and take a tight turn - shuddering as we pass Geoff's lair - into the RC area. We buy what we need, turn back to the right to retrace our steps and there in the glass - locked - cabinets on the wall are A4 sized boxes with amazing artwork depicting dragons, future warriors and on one, the Fellowship Of The Ring (it says that on the box) as depicted in the Bakshi animated film 'Lord Of The Rings'.

We ask the assistant manager (I can't remember his name, but he was after Geoff's job and ran a bit hot and cold with kids) who shrugs and says 'Dungeons & Dragons or something - I don't really know'.

Bugger!

Now, we couldn't touch these gems, we didn't know what they were, but suspected that they had a connection to the metal models I'd bought in Hopkinsons in the summer. What we did  know in that way that kids in the 80s seemed to know, was that this was the future, it was exciting and we wanted 'in'.

Graham wasn't in the store that day, so we couldn't ask him - he would know for sure - so we made a metal note to find out.

For now, it was time to go and look at the model railway department and drool over the LIMA freight terminal with the brilliant crane which could actually lift treuck trailers on and off of flatbed wagons. Christmas wasn't too far away and I'd need to work up the patter and presentations for parent and grandparents and also try to second guess what would also be in the sales (which I could do with uncanny accuracy) so that I got the primo price tag stuff for Christmas and then could get some extra goodies in the sales, when said senior family members would spend even more. Indeed, my nan and grandad had a separate 'pot' dedicated purely to the Christmas sales, and I could always induce guilt in my Grandma Hides, for deserting us and moving to Preston and bringing shame upon a proud Yorkshire family. That said the money it brought - my grandfather being a senior draughtsman for GEC - did go some way to buying forgiveness, and she was a loving and genereous woman, whom I still miss to this day and mourn that she nebver met my wife, whom she'd have doted on.

And so, as the memories begin to take me elswhere, I'll give Stanny a nudge and suggest that we head a few hundred yards down the road to The Moor shopping precinct and Redgates.

But that's for next time...