BAYKO in Local Toyshops

I'm not sure if I can tell you anything about U.K. Toyshops which you don't already now, but it's worth remembering that things were very different in the middle third of the last century, when BAYKO ruled!

There were no national or international toy store chains worthy of the name.  Most major department stores had a toy department, but these only made up a relatively small percentage of the total number of some 3,000 U.K. outlets. The rest were locally owned and run by individuals, not corporations.

My personal Mecca was 'The Pram Shop' on the edge of Blackburn's town centre which was my pocket money's equivalent of a black hole - fatally attractive with no possibility of escaping! Thanks to local geography, I could actually get there without crossing a main road, and so was allowed to fly solo from quite an early age. I'm sure you have similar memories, even if you're not from the BAYKO era.

Remember, there was no point of sale electronic wizardry, no computers had escaped into the wild, everything was very basic, with pencil and paper and mechanical tills being the technological limit. Illuminated advertising signs were the tops!

I'll include a range of things from local toyshops in this section, and, of course, I'd love to add more, so…

There is an obvious tie in here with the adverts which appeared in local newspapers…