BAYKO Remembered
'Remember When' by Robert Opie

Remember When, by Robert Opie, is an excellent example of those increasingly familiar coffee-table books, in this case showing, decade by decade, a brief summary of features of everyday life in Britain.
Life is split up into sections such as “Events”, “House and Home”, “Products”, “Toys”, etc…
…the page below appears under the “1950s”, “Toys” section.

Image from Robert Opie's book showing a BAYKO set in the bottom left hand corner
“After the lean post-war years the toy industry bounced back with growing confidence. Many businesses were set up soon after the war by ex-servicemen such as Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith (unrelated) who, having left the Royal Navy, established a small die-cast business in London. A former Army engineer, Jack Odell, joined the Smiths, who founded Lesney Products. The breakthrough came in 1953 when the firm made over a million scale models of the Queen's coronation coach. The highly successful Matchbox series of models followed.
Comics were another area of the children's market to undergo a transformation. After the end of the paper shortages in 1950, new titles appeared fast, the Eagle that same year. Free gifts reappeared in 1954 - particularly coveted was the space gun given away with the first issue of Tiger, which featured Roy of the Rovers. Meanwhile Dennis the Menace had been causing havoc since joining the Beano in 1951.”
The rest of the script is simple, and was primarily written as a description, or caption, for the photographs. It does, however, specifically mention BAYKO, which can be seen nestling in the bottom left hand corner of the page…
“An assortment of toys that became favourites in the 1950s. Some - for example Bayko and Minibrix - had been around in the 1930'; others, like Cluedo and Subbuteo, had been launched in the post-war years…”
Above is page 142 of Remember When, by Robert Opie.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
Just for the record, I also had one of the Magic Robot games [top left]. I can remember myself, and other members of the family, playing with it regularly in the mid and late 1950s. Perhaps that's why I love quizzes and quiz programmes to this day.
 
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