Oh, nice...

Yeah, but who wants to build a puffin?

I remember things like that from the early 60's. I was always more into the plastic models, though. Remember putting together some of those to go with the train layout.

In 1947, I imagine a lot of things were still restricted in England and Ireland, and this would have been largely before the era of plastic toys superseding metal.

Oh, my my. Look at that. An old car -- possibly a Wolseley -- and an LNER 2-4-0... Oh gosh. I remember those, too, though only to look at and not to play with. Oh, good Lord... the times come rushing back. Does DA remember any of the lovely Ladybird books, too?

Ah, happy memories.

I'll have to ask him! (These books, apparently, are rare, because they were made to be cut up, and since they were classed as toys, they were relatively expensive. There's Make Your Own Zoo, Make Your Own Farm, Half-Timbered Village, Make Your Own Theatre, Treasure Island...a/k/a Puffin Cut-Out Books.)

I think the one I saw was the 'Make Your Own Theatre' one. I don't remember when or where as I was quite small and it belonged to an older relative, who had had it when they were young.

Hah! That looks like fun!

Lego, Tinkertoy, and Kenner's Girder and Panel sets were the building toys I remember the most from my childhood.

Not the Erector Sets?

Meccano was the thing here.

Paper scale model sheets.
I have a FW-190, a Me 262, a Super Star Constellation, a Bleriot 3c, a Rumpler Dove, and then a whole set of print-yourself battleships, cruisers and a few tanks even. And a few houses!

We had something similar. My oldest brother built a church and a factory. My middle brother had an Erector Set and a Kenner Girder and Panel Building Set. I had several Fischertechnik sets later on. We also grew up with Lincoln Logs and Tinkertoys. My sister had a Montini set -- an Italian Lego knock-off that fit with Lego just fine.

We had a building set from Creative Playthings called Guidance Town. It built many different kinds of structure including a church and stores, and lots of houses. Its scale was pretty well matched with Matchbox cars.