My Dad

My dad died last night.  He was in his mid-eighties and was at home surrounded by family when he passed.

When I was ten, he was made redundant from his job making glass bottle moulds at Johnson Radley in Leeds.  We spend some of his redundancy money on the trip of a lifetime to New Zealand, spending six weeks there over the school summer holidays.  After we came back, he decided to take his hobby making wooden toys and turn it into a business.

Here's one of the leaflets that were produced at the time featuring a fort, castle and two different flavours of garage.  These were the larger toys, and they were sold at various craft fairs throughout the year and a variety of craft shops.  We'd seek out likely shops when away on holiday and leave a few leaflets with the owners so they could get in touch.  He did also manage to get some products into Fortnum and Mason in London for a time.   I have fond memories of drives up to Grassington in order to deliver some toys to a shop there, stopping for fudge on the way back home.