When I was a kid, we made our own toys from the scraps, bits, and pieces that we could scrounge in the neighbourhood. It was also an era when toys were not politically correct: girls played with dolls, prams, and dresses while boys had toy guns, knives, cubbies, and catapults.
As an avid consumer of superhero comics, I also had a collection of wooden space ray guns and the like. However, my most cherished toys – because they did something – were the knives and catapults I made from scavenged bits and pieces.
Nothing’s impossible
The recent index of New Zealand’s (March/April 2023, issue 107) rekindled my memories of those youthful times when I was an eight year old wandering around the small country town where we lived, like an Australian version of Huckleberry Finn, all the while carrying my little knife made from an old steel ruler and my catapult, with which I could take on the world. Ridiculous, I know!
