Toy guns never did me any harm

DID you know that the Ministry of Defence is planning to bring out its own Action Man figures?

I say planning, because Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells is now on the case insisting that they are too militaristic and will lead children into a love of war.

My answer to that is cobblers. If my toy collection had been real, it would have needed an international treaty to deal with it. Yet I’d run a mile from a gun. Legalise firearms? I shudder to think what some folk down our street might do if they could get their hands on a weapon.

Yet, as a child, I had all sorts of replica guns, including a Johnny Seven.

Now, I know what images the name conjours up, but it was a toy gun, not some sort of multi-purpose family planning item. In fact, it was seven guns rolled into one including a pistol, a machine gun which fired white plastic bullets, a grenade launcher, an armour-piercing shell and more.

I loved my Johnny Seven, but my dad loved it more. He even made himself a target and would spend hours in the back yard loosing off rounds.

Nearly 11 months later, we came to the run-up to Bonfire Night and I saw the target, which had a wooden base, sitting on a box of firewood.

I asked dad if I could have the wood to chuck on the bunty and he said yes. Except that he meant only the target.

Cut a long story short, mam went mad when she realised I had thrown all her firewood on the Malpas Street bonfire. I could handle her shouting at me. I only got upset when she dragged me down the street to help her retrieve as much of the wood as possible.

By the way, do you remember when they sold bundles of firewood in the corner shop? And those strange firelighter things? Anyway, I digress.

For my seventh birthday, I received a James Bond Walther PPK with plastic silencer — 7s 6d from Mr Lowry’s shop. And I also had a pirate pistol plus sundry cowboy guns, all with holsters and gunbelts. Can you still get caps to make them go BANG?

And then of course there were all the Airfix models, and the little soldiers at two bob a packet. I had dozens — US marines, US cavalry, even Romans and Ancient Britons. By ’eck, our house was like the build-up to Operation Barbarossa.

But did they turn me into some sort of raging madman? No they did not. These weekly columns are testament to that.