Lovely toy store recollections came in from as far as Israel
61,000 ECHO FOLLOWERS SPOTTED OUR ORIGINAL PICTURE SPREAD AND MANY SHARED THEIR MEMORIES
We got responses from as far as Israel when we featured a selection of nostalgic photographs of Josephs store.
Among your wonderful messages, was one from Nicole Levitt, nee Joseph, whose father was the very man who had the store.
“It made my night!” she told us after spotting the original article. “As my father’s store, I grew up there. I’ll show it to my four kids tomorrow when they wake up. Such wonderful memories for me and it was so nice to see the lovely comments people have written in the feed - especially since my father is no longer alive.”
Those comments were the ones left by Echo readers on social media and they certainly were inspiring. More than 61,000 of you followed the story and your comments included these;
Chris Malkin said: “I would get all my daughter’s dolls clothing and my son farm animals and train things as well. It was a great toy shop.”
Gladys Moran commented: “Bought lots of things, but it seemed as though I’d bought a squillion Cindy outfits. I’ve still got them , they’re about thirty five years old xx”
David Taylor added: “Remember they had a sports shop too.”
Janet Anderson told us: “My brother loved it in the 70’s. Was in there every week when my daughter was a kid early 90’s. playmobil, lego and puppy in my pocket collector packs. Happy days.”
James McBeth: “This was the place that got me into both role play gaming and Airsoft, once bought an Airsoft model pistol that I had to build myself which was a fun learning experience.”
Deb Edmundson: “We used to buy all sorts of toys, farm animals, cars, dolls and dolls clothes. It’s a shame all of these “one off ” shops closed down. Those were the days Holmeside was a decent shopping area.”
Steve Burnaby Davies commented: “Boxing gloves, snorkel, flippers and mask. Def not to all to be used at once! Loved the place.”
And Trevor Kent told us: “My Granda always went there for his jigsaw puzzles. I used to buy model buses in there when I was a kid!” We had emails from peoincluding Lia
who said dad Lee
was youngster who was
our first testing the sports He rememgoing into with his nana and a photographer asking to take his photo.” And Malcolm Crone told us he worked at Josephs from 1961 to 1965. “It was my first job from leaving school, which set me off on my very successful retail career.” He added: “I set up the very early Scalextric there when it was first introduced and sold the very first Lego, which at the time came in sets plus little boxes of extra bricks.”
Malcolm said he was there in the heyday of the store and would love to hear from anyone else who was there.
Rita Morris shared a photograph of her son Andrew Morris who won a Chipper prize at the store.
Thanks also to Dave Walmsley who sent us a photo of his son Paul (pictured in yellow dungarees who won a Josephs ‘Star Wars’ competition and claimed first prize - the Millennium Falcon.
Dave remembered: “The queue to get in the shop stretched all the way up Holmeside. I think they were all a bit overawed by Darth - as shown in the photo.”
Lynn Colverson said: “My brother and I used to dash down every Saturday with our pocket money and buy a new Star Wars figure each. Happy days.”
Marissa Elizabeth Ward got all her children’s Christmas presents at Josephs “plus darts and flights for Mondays and Wednesday’s darts games dart sharpeners and cases.”
John Mckinney remembered getting 3 bob pocket money. “I used to catch the bus to town and call into Breknas and then down to Josephs to look at all the toys and especially the Scalextric track. we used to spend a good couple of hours just watching and looking at all the great toys.”
Susan Mckenna said: “I remember buying a little doll about 5 inches tall with roller skates on in the 70s! Happy memories the best toy shop ever and round the corner Hills the best book shop ever!!”
Lyn Sisterson told us: “Just looking round the shop was magical, it had a lovely feel and loadsa fab stuff. It definitely had a wow factor for us kids.”
Thanks to everyone who corresponded with wonderful memories.
“I bought a zillion Cindy outfits. Still got them” GLADYS MORAN