Introducing Lost in the Toy Museum 2014

Here at the Brighton Toy and Model Museum we are getting very excited for tomorrow night - 17th May - as we have another exciting instalment of Museums at Night ready for you.

Hiding In The Museum

Where's He Run Off To?

These past few weeks have been all about preparing the Museum for everyone who's coming to join us, and today we're letting you have a special look at what's been going on behind the scenes, including a sneak peek at our Celestial Story Teller during a dress rehearsal. 

Marc Sinclair - Celestial Story Teller

Ready For The Main Event

We have a range of activities planned for you to enjoy here as well as a reading from Marc, and those include art activities, Meccano, wooden train sets, meet our mascot Buddy Bear, and refreshments for everyone. 

Make Your Own - Only £5

 We hope to see everyone here tomorrow night, and we're looking forward to more Museums at Night adventures in the future. 

Lost In The Toy Museum - Museums At Night - 17th May 2014

This nationwide event ties in with the European campaign "La Nuit Des Musée", which is in correspondence with International Museums Day, which falls on the 18th of May.

This year we will be holding our Museums At Night event on Saturday 17th of May, and it's official title is "Lost in The Toy Museum".  On this day, instead of bringing the family down at 10am, we have a special opening and closing time for this event, which will begin at 4:30pm, and finish at approximately 7:30pm. 

We will be joined by Marc Sinclair who will be doing a reading from the book Lost in the Toy Museum, and afterwards we need to help each other find the toys that have left their usual posts, and are hiding around the museum. 

As well as a fun teddy hunt, we will also have wooden train sets and child friendly Meccano for everyone to play with, as well as art play, which includes making a puppet, and many other activities to keep young minds active. 

Our mascot, Buddy Bear, will also be here all evening to meet everyone.

Buddy Bear

The age group most suited to this event is 3 - 10 years old, but we are not restricting admission to this age group. Admission prices are as normal, adults entry is £4.50, children aged 4 - 14 entry is £3.50, under 3's entry is £1.50, and babes in arms have free admission. 

Entry to this event will not restrict your access to any part of the museum, and you are welcome to look around while your children are listening to stories, and you're also very welcome to join them. 

So tell your friends and family about the fun evening we have planned, and we hope to see you soon. 

Gods Wonderful Railway Running Day Highlights

On Saturday 29th March 2014 we had another successful running day.
This time we honoured the Great Western Railway, which is also known as Gods Wonderful Railway. It was a splendid affair, with many happy people excited to see the trains run.

We were especially delighted to have the "King George V" Great Western model run. It is a rare King Class Locomotive made for Bassett Lowke by Marklin in 1937, and we were very happy to have it run here in Brighton.

King George V

King George V

As well as the "King George V", we also had a range of other Great Western trains, including a special appearance by the "Alliance", which was kindly made possible by Mike Little.

Alliance

Alliance

Some of the other trains that ran were the "County of Bedford", the "Orion", and the "Pendennis Castle"

County Of Bedford

Pendennis Castle

Orion

We also had rare models in painted wood of the Great Western 70ft coaches, c1933; Early printed tin plate Great Western coaches by Carette, and a freight train by the same manufacturer, which are all 100 or more years old, as well as many other Great Western rarities.

All in all, we had a fabulous day, and we hope you did too. If you were unable to make it, we hope to see you at another running day soon, as we'd love to share this exciting experience with all of you. 

Suomenlinnan Lelumuseo - The Finnish Toy Museum

In Helsinki, Finland, there is a place that is familiar to us all. Suomenlinna Toy Museum was opened in 1985, and like Brighton Toy and Model Museum, it presents the public with historic toys that have been loved through the ages. 

            (Nalleja 1900-luvun alkupuoliskolta)

(Teddy bears in the first half of 1900’s)

 Nallerouva Hunajapurkki
(Mrs. Winnie the Honey Jar)

Suomenlinna Toy Museum is a family owned company, with a wide range of toys dating back to the 1800’s and celebrating Finnish History.
The founder, Beep Tandefelt, had an awakening one day, and thought to herself, “Why churn out new objects from the already existing world, when you can cherish the old”, and with this she began to collect antique toys, and once word got out that she was collecting them, she received many more from those around her.

Loppuun leikityt)

         (Bebe –nukkeja 1930 – luvulta)          

(Baby Dolls)

In 1979, the Nordic Center for the Arts requested there be space at the Jetty Barracks exhibition for the antique toys, and after a successful show, Beep began to wish for a permanent display for the toys.
In 1985, what Beep Tandefelt had been wishing for came true, and the Finnish Toy Museum was opened in the basement of Piipan Tandefelt’s home, who took over the reins from Beep.

(Nukkekoti – interiööri 1800 – luvun lopulta)
(A dolls house interior in the late 1800's)

Moomin dolls made by Ateljé Fauni in 1950’s)

In 2003, Piipan Tandefelt passed the running of the museum over to her daughter, Petra Tandefelt, who also produces beautiful postcards based on the collections at the Finnish Toy Museum. Some of the postcards available are shown here, which Petra gifted us with when she came to visit us recently.
When Petra came and saw us, she told us that she loved what we had on display here, and if she could, she would take the Brighton Toy and Model Museum with her back to Finland.

(Vanhoja värssykirjoja)
(Old verse books)

We all enjoyed having Petra here visiting us, and hope that she comes back to see us again soon.
If you want to learn more about, or take a virtual tour of the Suomenlinnan Lelumuseo – The Finnish Toy Museum, you can visit their website at www.lelumuseo.fi

(Kaksosnuket Manja ja Ljuba)
(The dolls, Manja and Ljuba)

Horatio C. Gull comes to the Museum

Brighton Toy and Model Museum is proud to announce that we have a new resident, one Horatio C. Gull, former watchbird of the Lord Nelson Inn. He now sits above the cabinets in our shop, watching visitors come and go and admiring the photos of his friends and family in our local history section.

But how did he come to be here? Well, a few months ago Horatio's former boss, Graham Boyd, left the Lord Nelson after longs years of glorious service and Horatio felt an itch in his wings and an urge to move on as well. He bid his co-workers a fine farewell, helping them on one last crossword (7 down; cosmopolitan) and flew the nest.

Left to Right: Horatio, Annie, Toby, Nelson Gnome and Lizzi

Now, Horatio has not been out into the big wide world for some time and it took him a moment or two to find his land wings. Well, he'd been out for one last photo with the staff and regulars as a present for graham but he'd been under someone else's wing at that point.

The fine folks of the Lord Nelson Inn

But with goodbyes done, people moving on to new things and the cricket memorabilia taken down it was truly time to head off. A Seagull can only wait around for so long after all. The future is waiting!

Feather in beak, Horatio flies the coop

But where was he to go? Now you and I both know where he goes but at the time Horatio was rather unsure. Such decisions are hard for your average person, let alone a former watchbird. It should be noted that Horatio is very well read, hence his always welcome help with the crossword (though Sudoku still confuses him), and enjoys a good a book so he soon found something very nice when he stumbled across Nick's Book stall. A wondrous range of literature and reference books lay before him! Horatio had a very good browse.

Sadly he could not find a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

As fun as it was to be surrounded by books Horatio knew he could not live the rest of his life with his beak buried in a book. He was a working bird! That is when he spied an inviting red sign and an interesting little establishment.

Yes, it's under the bridge, below the train station. Come visit us!

A museum!? A museum was a great place for Horatio to start a new life. He could watch the front desk and make sure the volunteers behaved and when the museum was shut and the toys were safe and sound he could read the books in the shop or the resource room. A quick meeting with the Director, Chris Litttledale, and Manage, Tigger Savage, and he had the job just like that. They knew talent when they saw it!

And so Horatio took up his spot as if he had always meant to be there. Welcome Horatio, it's nice to have you here!

Horatio stands watch

Horatio's reading list

1. Shire book of Mail Trains
2. for the love of TRAINS
3. great days of the Southern Railway
4. Classic Steam
5. Vintage Meccano Magazines

Our second Childrens day of 2013

David Lucas reading us his story

It's round two of our special Children's Play Day event. Another fun day of art activities, stories and trainsets. We had three major events: Arts and crafts where visitors could make their own jumping Jacks, a drawing/story area where children's author David Lucas gave us advice on making characters and then read us one of his fabulous books, the train sets which eventually grew to take over a good quarter of the museum and a second story area in the Puppet Corner.

TRAINS! TRAINS! TRAINS!

There was some serious business going on at the trainsets; how many bridges could be built? Could we get a track and road system intermingling? Most importantly though; How many crashes could we make? The answer; Lots! Not a single train managed to stay on its rails for the whole day. Altogether we are very proud of our visitors ingenuity for destruction.

Our French Interns really enjoyed the train set

We admire this young man's Thomas the Tank engine footwear

With destruction comes construction and at the crafts table many a Jumping Jack came into being. Child and Parent worked as one to make their new toys to fantastic success. Coming in a range of designs, the table was very popular and a great opportunity for parent and child to work together.

Dad and Daughter working together

Mum and Daughter are not to be out done and also work together

The main event though was the drawing and story sessions with David Lucas. He read us one of his wonderful stories and gave us a wide range of advice on writing stories and making characters for them. Our visitors (and not a few of our volunteers) created plenty of amazing pictures.

David Lucas tells us some of his secrets!

An All mixed up Unicorn, Cheesy flower and firey mouse!

King of the Clouds

A Skeleton Pirate hangs 10

A man turning into a rainbow and a clown/duck/alligator? I love it!

As an added bonus and to keep us all energized for the day cake, fruit and drinks were available. I can happily attest to their deliciousness!

The Mystery of the Missing Medieval Building Blocks Manufacturer

Sander's Tudor Stone Building Bricks, box lid

This is an odd one. We have in our collection a Box No.2 of Sander's Tudor Building Bricks. This is a charming (and slightly wobbly) set of building blocks designed to recreate mediaeval European and "Tudor-style" buildings.

However, nobody seems to know who this company "Sander's" are, and the box and literature doesn't seem to be any help. After some detective work, our current best guess is that these sets may have been made specially as promotional items for an Alf Sanders, who built real-life Tudor-style buildings in Hampton Hills, Dallas, Texas.

However, we don't yet have any confirmation that this is really where these sets originated - the combination of Tudor buildings and the Sanders/Sander's branding might be a coincidence.

If anyone out there has more information on these Sander's sets and their origins, we'd love to know more about them - please do get in touch!.

Meanwhile, we've built the model that's on the box lid and front page of the manual, and put it on display.

An assembled Sander's mediaeval building set