UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Fourteen Days in Lilliput
By JACK KNIGHTS (Downing College, Cambridge). THE first thing I was given after my arrival at the toy- department was a pale yellow duster. I received this even before I was told the time of my canteen break. I had not visualised the duster as being one of the tools of the trade of toy-selling, but I found that dusters were as important as the toys themselves. In slack moments, and especially in the early mornings, counters were stripped and dusted; then each toy was flicked in turn and replaced in position—a position that must not be altered. I soon realised that the duster was the shop-assistant's weapon for countering the inactivity of a slack period. During the next fortnight however the slack periods were to be brief and few and far between.
I was awaiting my first sale with apprehension. So long was it in coming that I began to doubt whether I should ever sell anything during my fortnight. Perhaps my attitude- receipt-book in one hand while the other fingered nervously the stacks of cartoned toys—frightened buyers. It was not until_ I had run through an extensive repertoire of attitudes tharmy first buyer came to restore confidence. The deal involved only the sale of one packet of imitation coal for railway tenders (at 61d.), but it somehow justified my presence. I was to sell so many of these packets of imitation coal that I still wonder whether it all went to fill toy trucks or whether some of it went to replenish Christmas grates.
Mechanical_ toys are satisfying to sell. It is surprising how quickly a clockwork mouse can clear the floor as it buzzes its way haphazard among the feet and shopping bags. Nor were the mice the only riches of my animal kingdom; Jabber- wocks, Loch Ness monsters, frogs, ducks, spiders, geese and even ladybirds were at one time or another to be seen crossing my section of the floor.
I have never broken so many mainsprings. In order to make some of the toys function at all it was necessary to wind them to the top of their bent, and the margin between this and the dull click that spelt internal destruction was often very narrow. One particularly perverse manufacturer arranged his model trains to be wound in the opposite direction to all others (anti-clockwise). I did not discover this until a pile of tin corpses littered my counter and until the surprised customer was beginning to think that perhaps an unbreakable rubber doll would do instead.
This Christmas a very large range of mechanical toys was on sale. This seemed to be a disadvantage, as the average customer was confused by the variety. This trouble resolved itself as things began to sell out and the need to buy became more urgent. Some of the most ingenious, but, thanks to Customs and Excise, not the cheapest, toys were German. Their warlike character was striking. The British manufac- turers leant towards tractors, cars, fire-engines and lorries, but the Germans displayed a taste for tanks and guns and armoured cars. To them a man on a motor-cycle was not a motor-cyclist but a despatch rider. Their tanks spat flint sparks through their barrels. To be fair, not all German toys were as aggressive; one that was not was a realistic little racing car of exactly the type that I remembered possessing some time before the war. The wheels were made to come off in just the same way as mine, and so were the tyres. The same miniature spanners and levers were provided for these purposes. Even the colour and design of the box were the same. The only thing that was different was the price. In 1938 mine had cost three-and-sixpence. Today it costs twenty-seven shillings and sixpence. In spite of the difference of price I could not help being struck by the strange continuity of affairs that should result in the presencq in a British shop of the very same German toy that was there before Munich, Dunkirk, the Blitz and the rest. Perhaps it was part of some recently discovered old stock that had lain forgotten in a Berlin cellar while the machinery in the works above had been con- verted from toys to war. It must have survived the block- busters, the drives for scrap metals, the rumbling of the Sherman tanks in the street overhead.
One effect of selling so many and so realistic miniature motor vehicles was that my first impression upon emerging from the shop into the street at the end of the day was of the largeness of everything. Cars and lorries always appeared for a second or so as huge toys on an immense counter. I soon forgot my first fears about selling. Before I had finished I looked back on the former comparative emptiness of the shop with longing. As Christmas approached the shop filled, until on Saturday, December 15th, it threatened to burst and spew its contents of struggling humanity on to the wet pavement. As it turned out, we had days even busier than this, but by the time they came along I was broken in and sufficiently experienced to remain moderately unharassed.
This first Saturday will always be known as Black Saturday to me. The five-day week has the effect of leaving thousands of people with time on their hands in the morning before their afternoon soccer match. As a result they wander the streets, entering the bigger stores in the hope of finding diversion. My counter was horribly disordered as hundreds of bands fingered the toys. Few people bought, but one was prevented from getting to these by the numbers of spectators. At that particular shop, every time a sale was made, one had to take the money and bills to one of two cash-desks on the floor, where the bills were receipted and the money changed. The floor .was soon so choked that it was a struggle for each packet of coal, each Dinky toy sold. This was aggravated by a work- ing model railway that the management had arranged near my counter, regardless of the fact that this particular brand of train-set had for some time been sold out. The trains naturally drew a considerable crowd which further reduced my freedom of movement.
I was impressed by the politeness of everyone. In corn- parisop, my own shopping manner must seem brusque and irritating to assistants. It was an almost inviolable rule that the more expensive the purchase, the more apologetic was the customer. I was so tired of daily dusting one peculiar toy that I was on the point of suggesting to the toy-buyer that he should halve its price. Then along came a lady, one of the sweet-tempered, diffident, smallish kind, to ask whether I thought she could possibly have this same toy. " I'm sorry to trouble you," she said. I assured her that it was no trouble at all, and I showed how it worked and it had gone buzzing dully into a paper bag more quickly than she could extricate- the correct number of notes from her well-stuffed purse.
The only irritating type I experienced was that not so rare bird, the shopper who lingers on the very brink of closing, undeterred by the, dust-sheets around her (it is usually a she), not knowing quite what she wants but sure that she wants something, and anxious to interview a shop-assistant on the subject—choosing for this purpose an assistant who is obviously in the middle of adding up the day's takings. I must add that few mind the unavoidably late comer who hurries purposefully to the toy upon which he (it is usually a he) has previously decided.
Tact is a necessary attribute. I shall always remember the jolly old boy, full of the profusion of his grandchildren, who, in the middle of his purchases, asked me to guess his age. " Fifty-five ? " I hazarded, and his eyes lit up like the torch battery headlamps of a certain brand of toy car. He then explained that he was seventy-two next March. He looked about seventy. He was further distinguished by a desire to secure a toy tractor complete with a toy driver. We had many tractors, but only one kind had- a driver, and this was the, wrong colour. We made a painstaking but fruitless search of the shop for the correct-sized and correctly-dressed man. (I welcomed these opportunities to leave my counter.) Thereupon Grandad left, and was not seen for two days. He then returned, every wrinkle above his bright polka-dot scarf exuding satis- faction. He had found a man, and now he would take the tractor.
I left this tin and plastic Lilliput on Christmas Eve not without certain regrets.
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