Blowing the tiny mind
AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS
For all thosefipoor down-trodden mums, writes ghastly Madge Scrubba, who still haven't had the time to dash out and buy the little bits and lxibs that go to make up those marvellous mysterious bulges in our stockings or pantie-hose on Christmas morning, 'Kids' Stuff' in Camden Passage will come as a monster boon. A few years ago local shopkeepers would have hooted at the very idea of trying to establish a progres- sive toyshop in the wilds of darkest Islington. Today, when the proprietors, Garth and Percy, emerge shortly before ten a.m. to pull down their lime and cerise awnings, local shopkeepers may still hoot, but financially at least they are laughing on the other side of their faces. For scads of trend-conscious mums this off-beat mini-emporium is rapidly becoming a categori- cal imperative.
Garth and Percy originally met when they found themselves thrown together on the lower deck in the Navy during the war, and they have been, in their own phrase, staunch chums ever since. It was then, in the early 'forties, for which they both have a tremendous nostalgia, that they both became `aware.' 1 think we both real- ised,' Percy admits with a marvellous blue-eyed candour, smoothing a wayward greying curl, 'that after we'd been through that lot anything we went in for subsequently—menswear, de- sign, your toddlers—would have to be different.' After what Garth calls 'several absolute bloom- ing disasters' in the realm of demolition work, the Church of England, the Fol-de-Rols and all-in wrestling, they eventually found work in 1946 in an ice-cream factory. Within weeks Percy was on his back with a nervous break- down and Garth was under observation for a phantom hernia. Twenty years later, almost to the day, they hit on the idea of opening a pro- gressive toyshop. Somehow the capital mate- rialised, they moved into what had been an old sage-chandlers' with the original elm floor- boards, Garth, as Percy puts it, 'bought a pinny,' and they were in business.
Garth and Percy's stock consists exClusively of what they call 'your serious educational-type toy.' They start at year zero, though they did show me a truly fascinating gadget in the form of a transistorised locket on an endless neck- lace that dangles against the tum during preg- nancy, encouraging a sense of rhythmic well- being. One of the most exciting new ideas for the wee mite, still in the pre-toddling stage and barely able to lie on its back and dribble, is the new range of 'Chews.' Made in the shapes of scampi, artichoke leaves, escargots and blobs of caviar with the authentic colouring and flavour added by a pure macrobiotic process recently developed in Somerset, these are utterly hygienic and can be hung on a string across the pram to
be chewed absolutely ad nauseam. 'Chews' are madly popular with my own baby Reuben, aged
seven months, and, as the name implies, they encourage an early awareness of choice and dis- crimination when it comes to adult feeding time.
For those mums, too, who find breast feed- ing either beastly or boring or both, Garth and Percy's 'Living Nipple' bottle attachments may well prove invaluable. Alarmed by recent re- ports that bottle feeding may in some way take the sex out of baby's feed, the manufacturers have now come up with these kooky teats, worked by a simple spring mechanism, which when touched, sucked or fondled emit a series
of giggles and squeaks that should satisfy even the most rapacious little man. Garth and Percy
are also overjoyed with their new range of Potty Toys, all designed to combat the build- up of potential psychological complications in that area with a series of hooters, bells, cuckoo- sounds and even a modest bang. A new 'rattle,' too, in the form of a miniature executive tele- phone, rings intermittently until it is picked up, and then emits a pre-recorded collage of garbled telephonic conversation as it is waved about baby's head.
The 'style' of 'Kids' Stuff,' however, really begins to assert itself in the two to five age group. Hand-made wooden toys, painted in raw, fresh colours, and all approved by the Institute of Contemporary Child Psychology and Wel- fare Practice (tccPwP). For Ben, my two year old, I bought a marvellous new brain-twister in the shape of a simple wooden box which can be fitted snugly over the child's head. Two little eye-holes are cut in one side. and by judicious twisting the box can be made to fit. Similarly, though priced rather beyond my own exiguous means, Garth and Percy offer the seventy- guinea Minotour Adventure Playpen, in hand- sanded Norwegian beech, which comes complete with light-up electronic monster and a tiny ball of string. Its bewildering profusion of traps, dead-ends, cages and sprung shutters keeps a toddler engrossed for days. More modestly priced, `Kid's Stuff' Little Monkey Puzzles, with their forty or fifty interlocking pieces of polished teak to be assembled in spheres, cubes and rhomboids, more than repay the investment in terms of intrigued silence.
Some mums with more difficult children may shy off such demanding toys. Percy himself admits that there are those who have suffered a 'tiny nervous collapse' after pitting themselves against one of their puzzles. For the tender sprigs, 'Kids' Stuff' soft toys department may well be a better bet. Both deeply concerned about race, Garth and Percy have started a new range of 'Cuddly Coloureds' to replace the offensive golliwog. 'It wasn't just the name that rankled with me personally,' Garth explains, 'I just couldn't abide that awful Uncle Tom grin on their faces. We've had these ones stitched
with your Militant sneer or scowl, you see. They're going a bomb in Hampstead.' Also marvellous in their way are the Malcolm Mug- geridge, Norman Mailer and Herbert Marcuse selection of dolls. A wee ring on a string is attached to a simple recording device inside, and when the string is pulled the dolls make one of a small range of remarks.
The only cloud over Garth and Percy's Christmas is the slow rate of sales in the Roly- Poly Knockover Authority Symbol Department. 'I personally blame it on your liberal bourgeois dilemma,' says Percy. 'Six months ago your roly-poly Boys in Blue were going like hot cakes: now the bottom's dropped out of your Fascist Thug Booby, your LW, your de Gaulle, even His Holiness the You Know Who'—he indicates a spherical Pope figure that rolls to the playful jab and wobbles upright again— 'Sometimes when I'm feeling really gloomy I get this nightmare-quality experience when I almost believe we're going to have to think the whole bloody thing out all over again. And that, ducky, is going to strain our capacities more than I can bear to conceive.'
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