Stuff from the Vault…..

December 21, 2006 at 11:49 pm (From the Vault)

When my mother first immigrated to Australia with her first husband in 1952 they established a toy factory making soft toys. They made everything from teddy bears to poodles.

She imported her fabric from Germany from the same factory that made the mohair fabric that the famous Steiff teddy bears were made from. She designed all the patterns for the toys and they made a huge range of breeds of dogs as well as having the rights back then to make Noddy, Blinky Bill and Snuggle Pot and Cuddle Pie.

Her first husband sadly died of cancer in 1958.

In 1959 she met my father and they continued on with the toy factory for a while but as my father was a pastry cook they decided to open a cake shop.

I still have today boxes of fabric, glass animal eyes, faces and some full toys like a family of teddies and a panda from their 1950’s factory.

So above is a photo of my mum (in the polka dots) and my dad, in the toy factory.

Next to that is a photo of rubber and plastic faces, I have a box about the size of two shoeboxes full of these faces and still don’t really know what to do with them, but they always were fascinating to me as a child.

Its nice to have them, even though I wasn’t born when mum and dad had the toy factory, mum still made toys for us and friends, and the memory of her cutting the fur, sitting at the machine and helping her stuff the toys as a child is something I remember with unexplainable happiness.

 

Love Me xxxxx