DOLLS ACROSS THE SEA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 221, 4 October 1940, Page 2

DOLLS ACROSS THE SEA

BRITAIN'S EXPORTS INCREASE OUTPUT MORE THAN TREBLED, Since war began, certain British toy factories have more than trebled their output. Exports are now up by 50 per cent and no toy factory in Britain to-day uses material needed for the war. One factory alone has 2500 men and women at work in buildings covering .30 acres, equipped with 52 mechanical conveyors, 40 power presses and a. huge sawmill. Although there is an increasing demand for toy tanks, barrage balloons, and tin soldiers, one man who has been designing dolls and other toys for 30 years declares that children everywhere demand the same sort of toy. Walt Disney would not, for six months, permit Mickey Mouse to be made into a toy. He thought that the traditional dislike of mice would go against it: yet Mickey the toy has become a world favourite, almost as lucrative as Mickey the film. On the other hand, when the doll designer offered, the little people of the Argentine a completely accurate gaucho, the doll was a flop. Small girls in the Argentine will have none but flaxen-haired dollies. Children of the present generation are more exacting than their fathers and mothers. They must have everything quite accurate; aero planes, motor cars and railway engines must reproduce the full scale article in exact miniature of a doll's gowns and lingerie have got to be correct to a detail.