Friday 11 January 2013

Down memory lane - Brian Sherriff's shop from the 1960s.

Making models is one of those 'bloke hobbies' that takes you back to when you were just a nipper. I am no different and I willingly admit that my taking up of scale plastic model making is probably some sort of mid-life crisis thing, it does bring back some very fond memories.

Well, I just happened to be doing some Friday afternoon surfing and I stumbled across a photo of the very first toy shop that I ever knew - it's Brian Sherriff's shop on Victoria Road, Dundee...

Photo source: Retro Dundee blog

One of my earliest memories of the early 1960s was standing outside these windows with my Dad, both of us staring longingly at the hoard of goodies contained inside. I was mesmerised by the Corgi and Dinky military vehicles and my Dad loved HO/OO railways.

Sherriff's later moved to the Cowgate in Dundee and had some great success for a time marketing it's own range of paper/card model rail-side building sheets. They also claimed to have the biggest working N Gauge layout display in Scotland.

I remember buying my very first Airfix kit from this store - the obligatory 1/72 Spitfire in the old style plastic bags. But later I bought Matchbox and Airfix military vehicles to populate a table-top 'battlefield' that my Dad built me. The two kits I can distinctly making myself - my Dad took over, as Dad's do, most of the time - were the Airfix US M3A1 Half Track and later the 1974 Matchbox Humber Mk. II (though I was probably starting to grow out of kits by this time).

The earliest kit I can remember making was Frog's Vultee Vengeance Mk. II in 1/72.

Even today, when I visit the old home town I cast a nostalgic eye at the place where Brian Sherriff's used to be.

4 comments:

  1. I remember Sherriff's shop in Cowgate in the '80s. It was the only shop in town after the demise of Scoonie Hobbies on Perth Road.

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  2. Thanks for posting this. It got me to thinking as to where I got my first kits and figures when I was a kid. I remember my local newsagent who had a fantastic range of kits and figures as well as a rack full of Airfix paints ... remember when it was sold in small bottles / jars rather than tins?
    I was there every weekend with my pocket money during the 70's. Great times.

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  3. was this beside the town house?

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