A lost city centre shop that was "crammed" with popular toys was loved by generations of Liverpool kids.
Decades ago, hundreds of children will remember heading to Hobbies toy shop to spend their pocket money on everything from model trains and aeroplanes to dolls, toy cars and more. In the more early days of Hobbies, Frank Whyte and his business partner Charlie Lucas had the business elsewhere in the city centre, with a Hobbies Lucas' Limited sign being on the shop front.
By the 1950s, Hobbies moved into a former Reece's café site on Tarleton Street and Frank solely ran the business from there. In the years to follow, the family-run toy shop continued to be a success, welcoming generations through their doors.
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Frank's daughter, Diane Martin, grew up in and around the business and said her family's shop was "such an Aladdin's cave of toys." As part of the Liverpool ECHO's How It Used To Be series, we spoke to Diane, 78, about her childhood memories of the family business and what life was like in Liverpool decades ago. Diane, who grew up in Woolton, told the ECHO: "It was a model shop originally in the 30s and then toys came in really after the Second World War.
"When he moved to Tarleton Street the upstairs was more toys and models and downstairs was general toys. Upstairs it was trains and people wanted to buy balsa wood because after the Second World War there wasn't a lot of money around to buy things or to make toys, so they used to have lots of balsa wood so people could go up and make their toys themselves.
"The shop front was like a little mini arcade and the windows were absolutely full of toys. They used to sort of divide them up so that the more model stuff like the trains and aeroplanes they were in one window, and the other one had more general toys and then there was a literally whole area for dolls.
"It was just crammed and you could always see little children with their faces pressed against the window, pointing at what they wanted to their parents." Diane's mother Rose and Aunt Mary also worked at Hobbies and Diane remembers helping out there as a teenager alongside manager Fred.
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Diane said: "I was away at boarding school but when I got to about 15 I used to help out in the shop in my holidays and serve in the shop. It was different in those days, it was an all cash register and everything was in pounds, shillings and pence.
"There were no carrier bags in those days, it was paper bags or string wrapping it up in paper. All the staff were great fun and it was very much a family shop.
"What I always remember is this huge display of toys everywhere, it was just amazing. It was a different way of window dressing in those days. They were just tiered up with toys of all sorts of description. It was a fascinating thing to go down and look at."
Before the days of online shopping and electronic games becoming more advanced, children across the city would head to Hobbies to buy everything from model trains to toy cars, dolls and more. Growing up around the business, Diane remembers a number of toys and brands being popular.
She said: "When I was a little girl, Meccano and Bakelite was the thing. Originally things like puppets were very popular and then Corgi came out and it made it more accessible because the Dinky cars were expensive, but Corgi's – they had this little Matchbox series and children could afford with their pocket money to save up and get them.
"Whereas the bigger toys that had to be a present from a relative. Upstairs we had things like soldiers and trains and things like that. After the Coronation that was very popular because there was loads and loads of little footmen and the golden coach was all on sale."
Years before more toy shops and chains popped up around the city and beyond, Hobbies was the go to place to spend your pocket money or buy a birthday or Christmas gift. The shop was very popular and part of so many childhood memories, with a trip to town often not being complete without popping into Hobbies or admiring the toys in the window displays.
Diane said: "It was very busy, it was the only central toy shop. There were other ones elsewhere and outside of the city but it was the only one in the centre of the city.
"The counters were oak but the top of the counter and front was glass so you could see what was there. You went in and pointed at what you wanted and asked for what you wanted.
"There was lots of things like Matchbox and Corgi toys and my father was a friend of Bassett-Lowke and Frank Hornby. A lot of the stuff was made in the factories in and near Liverpool, Meccano and stuff like that and he was very much in with the discussions of how they were building toys.
"I remember him talking to Hornby saying the railways should be shiny, they can't be in matte paint, they would be shiny, because everything in those days was covered in black soot. At Christmas time it was manic, absolutely manic.
"I used to come home from school during the holidays and work right through and Christmas Eve was the busiest day of the year. I remember Christmas day, my parents just fell asleep. They worked very hard so by the time they closed the shop, tidied up and came home it was about midnight."
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Diane said it was "a different world" in the city years ago when it came to shopping habits and that she also has a stand out memory of a good deed that took place involving the family business. Diane said: "One year my father was taking home all the money from the shop and he bought some presents for my mother and the car parks in those days were just the remains of the bomb sites, they were just big open spaces.
"He put his briefcase down and put everything in the car and when he got home he didn’t have his briefcase. He rang the police station and the manager or sergeant said 'oh yes it’s been handed in.'
"My father went down and collected it and it was a person from a very poor area of Liverpool who handed it in and he hadn't taken one single penny. I remember my father going down and giving him a lot of money and said 'I can't believe you did that' and the man said, 'I wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to me."
In the mid 1960s, Diane's parents decided it was time to sell the business and Hobbies continued under a new owner, with her aunt Mary continuing to work there until the shop shut for good. And while shoppers said goodbye to Hobbies some years ago, its legacy still lives on in many memories and rare photos.
These images, courtesy of our archives Mirrorpix, have been unseen from the public for years and only recently unearthed. They offer a glimpse of inside and outside of Hobbies in its latter years in the 1970s and 1980s.
Diane said: "Up until then it was price control in the UK. If you wanted to buy a Meccano set it didn't matter if you bought it in London or Edinburgh, it was the same price. But when price control came off my father found he couldn't buy things wholesale cheap enough because the big stores like Woolworths could sell things cheaper then he could buy it for. In 1966 he gave up the business and sold it.
"It’s really flattering that people still remember it and it’s quite funny because if I meet people from Liverpool and they're my age they;; say I remember that. It’s just lovely and it’s very nostalgic.
"It was just such an Aladdin's cave of toys. It just had so much to show. There were no electronic toys in those days, so toys were so important to children.
"You looked and waited and hoped that you might get that toy. That was your entertainment in those days, so to go down and look in a toy shop, be in a toy shop, was fascinating."
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