Just over four months since the last Echo Base Live event and we were treated to another action-packed day of traders, charity raffles, autographing guests and a fantastic presentation by Palitoy Legends Bob Brechin and Geoff Maisey. The talk itself was only £2 to get into and was well worth it as it lasted just over an hour and really added to what was a very special day indeed.
After making what felt like my 67th purchase of the morning, I made a trip to the car to drop my bags off and met up with Chris Cooke (of Toys of the Jedi and the fantastic Figure of the Day posts) to head over to the other side of the Kingfisher shopping centre. We’d already met Bob and Geoff a little earlier in a very busy line where they signed a special poster card that was only £15 and all proceeds going towards charity.
The presentation began with Bob Brechin, Chief Designer from 1971 – 1984, taking us through the history of Palitoy located in Coalville, Leicestershire and right from the outset the passion from Bob and the love of his work continued to radiate after all these years. He then took us on journey right through to the 1970s that are regarded as the ‘Golden Decade’ of toys with Action Man, Tiny Tears, Mainline Railway toys and Discovery Time toys all excelling themselves. And then came along a little film called Star Wars.
It was then over to the wonderful Geoff Maisey, UK/Europe marketing manager 1978 – 1982, who provided a fascinating peak ‘behind the curtain’ at how very nearly Star Wars toys didn’t make it at all to the UK. He mentioned how the initial real concern was that that “space related toys” just didn’t sell. No one wanted them and the next stumbling block was that toys related to films didn’t sell either. They might take off for a few weeks but then kids moved on. There was a concern about staying power. It was only problem after another, Geoff told us, as they had no data from the US toy market, the film wasn’t due to arrive in the UK until late December of 1977 and approval of prototype images all had to be sent to Lucasfilm HQ in the US….of course this being the days of no internet!
For the remainder of the session Bob and Geoff continued to tag-team and provided to be a
fantastic comedy double act should they choose to take up the night-club circuit. Attendees
were treated to first hand stories about the beloved Palitoy Death Star (all the audience agreed it is far superior to the US version) and the journey through time through each of the films. One fun story included the December 1982 toy fair where the team had prepared a fantastic presentation about toys ready for next May’s Return of the Jedi, however last minute Lucasfilm decided that they didn’t want any new characters shown, so Palitoy ended
up just displaying blank boxes with character names! There was also internal dispute in Palitoy about which division Star Wars toys should be sold under and pressure from the European market to move to ‘multi-lingual’ packaging for seamless retailing all over Europe. The gents recalled all the events with a sharp wit and such detailed storytelling that it felt like you were in the room with the board members all those years ago.
After a short Q&A it was time to wrap up but I got the feeling that everyone in the crowd would have been quite happy to listen for another hour should they be allowed but alas, there was more spending to be done and the ever popular raffle to head to at 2.30pm. All in all it was absolutely fantastic and the next time something like this happens at an Echo event or something similar I highly recommend attending. Bob and Geoff were an absolute delight, displaying warmth and friendliness to everyone and a big well done to the Echo team for putting this on.
Let the countdown begin for the next one.
