Remember these?

They were all the rage in the early to mid-Seventies, having been introduced by the toy manufacturer, Mettoy-Corgi in 1969.

Made of sturdy, heavy-duty rubber, they took some amount of blowing up. Strictly speaking, they could be inflated by bicycle pump. But there weren’t many kids, boy or girl, walking the streets with muscles like Popeye, so I doubt this happened much.

No, I suspect like in my household, parents were persuaded to top-up the air of a Space Hopper with the car tyre pump at the local garage.

(I can still recall my dad’s chagrin as by-standers properly laughed as he fought gallantly to fit the inflated Hopper into the car boot for the return trip home.)

 I’m not sure what the optimum pressure would have been, but these things were pretty solid when fully blown up.

*And that’s what happened to my hamster. Got blown up!  Daft wee thing decided he wanted a taste of plastic, managed to nibble the base of the Space Hopper as it lay wedged between two chairs in my bedroom and found himself seconds later in a crumpled and quite frankly, rather messy  heap, across the landing, in my sister’s room.

The noise created as a Space Hopper explodes is quite resounding, by the way. My poor Mum, cooking dinner in the kitchen directly below, was still getting treatment for PTSD some months later.

Space Hoppers gave the impresssion of being kind and friendly, what with their sweet, smiling faces and all.  But I would be fooled no longer. That was not a normal smile. It was a “Heeeere’s Johnny” kind of maniacal, psychopathic smile. They were dangerous, and evil, pure and simple, not to be trusted with the well-being of young children. Or, for that matter, hamsters.

They weren’t the only toys to cause hurt and pain, though. What about Pogo Sticks?

I never understood the logic behind these creations. Like with the explosive Space Hoppers, they were a hopelessly inefficient means of travel between points A & B. But we were young. We were suckered by the manufacturer’s hype – though I still struggle to think of even one convincing selling point.

Nobody ever got anywhere fast on a pogo stick. Everybody got badly scraped shins. Some lost teeth. Others stupidly banged their heads when bouncing in areas of restricted space. And all boys who ever tried bouncing on a pogo stick ended up with tears in their eyes at least once. Guaranteed.

Yet they were a slightly safer option than these things. I can’t believe my parents let me have a pair – unless, though, they’d maybe taken out a profitable life assurance policy in my name?

My pair were second hand. I think they were bought at a local Scouts jumble sale. They were missing the flat, bottom bit and so the springs met directly with the ground. Metal springs? Tarmac? A slippery recipe for disaster, I can tell you. (And they didn’t work on grass as I found out when after bouncing on from the path, I planted myself to a depth of three inches.)

That was probably the worst two and six (2/6) I ever spent … other than that on a peckish hamster with suicidal tendencies of course.

😀
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*No hamsters were hurt in the making of this post. I made it all up.