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Gamleys

Photo:Gamleys store

Gamleys store

From a private collection

Loads and loads of toys
By Sasha, schoolgirl

My favourite place is Gamleys toy shop and why I like it is because it's got loads and loads of toys. I've seen some toys there that I really like.

There's a lovely mummy lion and a little doggie, which my friend's got. He's a Dalmatian and my friend named hers Spotty. There's also a fishing game with magnets on the ends of strings and you have to pick up sea creatures and octopuses and stuff like that.

I got my Beanie babies there and they're really cute, especially my mummy leopard and her baby cub, Sneaky. I play with them a lot.

I don't get to go to Gamleys very often because my mum doesn't let me, but sometimes we go there after I've been to the dentist and I've been a very good girl or when we have to get somebody a birthday present or something like that.

This page was added on 22/03/2006.

Comments:

I used to love going into Gamleys on a Satruday morning. In the early 1980s I used to walk to my friend's house way along New Church Road (I lived at the top of Palmeria Ave). Gamleys was one of the shops I used to go in, like the camera shops and the big stationers. Gamleys had a wooden bear in the eastern half where the model kits and trains were. I spent my earnings from delivering newspapers for J.H.Taylors (just up the street) there. Or at Kemp Models at bit further along.
By Trevor Sharp (23/10/2005)
When I was young, Gamleys didn't have a shop in Hove. Their principal outlet was in the Imperial Arcade off Western Road, next to what used to be the side entrance to M&S. I was privileged to work there as a 'Saturday boy' in the mid-60s. There weren't many competing toy shops in Brighton in those days - one half-way down Preston Street and one near Preston Circus as I recall. I never did ask the manager whether 'Gamleys' was a play on 'games' and 'Hamleys' the big London toy shop.
By Chris Green (01/12/2005)

I too used to go into Gamleys, but this was in the fifties and if Mum or Dad paid five bob (25p) for a toy, they were skint for the rest of the week, so it was not very often that I was in there. Toys in those days were cap guns and if you were very lucky, Bayko building sets. I still have an old Bayko set sitting in my house. I wonder how much it would be worth now.

By John Wignall (08/05/2007)

I remember Gamleys in The Imperial Arcade very well during the fifties and sixties as I often used to go in there and gawp at toys I could not possibly afford (or my Mother could not). It always seemed such an exciting shop. I recall seeing some of the first Dr Who merchandise there as well when it was first available. I think that my Mother once bought me a quiz game called Magic Robot which I had for many years.

By Edward Castle-Herbert (13/08/2007)

I remember Gamleys before and during the war. The Hornby trains were superb and they had the latest 4-6-2 Pacific class Princess Elizabeth locomotive in a velvet lined box. The cost was one hundred and five shillings. It was of course five guineas but the guinea was going out of fashion by then hence shillings. There was also another smaller toyshop opposite Cobb's furniture store named Clapshaw and Cleave and they used to give me model kits to build for their shop window.

By John Wall (09/09/2007)

It's so, so sad Gamleys has now closed down.

By Simon (10/08/2008)

I worked at Gamley's from the early 60s until 1975. I started as a trainee manager under Mr Davies at the Littlehampton store, then as manager at Lewes. I then moved to the Head Office branch in Church Road with Mr Jenner later taking over from him at his retirement and when the new large toy shop opened at no 66 100 yards down the road. My shop then specialized in photographic, sports (later as a dive shop) and fancy goods (Mrs Jenner running that department). During my time the old Hove Town Hall burnt down and the new one built (I set up a cine camera in the front office taking a few shots every hour, so have the old coming down and the new going up all in about three minutes. It was a great shop to work for and lots of fun being there as diving started to be a very popular sport. The Directors were Mr Lord (founder "no matter what the situation, parents will always find money for toys), Mr. Townsend, Mr. Wood (who died too young), Mr. Roy Bradford and Mr. Heasman.
Great days.

By John MacMahon (17/12/2008)

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