Project: British Toy Making Project

Mr Gregory Hughes (Greg) Product Designer

Palitoy

Interview conducted by Juliana Vandegrift

March 2012

Transcribed by Kerry Cable August 2012

Edited by

Greg Hughes and Laura Wood August 2013

Copyright © 2012 Museum of Childhood

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FULL NAME: Gregory Brookes Hughes INTERVIEWER: Juliana Vandegrift

DATE: 12th March 2012 PLACE: Home of Greg Hughes,

Thornton, Leicestershire

TYPE OF EQUIP: PMD Marantz 660, Wav, 48Hz, 16 bit

LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: 56 minutes 2seconds

PERSONAL DATA

DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH: 13th March 1952, Slough, Berks.

OCCUPATION: Product Designer, Palitoy

EDUCATION: Slough Technical High School, 1963-69

(now Herschel High School)

UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE: High Wycombe College, Pre Diploma course, 1969-71

Leeds Polytechnic, Diploma course in Furniture Design

(Dip. A.D.)

QUALIFICATIONS: Diploma course in Furniture Design

GCE O Level: German, English, History, Maths,

Metalwork, Woodwork, Art, Technical Design

GCE A Level: Art, Metalwork

CAREER BACKGROUND

Greg joined Palitoy as a product designer after applying through a job advertisement.

He liked to move around to a lot of companies to get a lot of experience. He was

interviewed firstly by Bill Pugh, Design Director, and then Bob Brechin, Chief Designer,

at a second interview.

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When Greg started at Palitoy Star Wars had just become popular. He was involved in

some project modifying some of the Star Wars vehicles. Greg worked mainly as a

product concept designer illustrating product concepts for the Action Man range. He

was highly skilled at technical illustrating. He ventured into 3D modelling and Palitoy

gave him the background to develop in this.

Greg was also very involved with creating and designing the exhibition displays for

Action Man/Palitoy with his colleague Brian Turner which were a big attraction at the

toy fairs.

INTERVIEW SYNOPSIS

Greg Hughes discusses starting work at Palitoy; the products he worked on including

Action Man; his colleagues and attending toy fairs.

INTERVIEWER’S COMMENTS

Greg explains how many hours they all worked on the Action Man projects and the

team members who contributed to the work effort. It's a nice insight into the

camaraderie between Palitoy colleagues, although there were many anecdotal stories

Greg preferred to talk about 'off the record', but unfortunately couldn't be persuaded

to record them, preferring to keep them confidential because they were simply from

his point of view. The interview came to a natural close just as the phone rang.

Greg Hughes

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Right okay. So today’s date is the 12th of March 2012 and it’s Juliana Vandegrift talking

to Greg Hughes for the V&A Museum of Childhood project, British Toy Making. And

I’m at his home in Thornton in Leicestershire. I’d like to start with just tell me the story

about how you came to join Palitoy? <0:00:24>

First of all I was working for a point of sale company and they were advertising

for designers. And I knew they did Action Man and in the old days I used to like

to move around various companies to get a lot of experience. So really they

were the key elements for me sort of applying for the job basically.

Can you remember your interview? <0:00:56>

Yes. It started with Bill Pugh and I got a very good introduction into the line of

work, and later on he invited me for a second interview to meet Bob Brechin

and shortly after that I was actually accepted, they sent me a position. Gave me

other company about a month’s notice, got married and started there. So it

was like a perfect start basically.

And just to put it in context for the archive, who was Bill Pugh and who was Bob

Brechin? <0:01:40>

Bill Pugh was the design director, very well respected, he used to do a lot of

design, model making work for Action Man. Bob was very heavily involved with

Action Man at the time but he was also involved in various other projects that

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were being undertaken by the company. So he had a very broad spectrum

throughout the design department. (Laughs)

So what was your job title and role when you joined Palitoy? <0:02:22>

Basically a product designer. Now when I started Star Wars had just sort of hit

the market basically and some of the toys were very expensive. By the time

they came over here it was decided that some items needed modification,

reduction in components and what have you, and I was involved in a couple of

projects to do with modifying some of the vehicles there. After that they

wanted some form of competition by starting a range for Action Man to do

with space and the design department were asked to models or sketches, what

have you, and that’s really when I started coming to the fore. That was my sort

of favourite area. And it didn’t appear that there were many people that could

sort of draw in the way I could and that was even greater for me, that really

made the job.

How would you sum up your drawing style? <0:03:48>

Basically it’s all to do with kids again. And when I left college I was a freelance

comic strip illustrator. That didn’t last very long but I’ve always been interested

in illustration. It was basically by chance that I ended in the three dimensional

design which is probably the best thing that could’ve happened under the

circumstances because if you just major in one area you tend not to develop

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other skills. And this was the great thing about Palitoy because you ended up

learning about production and the way things are made, the way things go

together and you have to sort of develop a particular kind of approach to things.

And the development side from, you know, concept work to production always

fascinated me and it did even more for me there.

It’s such a vast subject area to cover, how would you begin to describe that, you know,

if you wanted to explain it to a novice like people who’ve never come across that

before? <0:05:00>

Well I’ve had dealings with students, this is going to sort of more recent events,

that these guys have actually been on arts and design courses. And the one

thing that does concern me is that it’s all very well doing everything on

computer and the development of computers nowadays is absolutely

phenomenal, you don’t have to be a Michelangelo to create a David. But your

hands on skills I feel are still so important. If you can make something by hand

you’ve got something that you can present to somebody, you’ve got something

visual, you’re not playing about on the screen, you can’t fudge things, the actual

thing is there. You know, your concept goes into 3D and it’s either accepted or

rejected by the client, whoever you work for, or the company that you’re

working for in this case. Are you okay?

Yeah. I’m just – I don’t want to wear the headphones. Okay? <0:06:17>

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Right okay. (Laughs). You’re happy with the headphones then?

Yeah. (Both laugh) <0:06:24>

Okay.

Sorry, I’ve interrupted your flow. <0:06:26>

No, no, that’s fine. Like I said, it’s just important to have a great variety of skills.

The most important thing is the way you present things. If you can do that,

that’s the first leg of the journey over basically. But the actual experience

which again is what Palitoy taught me greatly, is the way that things are

manufactured and you always have to bear that in mind. Now things have

changed over the years now. You can get things that have been manufactured

over in the Far East and I haven’t a clue how they’ve been manufactured, the

technology’s advanced so quickly. But in those days you had certain sort of

manufacturing principles and tooling principles. And all that information is so

important in the way you approach something, what you’re able to get away

with and possibly what you can’t. And when I was at Palitoy we had a tooling

manager there, you may have met him, Roger Morrison, have you?

I haven’t come across him, no. <0:07:38>

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Oh well. The thing about Palitoy was in the main information was shared. It

wasn’t like well I know this I’m going to keep it to myself. Everybody shared

their sort of technical knowhow. And again that’s such an important thing. If

you have doors closed on you when you’re in that kind of environment that’s

probably the most unhappy situation that you can find yourself in. And we

never had that there which I’m eternally grateful for. The three and a half years

I was there it really set the groundwork for me, you know, in later years with

self-employment. But again, you know, you move round to get your experience

and those skills were very valuable to me in later years. So that’s what it was

about. (Laughs)

Can I take you back to what do you remember about your first day working on the job

in Palitoy, what happened? <0:08:48>

Well it wasn’t actually working working, they had to change the studio around

(laughs) and I remember going there in casual gear (laughs) and everybody else

was rather well dressed up, so that was quite embarrassing.

Was that just like the culture of the place then? <0:09:13>

Yeah. You didn’t have like these sort of dress down Fridays and things that you

get in companies now, you know, you had to be quite presentable all the time. I

don’t think my hair was but in general you’ve got to have a presentable

appearance, you know, possibly if you’re sort of seeing clients and things like

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that. Now that was quite rare ‘cause everything was basically in-house but it

was just the way you were basically. You have to present yourself to your

bosses and things like that.

So you showed up on your first day and they were moving the studio around?

<0:09:50>

Yeah, it had to be cleaned up and an extra sort of area for meself to be found

which is quite (laughs) that and not knowing what was going to come next was

yeah, it’s quite daunting. And having an idea of what they did there, it was a bit

out of my league at my stage. Like any job you grow into it, it’ll take you about

four or five months before you really sort of grasp what you’re doing in a design

department and how things are sort of dealt with basically. But it was always

done in a very good way. There are some companies where you don’t get a lot

of help (laughs) fortunately I’ve not been in one where that’s been the case

because I’ve been warned about that. But Palitoy again was probably the best.

And the people as well, great.

Can you remember who helped you in the early stages in those first few months or

what kind of help you got? <0:10:52>

Advice, you know, people like Bob Brechin there was the chief designer, Ivor

Edmunds who was the senior designer, both of those were very heavily involved

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on the new tooling of the new Action Man figure. There was a guy called Pete

Mansell, he was mainly on the doll side by then.

That what side? Dole? <0:11:17>

The dolls yes.

Oh dolls, yeah, okay. <0:11:19>

Yeah, sorry about that (both laugh). And obviously Brian who I got on famously

with (laughs). He was really, you know, one of the top guys that I remember

there mainly because we sort of in a way shared some of the work and out of

anybody he’s the one that I’ve got the highest regard for basically. (Laughs)

Yeah. And do you want to talk about, you know, you’ve mentioned some of the

camaraderie. How did that extend across work? You spent a lot of time together?

<0:11:59>

Yeah, yeah. To me I’m a bit of a loner, you know, the social events. I know there

were social events that went on but I was always outside that, that’s really my

way. But I mean if I’d have joined in, you know, there would’ve been no

problems there at all. I know some people used to play badminton and tennis

and things like that, but me I used to just want to get home and, you know, do

me own stuff.

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Why do you think you and Brian clicked as working colleagues? <0:12:42>

He’s a lovely guy and more than anything his commitment. I mean he was

always seconded to the Toy Fairs. And I was always one of these people that

wanted to attempt to do more than others and I always found Brian did more

than I might be capable of doing (laughs) especially on the hours and especially

on the Toy Fairs. But he may disagree with me, but I think on the last Toy Fair I

put more hours than he did in, which was a great thing. So he was more than

helpful to me. He used to give me lifts home when we worked on the Fairs. We

used to finish at about 11 o'clock at night and he lived locally, not far from where

we are now, but I used to live in Leicester and for him to do that and to get back.

He’d say, ‘Oh, you know, I get petrol expenses,’ but it’s not just that, it’s the fact

that he was prepared to do that. I know he might have needed me ‘cause I put

a lot of hours in. But we both decided once everything had gone through the

sales and marketing department what we were going to do with regard to

displays and he always left me alone, which was great ‘cause the amount of

planning he must have needed to have done in that time personally I don’t

think I could’ve done it.

What would be really good to know what the hours where you were working and to

go into some details about the planning, ‘cause nobody knows what happened except

you two. <0:14:36>

Greg Hughes

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Oh right (laughs).

It’s not documented anywhere how you bring that all together for an exhibition for an

example, what’s involved? <0:14:44>

Well the actual plot that you’re required to work in, now the layout was done by

an outside contractor, but everything within that area was planned by Brian.

We had to do things like laying out boards, we had to sort of cordon off an area

of the factory at Owen Street just to lay the boards out. There were lots and

lots. A lot of the design department did get involved in that but I ended up

mainly working on Action Man and Star Wars, you know, and a lot of the later

displays were very complex. And it used to seem at one stage as if money was

no object on them (laughs). I mean a lot of these were sort of moving displays,

animated displays or just basically dioramas. I think in the first show the

Palitoy Action Man talking commander was released and I did six illustrations

for every command that he did. And it’s great to see your stuff up on the board.

So there are little bits that really thrilled you when that happened. And I think

Brian really sort of encouraged you to do that kind of thing and also gave you a

great deal of freedom as well. I’m quite indebted to him, more than I can really

sort of put into words.

That’s wonderful. <0:16:45>

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That’s my sort of relationship with him. Strangely enough we very rarely see

each other now (both laugh) but he’s a great guy, you know.

Do you know what happened to all the physical exhibition material after a toy show?

<0:17:05>

Well I know about some of them. Before we go any further, also from time to

time Brian and meself through Brian would get involved in competition displays

in various stores and they were quite frightening as well. The deadlines were

terrible. But he’d get earmarked for that as well so you’ve got that addition

through the year.

Can you remember what kind of stores, whereabouts? <0:17:35>

Oh, there was one in Newcastle, I can’t remember whether it was ---. It might

have been Fenwicks but I’m might be mistaken on that. In subsequent years

I’ve been involved with other companies doing displays for places like Hamleys

and I was at Harrods as well and I’m not sure whether we ever got involved in

those when I was at Palitoy, but they’re the sort of stores that want to get

promotional stuff in obviously.

Yeah, Selfridges and - <0:18:05>

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Yeah, yeah, and you got the prestige of doing them as well which is quite nice,

you know. You have to go back to what you actually asked me before?

About where the exhibitions you were in? <0:18:17>

Oh, yeah. I’m not really sure. I’d like to pause here. (Recording paused then

resumed) Okay. We did two large displays, one for Action Man Space and one

for Star Wars and very heavily animated. And they stood on their side and you

had to look at them in a mirror, so all the graphics had to be printed the wrong

way round. But they were great. There’s a story about one as well. And they

ended up going to Farmer Studios. Now Nick Farmer used to be in the

marketing department at Palitoy before he set up on his own, very highly

respected in the leisure industry, but a lot of the Action Man stuff went to him

before Action Man went out of business. So some of them do get resurrected

but as far as I’m aware they’re the only two. Consequently I did Action Man

displays along with the other guys that worked at Nick Farmer’s ‘cause I ended

up working at Nick Farmer’s in sort of later years. And I think one of me

favourite was an Action Man display split into three and this was for the new

sort of urban of guerrilla or warrior type Action Man. But unfortunately he

never saw the light of day. But I loved that display, Nick Farmer said it came to

life when Bob and Brian went down with the actual figures and actually dressed

the display as well. But whatever happened to it after that I just don’t know.

And the other warrior product range didn’t make it to the market? <0:20:21>

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It never did, no. I think the problem there was, and I think Bob Brechin would

bear me out on this, John Hawkes used an outside sort of freelance concept

agency if you like and Action Man became more of what you would consider a

small figure would sort of undertake in the range, i.e. lots of vehicles and that’s

the padding. Whereas Action Man was Action Man and the vehicles were really

incidental, you know, the character was the figure, not the image of the

vehicles that he was driving. And when you get into that large kind of range,

you know, the kind of budget that you’ve got to play with just isn’t there. It

wasn’t there when I was there, we had to compromise. A lot of the vehicles

that we ended up using, you know, were really in existence in another form. So

if you look at things like the Space Speeder, that used to be an underwater

frogman’s sort of submarine if you like. There was another thing that I worked

on which was the Solar Hurricane and that used to be the Six Million Dollar

Man’s vehicle. But we modified it and it was at a time when the electronics

were starting to come in and we incorporated some electronics into it, albeit in

a very small way. So that’s how those vehicles developed. But as I said Action

Man is Action Man, he’s not the range of vehicles and I think that’s where the

ideas both financially and concept wise might have strayed a little bit. But I was

out of the company by then. But I used to get freelance work from Bob on

certain ranges as well so it didn’t just end when I finished employment there.

Can you remember anything about the budget figures that you had to work with?

And just to put it in context, you started there in 1978 didn’t you? <0:22:57>

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Yeah. Severe, severe enough to even consider putting a budget on things like

vehicles if they were from scratch over a two year financial period. And as far as

I’m aware that would’ve been something that was unheard of there. Usually

your budget was within the year. Now that budget had to feed both the sort of

standard outfits and any vehicles that came along. But vehicles, possibly except

the sort of say doctored space vehicles, were always the ones that seemed to

get axed. And I think just after I started that was the end of the heyday of full

development for vehicles. Now injection moulding, if you want to be technical,

is a very expensive process. Any vehicles that seemed to come along before this

budgetary problem were always what you’d call blow moulded and the

tooling’s fairly straightforward in comparison. So a lot of the vehicles just

ended up with add ons or you’d change the concept and that was basically it

unfortunately. You had to keep feeding the standard military side mainly

because you’ll have the kids, they were very knowledgeable I would say, and

you’d have the collectors as well which they’re more in evidence now. But to

give you an example, a lot of the outfits say for things like webbing and

equipment, used to be sewn, you know, so it was a very expensive process. So

we all sort of decided to make things a little bit more accurate that we go ahead

and do vinyl webbing so you could get all the sort of backpacks and water

bottles and things like that or the containers in one piece of plastic. And that

worked very well because if you designed it properly you could sort of play

about with things and put things in them. So you still had the play value there

which obviously is very important. And that really heralded an opportunity to

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go a bit more sort of 21st century if you like to sort of futurist uniforms which I

really loved, you know and I ended up doing some concept work for that after I

left as well, which eventually was to go to this kind of urban commando outfit.

But that’s something that fed on and you could make that as complex as you

wanted to and it always looked good and you always tried to incorporate some

kind of feature as well, you know, that might be a selling point. So that’s really

how things occurred. But the budgets they were always tight there compared

to previously. You know, when you consider the stuff that Bob was on, we’re

talking about ceremonial uniforms, now he was very heavily involved in those.

Now a lot of the bits and pieces on there are very involved, very complicated

and not very cost effective, but they’ve got to be right. So that was a side that

to me couldn’t be sustained in the sort of market prices, so that sort of

developed into more of a sort of combat type thing which kids love anyway.

That’s my feeling towards the uniform side ‘cause I used to do a lot of research

on that.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about your inspiration for your designs. How did you do

your research, well not how but for detail? <0:27:36>

Well I’ve always been interested in military history and it’s just something that

I’d always been heavily involved in. I didn’t know all the answers so there’d be

the research there. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have got things wrong (laughs) I

freely admit to that, nobody’s perfect. But it got to the stage where we were

doing fairly accurate insignia and I had the great joy of doing the finished

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artwork for those as well, so they’d go over to the Far East, get printed, and that

would be a part of my work. So it was quite an embracing job, you know, more

than just going in and finishing when you finish. There was a lot more to it

because it sort of sustained more than a hobby for me, that made it much more

of a job, you know, and an enjoyable job as well.

And when they asked you to do a concept for a product range for Action Man, what

timescales are we talking about just to come up with the concept phase? <0:28:58>

Not really that long. You probably, you know – I’d say you’re probably having to

do stuff within three weeks, a month. It’s very fast and there are a lot of

drawings to get through.

What are we talking about? <0:29:19>

Oh, I’m trying to think. You’re probably talking about sometimes nine or ten

concept sort of boards. Some of those might be vehicles and a lot of them tend

to be uniforms because they’re taken out, shown to the general public, the kids

give their opinion and that’s how the whole sort of market research process

takes off before we actually get involved in the manufacture of them. And

what always surprised me and gave me an idea of how clued up these kids were

and still are, is some of the letters that they used to send because marketing

could not answer them (laughs) and I used to get lumbered with them. And I

was quite surprised, particularly guns that were very, very rare, I would never

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have thought that some of these kids would’ve known about them but they’d

say, ‘Oh you’ve got such and such an infantryman there, why hasn’t he got this

particular gun?’ and I’d have to sort of write back and say, ‘You’re quite right,

unfortunately we’re unable to spend the time and the money to supply those,

but they were also issued with this that and the other.’ You had to justify your

own existence there. But that was quite fun as well, yeah, seeing that

marketing couldn’t answer some of these questions, you know.

It’s brilliant that the kids used to write in with that detail of questions. <0:31:07>

Oh yeah, yeah. I would imagine that a lot of them were handled by marketing

but the trickier ones they always used to seem to come our way (both laugh)

which is great, you know, at least you’ve got something to fall back on or

somebody who would hopefully be able to give you an informed answer. You

might have to go away and look it up but that’s all part of it really. So it’s quite

an all encompassing job (laughs).

Did you ever think oh I’ve got this brilliant idea but I just can’t go through with it

because it will never be financially viable to make it? Where did you cut the costs

down and did it hamper your inspiration? <0:31:56>

Not to a great degree because when you work in a place like that you know

what the parameters are and you tend to work within those. There’s no point

in presenting an idea that you know can’t be afforded. The only time I really

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came close to that was in the sort of futuristic outfits because we were looking

at various vehicles for that range. And I put some ideas forward, some of the

vehicles were existing, they would’ve had to have been found because a lot of

these would’ve been in storage and that, but to produce various sort of

modifications or additions did prove too expensive. Also looking back on it

some of the space range ideas, again the tooling side would’ve been more

expensive and that’s really where I found I got a grounding or a feeling as to

what we could produce and what we couldn’t budget-wise. But in no uncertain

terms after the submissions of these vehicles, and this is where the two year

budget idea came about, it was decided that we just couldn’t go ahead with

them and that was the end of that basically. But at least you had the uniforms.

Say if the economy had picked up or if things had gone better for Palitoy, you

know, that might have fed further developments for that range, which was a

thing that I think we were all looking for. It just didn’t happen in this economic

climate unfortunately (laughs).

That’s a shame. <0:33:52>

Yeah, yeah. But you get used to that, you know (laughs). Okay.

Okay, this is a question, I must have read it somewhere, that sometimes companies

bought in designers from other toy companies, did that ever happen in your time

there? <0:34:14>

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It did, yeah. That was when John Hawkes was there and they used this agency, I

think they were down in London. I think he might have been involved with

them when he was working for Airfix many years ago, I can’t guarantee that,

but they were bought in. My own personal view is, as I’ve said before, the

concepts took away from Action Man and they were sort of space rangers.

Sorry, when you say took away from Action Man, can you explain? <0:34:59>

Yeah, as I mentioned before about Action Man is Action Man, he’s not the

vehicles.

Oh yes, sorry yeah. <0:35:06>

And this is where that was starting to develop and I think most of us could see

that. And those concepts, again because of costs and I suspect this agency was

used later on as well, this may have been after I left the company, but again,

you know, you can have these wonderful ideas and you’re not going to afford

them. So to me it’s pointless sort of proposing them. Unlike a lot of concept

ideas where people say well give reign to your imagination, on this kind of

occasion I don’t think that that actually works. It doesn’t provide you with the

goods to work with practically. And so they didn’t see the light of day as far as

I’m aware. And I think Bob Brechin actually mentioned something along the

lines I’m sort of mentioning to you now. Obviously he’d have to sort of back

that up basically but we were all of the same opinion, you know (laughs).

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Can you talk a little bit about the packaging of the toys, the design and how you

worked with the – it was Dave Barnacle? <0:36:47>

Dave Barnacle, yeah. Got on very well with Dave because he used to come to

me for, you know, information on what we were doing with the outfits, what

was actually going into the outfits. So he had quite a nice little shortcut, you

know, rather than having to go through the official channels. Now as I

mentioned to you there was one marketing manager, for all the best intentions,

decided that Action Man needed a change of image package-wise. And I got

involved in a pre-meet with these guys that were doing the sketches and when I

saw them I knew there was going to be problems. When I saw some of the

finished artworks there were definitely going to be problems (laughs). And I

think it’s the only time I’ve ever wrote a letter of protest about anything there

and that went to, I think it might have been Bob Simpson or Les Cook, I can’t

remember offhand, it might’ve even been Mike Taylor, and they came back in

quite a concerned way as to stop the work, a lot of this was actually going into

production and that’s very rare packaging to all those collectors out there, and

the artwork was reverted back to Dave. Now that work had been taken off

Dave who was really, you know, a staunch contributor to Action Man’s image,

you know, his artwork as Action Man, no two ways about it. And I can

understand where people think that there needs to be change because there

were those changes eventually, but he got all that work back and it was a

ridiculous amount, the deadlines were ridiculous. But he got back in there and I

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was so pleased for him to get that work. The actual packaging concepts

changed but his work went within those new package concepts, that was

nothing to do with the artwork, the artwork as I said it reverted back to him and

I’ve always rated him very highly anyway. A lovely guy to get on with.

Can you remember at the time the conversations that you had about the design work

leaving him? <0:39:46>

Not directly. I was just very upset about it because in later years I’ve seen that

happen to people, I’ve also had it happen to meself and it’s quite heartbreaking.

You always think that you might be somewhere to the stage of being

indispensable and that isn’t the case. And these things are shocks to your

system that you really do have to bear and it’s an unfortunate thing where I

think Dave may have had too great a percentage staked on Palitoy. He also got

overloaded during the Toy Fairs and there were some unfortunate situations

where again to all best intentions because everybody’s rushing, you’ll have

people placing work with him possibly from marketing, and the written order

system isn’t adhered to, and then you might for example get that marketing

guy leaving the company and there’s no evidence of that order ever being given

and I think he suffered a little bit from that. The most horrendous thing is you

do work for people and then they can’t possibly out of company policy pay you

within the sort of normal terms and conditions. So you have that sort of added

problem as well. But for him to work within those kinds of parameters, you

know, I have every regard for him. And I’ve met him more recently and he

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hasn’t changed, which is wonderful. He’s one of the, although he didn’t work

for Palitoy, he was one of the sort of foundation stones for it and we got on very

well. I would say that he used to subcontract some of the leaflet artworks to

me as well but that was because that was something that wasn’t in my

contract anyway, so I was able to do it with a clear conscience (laughs).

But that’s even more work for you as well, although you’re paid for it, I mean it’s the

hours. <0:42:12>

Well he didn’t know anybody else who could do it, or he hadn’t searched for

anybody. But there was a funny thing that happened. After this packaging

problem there was another guy who was in charge of Action Man and I was

over in his office talking to him and we were talking about leaflets and things

like that. And he said, ‘Well I suppose I’ve got to phone Dave up, see whether he

knows anybody.’ And he phoned him up and (laughs) and I said, ‘Well before

you go any further he does know somebody.’ And he looked at me and he said,

‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ (Both laugh) And I didn’t answer, I didn’t have to ‘cause I

knew that work had come to me. And that was the other side of my work

because I love drawing as well, you know, I used to be a comic strip illustrator so

that was ---.

Oh, what comic strip? For personal enjoyment or professional? <0:43:18>

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25

No, no, I was a freelance for about six months, it was for DC Comics. They didn’t

pay very well but I got a taste for that. So subsequently we wanted to do a little

bit more on the leaflet instructions so I used to do all the exploded drawings of

how the things went together and we just put a small comic strip on the back

about Action Man, or on one occasion I think Action Force as well. So yeah, that

fitted the bill for me. (Both laugh)

Satisfied that craving (laughs). <0:43:56>

Yeah, yeah. Well it’s just great stuff.

You know you mentioned the computer aided design today? <0:44:05>

Yeah.

Can you put it in context how long it would take you to produce something and how

long it would take on the computers now? So some drawings like one drawing of an

outfit? <0:44:19>

Yeah. Well I’ll give you an example. Are you talking about drawing or are you

talking about actual manufacturing of sculpture? I could go through both with

you.

Yeah. That would be good. <0:44:34>

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26

Drawing on computer, with some reservations as to things like perspective –

perspective’s a funny thing, you can either draw it accurately and it looks wrong

or you overstate and it looks right – but it would probably take me a few years

to be able to master something like that. And in other employment before you

had people who were highly competent in this kind of area, I can probably draw

that perspective quicker than they can put it on the computer screen, but that is

not the case now. Now with regard to sculpture, which is a thing that I sort of

eventually came on to more so than when I was at Palitoy, what you can do is

you can draw half a figure, and it’s all to do with grid work, and you just refine

the grid work. And you can flip it to get a perfect mirror image, and then you

can play about with the way the drawing’s going to move, make it look a bit

more animated. But if it doesn’t look right on the drawing it’s easy to fix, like if

the head’s too small, the head’s too large, you can fix that very, very easily. If

you compare doing that to a 3D object, if the head’s too big you’ve got to re-

sculpt and that can take days and days. And that’s really what you’re up

against now. Now this is something that’s come to me attention very recently

and the work’s phenomenal, I don’t even think I could compete with it. There

are so many good artists now. There are so many things with regard to

production that makes the production quicker, which makes it more cost

effective, that you just ---. If you compare what you could do when I was at

Palitoy to what you can do now, the two just are incomparable. Things like

action figures, the action figures that they used to do for Star Wars, fine

example, were very basic. Strangely enough you can get 12 inch versions now

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27

because they’ve become collectors’ items and people like the gimmick of having

a three and three quarter inch figure, you know, boosted up to a 12 inch, you

know, it, really sort of shabby looking and ungainly, but there’s something

about it. But if you look at the Star War figures that come out now, and it’s still

a thriving business, it always will be, I can’t believe that it’s lasted as long and

as well and had so many sort of product spin offs, but things like paintwork,

toning, you know, clothes that look as if they’ve had wear on them, they’re all

done and they’re all done in the Far East as far as I’m aware and their sort of

cost basis is far lower, so you can do far more to a particular figure. And that’s

really what you’re up against. And to me I suspect that’s really why the Far East

has got such a monopoly on toy manufacture now. You can design the tools,

you can email them or whatever through to the Far East. Some of the processes

that they use in the Far East they won’t touch in this country, they’re quite

happy to do it so there’s another area where they can gain. Your competition,

you know, it’s very daunting.

It’s fascinating, isn’t it? And you wonder how it’s going to look in another 20 years

time, which way it will go over there. <0:49:09>

Yeah, yeah, unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. My misfortune is that after Palitoy and

later years that was the heyday of sort of hand skills if you like. And you’ve

really go to look at what’s happened now is a tool, all computers basically they

are, are a tool to enable you to do what you want, enable you to polish what

you may not be able to polish in your own sort of basic skills, and that’s a

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28

wonderful thing, you know, I’d like to feel that that’s some form of

empowerment. Not for me, I think it might be too late for me (laughs). But to

actually see it and know how it’s sort of evolved that’s a great thing as well.

And again, you know, going back to Palitoy really Palitoy was the thing that

started it off. You know, from then you got the production skills or knowledge

and you just take them through into the sort of freelance stuff that I was

working with. Those parameters were always and still are the logical way of

looking at things. It’s just that you’ve got more challenging sort of aspects now,

people are far more demanding for what they want. I mean we were quite

naive in my day.

Really? In what way? <0:50:56>

Yeah, yeah. Just content with things. I see with Action Man especially, ‘cause I

work on that scale or that’s one sort of area that I’d like to work in ‘cause I do

sort of model making for my own pleasure if you like. And I see things like

equipment, like guns, in my day when you worked with Action Man a gun had

very few sort of little features that you could play with. You could probably take

a magazine out of a machine gun. Nowadays you can take the magazine out of

a pistol, the actual breach action on the pistol works, and these things are really

tiny. And you look at the sort of time investment that somebody has to put into

designing that and also to have it manufactured, you know, there’s virtually no

comparison. And the accuracy that people want now, these action figures that

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29

stem from him, you know, they’re real collectors’ items and the research that

goes into them is phenomenal.

Are you talking about collectors’ items rather than the toys that the average kid will

play with? Because I’ll tell you why, ‘cause it seems to me a lot of the older generation

are really nostalgic about the toys of their childhood and tend to criticise today’s toys

and say that they’re not made as well, but that completely contradicts your experience

and what you’re telling, so it’s interesting you have this nostalgia that makes it seem

better in their minds. <0:52:47>

Nostalgia’s a great thing, it’s really what we’re talking about now basically. But

I’ve got a love for the stuff I worked on, the stuff that I was brought up with,

you know, and there’s a space for that. But I disagree with people that don’t

have what I think was a respect for what’s coming out now, maybe because it’s

because I know what’s involved. But the companies that produce this kind of

stuff, I won’t go into their names people will know who they are, they’re

making these figures and they’re something that I would’ve always wanted

Action Man to be. That would’ve been my sort of acme if you like. Everything’s

accurate, you know, and believe you me some of the stuff that comes out now

is ultra accurate. I mean I still buy little bits and pieces mainly because I can use

them on something now, but if they weren’t any good I wouldn’t buy them. But

I’ve still got a few Action Man bits and pieces as well. (Both laugh) So hopefully

that’ll answer my view on the things. Collectors are collectors. I think

unfortunately Bob’s had more than his fair share of people getting in touch

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30

with him (both laugh) which is something I’m glad I avoid. But I’ve been in

touch with a few of them and yeah, they’re wonderful people. But I don’t know,

that’s a different area. It’s like, you know, collecting cigarette cards, you’ve got

to have the whole set, you know, nothing will stop you until you’ve got the

whole set and I think that a lot of that’s what that kind of thing’s about. And

it’s lovely to see, it makes me feel very proud when I know people have got that

much interest and I can sort of tell them, ‘Oh, I was involved with that.’ And

again the great thing in anything that you do, you have all the headaches of

developing things – things not working possibly, modifying things, things

getting dropped – but when you see that stuff out in the shops that’s the

ultimate, you know. It’s something that you’re going to leave behind possibly

and you’re in a kind of privileged position to be able to sort of think that you’re

going to do that. That’s the way I sort of rate what’s happened to me in my

career and how people might view the stuff that I was ever involved in basically.

It’s a love, you know, and you’re very selfish about it, you can’t help being that.

(Laughs)

[END OF RECORDING – 0:56:01]

Greg Hughes