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Paul's Corner!

During the strange year of 2020 when the Corona virus affected everything we did, from being able to work to spending time with our friends and family, life for many including me slowed down to a pace I seem to recall from many years ago. With that has come a bit of reminiscing of my childhood on the farm, and how important those times were in shaping the future, and that led to me digging out all my all farm toys that were carefully put into the attic by my Mum. I then spent a whole day cleaning them and carefully arranging them to create an extended photo gallery I thought my customers might like to see.

I amassed my collection throughout the 1970s, 1980s and the odd model from the early 1990s that caught my eye. They are predominantly Britains, as for a long time that is all there really was, with a few great models from Ertl, Corgi and Dinky. My all-time favourites would be a Britains’ Ford TW20 (very high hours!), Ford 6600, Deutz 110 and a brilliant Ertl David Brown 1690 that I loved despite it having no rear linkage. My Corgi David Brown 1412 with JF combine has always been left and admired on my workshop shelf along with a very rare MF Powerparts TE20 with plough (just a pity they were not 1:32 scale!). I am also particularly fond of my 1:64th scale Ertl tractors, especially the International 1086.

What gave you the idea to make toy farm buildings for a living?” is a question I am often asked, and the straight answer is that I am a bit of an over-grown farm-hand brought up on a small dairy farm which had 65 acres of heavy clay soil in a very remote area of North Devon.  As a young boy growing up on the farm all I remember wanting was tractors and more tractors, with every Christmas and birthday bringing a delivery of the latest Britain’s release. In our old farmhouse, my Mum had to go without her dining room for over 12 years as my toy farmyard grew and grew with every room in the house representing fields for rough grazing, silage, and corn. I had a couple of small plastic sheds made by Britains and the rest were fashioned by myself or my Dad out of cardboard and bits of wood. I played with all of them every day, but always felt they just were not up to the job. I dreamt of herringbone milking parlours, cubicle sheds and proper tractor sheds that were big enough to store the machinery I had, but nothing ever came along. Fifteen years later I was looking to start my own business that did not involve chasing black and white cows around soggy fields at 5.30am, and with a love of farm toys that never really went away I made a small selection of 3 sheds and started to advertise them in The Farmers Weekly. I never looked back.

I hope you enjoy looking though my gallery, and please, keep safe.

Very kind regards

Paul Headon.
Owner
Brushwood Toys

PS: Please note that none of the models featured in Paul's Corner are for sale!

PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGES BELOW TO ACCESS THE VARIOUS GALLERIES OF PAUL'S COLLECTION!