Leading on from the previous post, whereas Polly Pocket compacts offered the possibility of a portable, pocket-sized space for thought, the painting of them has offered the possibility to represent pockets of time. Each painting was completed within a few hours during a half term or school holiday. Balanced on bookshelves to dry, they provided reminders of brief portions of time to oneself.

The scale of the first eight paintings has stayed small around life-size, with canvases ranging from 20.5cm x 14cm of the rectangular and 30cm of the square canvas to the 20 cm diameter of the circular canvas boards. This most recent painting has expanded the scale to a 160cm x 160cm unstretched canvas (130cm diameter of the pocket). The idea was that you could sit inside this one.

“Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics.”  Virginia Woolf, A room of one’s own, 1928

The compact offers something portable and discrete but rather than opening it up to look at a reflection and apply make up to continue the masquerade of femininity, Polly Pocket compacts contain miniature worlds that inspire play and possibility. Purposely female-dominated spaces that possibly appeal to creative pursuits – a cottage, townhouse, alpine chalet, school, beach house, jungle retreat, sewing room, theatre, ice rink, tea house, garden – or at least offer a space for reflection.

In lieu of a room of one’s own, they offer a symbol of the possibilities of such a room in miniature, of mental space for creating.

Pockets of time series

“I’ll never forget going over with the first models of Polly Pocket, which we wanted to license to them [Mattel]. I rang up Jill Barad [Mattel’s chief executive] and I said “Look, I’ve got something which I think is quite important and I think that we’d like to ask you to be our worldwide distributors, with the exception of Japan and the UK.”… “And so I went over there, I had the entire first year of Polly Pocket, it would have fitted in a box about yea big [gestures, a foot square]…”

“I’d said “give me five minutes before” so I’d set everything up, and I put the whole lot, the entire range underneath my pocket handkerchief. So they came in, they saw this slightly grubby handkerchief sitting on the table (laughs) and .. they looked at each other and thought “The man’s gone completely mad.” So I picked up a corner of the handkerchief and inside it was this tiny figure… So I said “I’d like to introduce you to Polly Pocket” and they said “I can’t even see it,” .. so I held it up, and then I slowly uncovered the other bits and there were little rings with Polly in bed or in the bath or in the car.. that you could put on your finger. .. and by the end they were saying “You know, there may be something in this after all.”

The first year they didn’t sell that many. But the second year in February Torquil got a phone call from Jill Barad asking “How quickly could you get us four million Polly Pocket compacts?”[1]

“We licensed Polly Pocket to Mattel as sales agent for most of the world, but retained all the manufacturing rights (it was made in China) and the sales rights for Great Britain. At one point Polly Pocket was Mattel’s second largest toy range for girls (although far behind the legendary Barbie).”[2]

Mattel went on to license Polly Pockets in the US and the restof the world except Japan and the UK, and then in 1998 when a takeover bid was made for Bluebird, Mattel took over the Polly Pocket Brand. Under Mattel, Polly Pocket changed in scale and focus, she became bigger, had her own racing cars along the Hot Wheels model. She grew again, the focus then became her as a doll, made out of flexible plastic and came with clothes and accessories.

Big dreams come in small packages © Mattel

In 2018 Mattel relaunched the Polly Pocket Brand, with Garrett Sander (of Monsters High fame), taking Polly back to her original scale, with a new range of compacts.

Sky Brown, the world’s youngest female pro skateboarder is now the brand ambassador for the relaunched Polly Pocket brand. Just like Polly Pocket, reads a statement from Mattel, she embodies the brand’s message that Tiny is Mighty.

In June 2019 Mattel marked the 30^th anniversary of the original Polly Pocket line with a special anniversary reissue of the 1989 Partytime Surprise Compact.

[1] quotes above from British Toy Making Project: Mr. Torquil Norman, Bluebird Toys, interview transcript, p23-25 interview conducted by Ieuan Hopkins and Sarah Wood, September 2010, edited by Torquil Norman and Sarah Wood, August 2013

[2] Torquil Norman, p60 “Light the Fires, Kick the Tyres: One man’s vision for Britain’s future and how we can make it work” published by Infinite Ideas, 2010: UK

A portable pocket-sized room of one’s own

A selection of compacts for each year of Bluebird’s production of Polly Pocket before Mattel bought the franchise in 1998

Polly Pocket and Mattel

“The country at that time (of setting up Bluebird, 1979) was entering a recession and I had a strong desire that all our products should be made in Britain.”[1]

“Other key moments were actually moving from Kembrey [street, Swindon] to the next site, also in Swindon but on the other side of Swindon, a much bigger site, the old Plessey factory. When Plessey had stopped making record decks in the UK and moved to Brazil, suddenly there was a huge great factory and that was where we went.”[2]

“… in ’89 I was instrumental in finding the new manufacturing facility because, once again, we’d outgrown out space in Swindon and we took on a factory in Merthyr Tydfil, the old Hoover factory…, which had been built and actually it equally had a moment of glory because it had made Sinclair’s C5 scooter just before we moved in as well. So, that was, great, I mean that really did put the company on the map.”[3]

“In the early days we were proud to put a Union Jack on every Bluebird package with the inscription “All our toys are made in Great Britain”. But after a few years it became clear that we would have to start making toys in China to remain competitive.”[4]

[1] Torquil Norman, p57 “Light the Fires, Kick the Tyres: One man’s vision for Britain’s future and how we can make it work” published by Infinite Ideas, 2010: UK

[2] British Toy Making Project: Gareth Morris, Finance Director and Company Secretary Bluebird Toys, interview transcript, p5-6 interview conducted by Ieuan Hopkins and Sarah Wood, September 2010, edited by Gareth Morris and Sarah Wood, August 2013

[3] Ibid p6

[4] Torquil Norman, p59 “Light the Fires, Kick the Tyres: One man’s vision for Britain’s future and how we can make it work” published by Infinite Ideas, 2010: UK

Polly Pocket 1989-1998

“[Regarding] Polly Pocket, we worked with a group of young guys, particularly Chris Wiggs and Chris Taylor, they ran a little business called Origin which was based towards the Portobello Road, they had developed Polly Pocket with us and they were responsible for all the final designs and the model-making and so on.

Chris Wiggs had one day at a meeting produced – because we used to have brainstorming meetings – produced a wooden box about that size, um, with a little wooden doll in it, didn’t do anything but it was there, which he said he’d made for his daughter six years before, and he said “Do you think there’s anything in it?” and I said “Well, I don’t know, I’ve no idea”, and then I thought about it a bit and more as much as for something to say as anything else, I was holding the doll, and I said “Can you make it bend at the waist? And he said “No, it’s too small”, and I said “Well, come on, you’re a terrific engineer, you know, you can do anything.” So I came back the next week, he’d made a beautiful model of a little doll that moves and sat down perfectly, so I said “Well, hell, we may have something now” and that’s really how it started.”[1]

Inspired by the phrase ‘cute as a button’ Chris Wiggs’ prototype was made out of wood, a powder compact that housed a tiny figure. Wiggs designed the product in 1983, Bluebird licensed the product and launched the line in 1989, it went on to be massively successful.

[1] British Toy Making Project: Mr. Torquil Norman, Bluebird Toys, interview transcript, p35-36 interview conducted by Ieuan Hopkins and Sarah Wood, September 2010, edited by Torquil Norman and Sarah Wood, August 2013

Bluebird Factories

“Of course you can’t start a company with one product so I spent the next few months developing half a dozen more ideas to make up a small range of products. Among them were a beautiful traditional sweetshop and a new design of lunchbox. At that time Margaret Thatcher had hugely increased the price of school lunches and so more and more children were taking their lunch to school in plastic bags. I thought they would much prefer something with a great character like Superman on it than a plastic bag. I also designed a flask with a wide lid so that they could take soup or fruit salad in their packed lunches.”[1]

The Bluebird lunchboxes were ubiquitous in the 1980s. Legend has it that the explosives for the Brighton Bombing by the IRA which targeted Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet at the Conservative Party Conference at the Grand Brighton Hotel on the 12th October 1984 were carried in one.

The hinge system developed by Bluebird went on to have significance for future container toys beyond the Big Yellow Teapot, there was the Big Red Fun Bus and the A La Cart Kitchen (the no é was deliberate as it was a kitchenette on wheels).

Torquil told me about Bluebird’s specific gearbox hinge system:

“We made the gearbox. It was a plastic carry all which was made of one piece of plastic and the hinges were living hinges, built into the same tool that makes it and when you release it from the tool you have a complete gearbox and all you need to do is fit the little clips on the end to keep it shut. And we called it a gearbox, for all your gear. And it was very popular, it still is, people have still, I’m sure they’ve either found the tools or borrowed them or copied them.

It had a corrugated outside with rounded ends, and the corrugations meant that the product was really quite strong, and it just had two little clips and it was really quite clever.”[2]

So from container vehicles to container dolls houses and boxes for children’s lunch and gear, Bluebird was at the forefront of toy design and responded to children’s fascination with things that open and close and putting things inside other things. The living hinge system would be important for their most famous toy line, one that became a huge phenomenon despite the tininess of its characters.

[1] Torquil Norman, p57 “Light the Fires, Kick the Tyres: One man’s vision for Britain’s future and how we can make it work” published by Infinite Ideas, 2010: UK

[2] Interview with Sir Torquil Norman, London, 15^th May 2019

Polly enters the arena

Torquil Norman left Berwick Toys in 1980.

“I suddenly realized that I could do anything I wanted in life. I spent a month or two walking around the streets, and the garden, trying to work out what I really wanted to do. It came as quite a surprise to me that, at the end of it all, the only thing I had come up with was an idea for a new toy – the Big Yellow Teapot.”[1]

Torquil didn’t want to license the toy to another company, so he set up Bluebird Toys in 1981 to manufacture the Big Yellow Teapot. At a meeting with possible investors in the company he found a helpful advocate:

“As luck would have it, while we were discussing the venture, the tea lady came in and offered us a cup of tea. She caught sight of the Big Yellow Teapot sitting on the table and said ‘Oh isn’t that lovely!” I explained that it was only a model which we were thinking of putting into production. She immediately asked if she could have the first one off the production line. I said of course, if it was ever made. Harry (Conway) said he thought it would be, and sure enough Kleinwort’s agreed to put up the other half of the capital. Now that’s how banking used to be done! And the tea lady got her teapot.” [2]

[1] Torquil Norman, p57 “Light the Fires, Kick the Tyres: One man’s vision for Britain’s future and how we can make it work” published by Infinite Ideas, 2010: UK

[2] p58 Ibid

Bluebird’s Gearbox & Lunchboxes

“I used to be asked what are the qualifications for being in the toy industry and I said I think there are two: one is, an eye for detail, because children are fascinated by detail and little things that open and shut and how they work and stuff, and secondly, a mental age of about seven, and I think to be truthful, I qualified on both counts.”[1]

 “Running Berwick’s Toy Company proved enormously appealing since I discovered I had a real interest in toys and in industry and, with five young children at home, a home-based research centre.”[2]

“As our children grew up they were extremely unruly and, of course, did an enormous amount of crayoning, drawing and painting. In fact it was almost impossible to stay at a hotel with them on holiday because their first instinct would be to crayon all over the bedroom walls..”[3]

“I came up with a solution. I bought a 30’ Bedford chassis and delivered it to Plaxtons the coach builders in Scarborough. They kindly built a body on it to my design which, when equipped, meant that we could sleep nine people in it, with a motor scooter in the boot and a small sailing dingy on a vast roof rack. I think we had the first, the best and undoubtedly the biggest campervan in the business.” [4]

The impact of family life on creative ideas and inventions, the lateral thinking of the practicalities of family holidays and transportation could be considered to have sparked Torquil Norman’s ideas for container toys, leading to his setting up of Bluebird in 1981 to manufacture a particular design classic in British Toy manufacturing history – more tomorrow. Cuppa anyone?

[1] British Toy Making Project: Mr. Torquil Norman, Bluebird Toys, interview transcript, p32-33 interview conducted by Ieuan Hopkins and Sarah Wood, September 2010, edited by Torquil Norman and Sarah Wood, August 2013

[2] Torquil Norman, Kick the Tyres, Light the Fires: One man’s vision for Britain’s future and how we can make it work p49, published by Infinite Ideas, 2010: UK

[3] Torquil Norman, Ibid p41-42

[4] Torquil Norman, Ibid p42

The Big Yellow Teapot & the beginning of Bluebird

Ernst Friedrich (Fritz) Schumacher, economist-philosopher was an unlikely pioneer of the Green movement[1], his book Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if people mattered sets out his critique of Western economics, published during the energy crisis of 1973 and emergence of globalization, and is cited as one of the 100 most influential books since the second world war by the TLS. Schumacher’s book influenced a developing consciousness of environmental awareness and interest in sustainability. Schumacher’s insistence that the earth’s resources are finite and thereby should not be assumed as conditions to create capital. His concept of Buddhist Economics and appropriate scale of technology underpin this project. “Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character.”[2]

Born in Bonn in 1911, his father was the first professor of economics at Berlin university. Schumacher formed an academic career in Germany, Britain and the US as assistant lecturer in banking and international finance at Columbia ages 23 but “he always believed one should strive for practical outcomes to philosophy and economic theory which would benefit people in society.”[3]

“He saw the need to provide his colleagues and audience with philosophical maps and guidelines which related to reality.”[4]

“In the process, his life was one of constant questioning, including challenging most of the basic assumptions on which Western economic and academic theory has been based. What are the ‘laws’ that govern the ‘science of economics’? What is the true value of money? What is the relationship between time and money? What is the real worth of work? And of development? These were everyday questions which interested him most as an economist.”[5]

Schumacher fled Hitler’s Germany in 1937 with his wife and son and came to London where he was granted British citizenship, but was briefly interned and then hidden away by his family as a farm laborer in Northamptonshire. With the support of John Maynard Keynes worked for the government  at the Oxord Insitute of Statistics, working on ideas of debt  relief and international debt clearing schemes. After the war he was appointed to the Coal Board in 1950 and became Head of the Soil Association.

“He had experienced poverty, social injustice and alienation first-hand, and felt that with his uniquely varied and practical background he had something useful to contribute. As an economist he was derided by his peers for pointing out the fallacy of continuous growth I a finite world dependent on limited fossil fuel resources, but at the same time he became a champion of the poor, the marginalized and those who felt misgivings over the shallowness of contemporary values. This made him a cult figure of the hippie movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with over 5000 students attending some of the lectures he gave in California on his last visit to the United States in 1977.” [6]

Schumacher criticized the way that conventional economists measure the standard of living by the amount of consumption, assuming that those that consume more are better off and in order to live well we must consume at least as much if not more than our neighbor, encouraging a keeping up with the joneses as a measure of a person’s success.  Modern society is consumer-driven. ‘We are not people, still less people with souls. We are consumers, mere economic functionaries, serving economic growth.’[7]

“Today, we suffer from an almost universal idolatry of giantism. It is therefore necessary to insist on the virtues of smallness – where this applies.”[8]

Macrophilia the cult of bigness is “the prevailing trend in economic thinking for almost 200 years. It is rooted in the theory of economies of scale which, alongside the hidden hand of market forces and the dogma of economic growth, is a cornerstone of conventional economics.“[9]

“Macrophilia fails to allow for the small fry of economic life and thus excludes a substantial proportion of the population from its economic caluclations and planning.”[10]

“Schumacher wrote of a ‘crisis in the reactions of human nature to our economic way of life which worships giantism and threatens to submerge the human person.’ In other words, size matters, but not in the way that the economists imagine. It matters not because big is best but because small is beautiful. ‘After all,’ Schumacher continued, ‘people are small in size and can confidently cope only with people-sized problems. Giantism in oganisation as in technology may occasionally give them a feeling of elation, but it makes them unhappy. All modern literature is full of this unhappiness, and so is modern art.’ “[11]

“What is it that we really require from the scientists and technologists? I should answer: We need methods and equipment which are

• cheap enough so that they are accessible to virtually everyone;
• suitable for small-scale application and
• compatible with man’s need for creativity

Out of these three characteristics is born non-violence and a relationship of man to nature which guarantees permanence. If only one of these things is neglected, things are bound to go wrong.”[12]

[1] Diana Schumacher  p9 ‘Small is Beautiful in the 21^st Century: The Legacy of E. F. Schumacher,’ Green Books, 2011: UK

[2] E. F. Schumacher p46 in ‘Small is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered’ published by Abacus, 1983 edition: UK

[3] Diana Schumacher  p9 ‘Small is Beautiful in the 21^st Century: The Legacy of E. F. Schumacher,’ Green Books, 2011: UK

[4] Ibid, p9

[5] Ibid, p10

[6] p11 Diana Schumacher  p9 ‘Small is Beautiful in the 21^st Century: The Legacy of E. F. Schumacher,’ Green Books, 2011: UK

[7] Joseph Pearce, p66 in ‘Small is Still Beautiful’ Schumacher quoted in Pearce, 2001, HarperCollins: UK

[8] E. F. Schumacher, pg 54 in ‘Small is Beautiful’, Abacus, 1983 edition: UK

[9] Joseph Pearce, p77 Small is Still Beautiful’, 2001, HarperCollins: UK

[10] Ibid p79

[11] E. F. Schumacher quoted in Pearce, p80 Ibid

[12] E. F. Schumacher p27 in ‘Small is Beautiful’ Abacus edition, 1983: UK

Torquil Norman’s home-based research centre & container vehicles pre Bluebird