AND WHEN DID YOU FIRST BECOME ADDICTED?

The original ad that started it all

So when did it begin, this 'obsession' with collecting things from childhood?  Well, in my case, that depends on exactly what we're talking about - comics or toys.  I started re-acquiring childhood comics around the end of 1980/the beginning of '81, when I purchased the first issues of FANTASTIC, TERRIFIC, The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL, SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY, and the 1968 POW! SMASH! FANTASTIC Holiday Special.  I'd retained quite a number of comics from their original time of purchase around 1974/'75 when I was a teenager, but the afore-mentioned items resulted from a determined effort to re-obtain certain publications I'd originally had as a youth.  Although, to be more accurate, that determination sprang from discovering their availability by chance, which sounds like a contradiction-in-terms.  However, you know what I mean - I just happened to see an advert for them and decided I wanted to own them again.

With toys, the tap was turned on in a drip around 1982, when a former colleague asked me if I'd like an unbuilt AURORA SUPERBOY model that one of his friends no longer wanted.  I sure would, but it didn't materialize right away.  Then, some time later, he told me about an Aurora BATMAN kit he'd seen in a model shop in Glasgow for a mere £1.50.  I duly gave him the money to buy it for me as he was in Glasgow more often than I was (and knew exactly where the shop was located).  Then, in 1983, MONOGRAM reissued four of the 'glow-in-the-dark' Aurora models of the UNIVERSAL movie monsters, so I bought the FRANKENSTEIN kit (from LEWIS'S in Glasgow) as I'd had it more than half my life earlier.  Then the Superboy model I'd previously been offered finally passed into my possession. 

So far, my re-acquisitions amounted to a mere trickle, and there was yet no hint of the flood that was to eventually follow.  In 1984, PALITOY announced that they would no longer be making the 12" ACTION MAN articulated figure, so I bought the very next one (and for half-price too) I saw in a shop before they all disappeared off the shelves completely.  That was the start of it and, somehow, without me being fully aware of the addiction that was overtaking me, I started buying just about anything that I'd had as a kid, or wanted as a kid but never had, or didn't exist when I was a kid but should have - or, in fact, anything I would've bought had I still been a kid.  Before I knew it, I had surrounded myself with replacements for comics and toys I'd owned (or wanted to own remember) in my youth, and it's a habit that prevails to the present day.

What can I say?  There's something comforting in being reunited with a past possession from a vanished time in one's life.  It's like stepping back into 'yesterday' when one originally saw and owned the item, even if the moment is of an all-too brief duration and the present impatiently protrudes into the passing parade of prior pleasures from a bygone era.  If you don't 'get it' then I could never explain it to you - you'd have to experience the sensation for yourself in order to appreciate what I'm talking about.

Fortunately for me, I'm aware that there are others who visit this blog who know exactly whereof I speak.  So tell me, fellow travellers in time, when did the journey begin for you?  Also, what was your first 're-acquisition' and why did it mean so much to you?  Relive the moment in our cavorting comments section.

******

Incidentally, regarding the ad at the top of the page - the individual concerned never sent me my SMCW #1, so, after several months of him ignoring my requests for it, I had a Solicitor's letter sent to him - no response.  Quite a bit of time passed before I eventually wrote to a TV consumer affairs programme who chased him up - the comic was sent in short order and the story featured on the show.  Below is a photo of myself used in the broadcast and snapped from the television screen.  Oh, and as far as I remember, contrary to what the ad says and with the possible exception of MWOM, none of the mags had their original free gifts.