Cape Town - Remember that one toy you cherished the most while growing up? The one you played with for hours without getting bored? Do you still have it or did you outgrow it? Maybe… just maybe, you will come across a similar toy at Cape Town’s first pop-up toy exhibition at the Watershed, at the V&A Waterfront.
The exhibition showcases an extensive toy collection that will be part of the upcoming Cape Town Museum of Childhood, a first of its kind in Africa that is due to open next year.
The museum, supported by the Centre for Early Childhood Development (CECD) and funded by the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund, will be an institution for the heritage, documentation, memory, oral history, research, and interpretation of childhood.
The CECD is a non-profit organisation established in 1994 that is committed to ensuring quality care and education for South Africa’s young children.
The pop-up exhibition, which includes just a third of toy collector Verna Jooste’s personal collection, includes all sorts of toys – from dolls of all types and sizes to tin toys, sound toys, action figures, spinning and stuffed toys. The toys were “born” between 1910 and the present day.
Jooste started collecting toys in 1990 as a design student at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). Her mother had given her a book on toy collection and she started with a tin space toy she rescued at a cafe in Durban.
“It was trapped between the counter and glass and the owner was trying to get it out. I recognised the toy as being a collectable and went in to help him. He gave me the toy afterwards and the collection began. The space toy is also part of the exhibition, it has a little green rubber man in it,” says Jooste.
Since then, she has travelled around the world accumulating her toys which she estimates are about 1 500 in total.
“It’s very hard to keep track and this would be the first time (at the exhibition) that all the toys will be under one roof. They come from everywhere as I buy toys wherever I go… London, Turkey, Russia, Finland, collectable shops, garage sales, flea markets and some are gifts from friends,” she says.
Jooste says her collection takes up most of the space in her Muizenberg home; “The toys are on the shelves all around the house, in boxes in the attic and on the pelmets in the kitchen… they have consumed my world,” she admits.
Most of the dolls are named after special people in her life, like Miriam, her 40th birthday gift that is named after the woman who helped raise Jooste and her brothers.
“Kassie is named after my late aunt and Phillip, the teddy bear, is named after the friend who gave him to me.
“Some of the names match the characters of the toys, it makes the collection more intimate… something that has been important because the toys are part of my life.”
One of her special toys is a tin chicken she bought in Turkey.
“The entire time I was overseas I thought and dreamt about it… driving my travel companion mad. We finally found a similar chicken on the internet and travelled to Turkey to buy it… madness really,” she says.
As for which toy would be the most expensive in her collection, Jooste says mum’s the word. “It’s like asking a woman her age, never a good idea.”
But each toy does come with a story, such as Barbie and the Barbie suitcase – a childhood gift from her neighbours when they left home for university.
“The girls cleared their rooms and gave me a Barbie and the Barbie case. I was five-years old at the time and I was thrilled. I really wish I had not taken a permanent marker and drawn a floor plan in the interior… it has seriously compromised its value and collectability, but I have only ever seen another such box at the Prague Toy Museum,” she explains.
Another special toy is TK, the Lego man, that is part of a competition in which visitors can take a “selfie” with it and stand a chance to win a R1 000 Watershed voucher prize every week.
“I was driving to a meeting when I looked up and saw TK standing outside a shop. I turned around, fought the traffic and rushed into the shop. TK had been painted with fluorescent poster paint which was cracking and in a pretty shabby state. The owner of the shop did not want to sell him to me but I convinced him that he needed to be with the other toys,” says Jooste.
The exhibition will launch tomorrow at the Good Night Market and will form part of the V&A’s Watershed Play Pad programme, which runs from June 27 to July 17.
Michaela Ashley-Cooper of CECD says the toy collection will not only excite the children, but adults too.
“It’s (the toys) connecting parents to their childhood and by doing that it is connecting the parent with the child again.
“Instead of children being stuck in iPads, they can visit the exhibition and get to see old school toys and the wonderful things they do.
“The museum aims to capture the heritage of childhood and the role that children play in society.
“This will be done through documenting, studying and interpreting childhood by creating an interactive space that allows an opportunity for children, families and communities to celebrate childhood, to gain insights into childhood and to learn about childhood heritage,” says Ashley-Cooper.
Jooste adds that people should visit the Museum of Childhood so that they can embrace and remember their own childhoods.
“I love that every single person who sees the toys says at some point ‘I had one of those’. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t say that.”
For more information about the pop-up exhibition and others that are planned, visit www.museumofchildhood.org.za and on facebook: www.facebook.com/CTchildhood.
l For your chance to win a R1 000 Watershed voucher, take a selfie at the exhibition with TK, the larger-than-life Lego man. Post it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, tag @CTchildhood and use #myTKselfie.
There is a voucher giveaway every week for the duration of the pop-up exhibit, June 24 to July 17. Winners will be announced every Wednesday.
Cape Argus