Were you lucky enough to have a Star Wars bedroom like this back in 1978?
The extract above is taken from the UK Marshall Ward mail order catalogue Autumn/Winter 1978/79. It includes a bedsheet, bedspread/blanket, pillow case and curtains.
I was thrilled when I received the pillow case from this set, which I still have today. Although my parents couldn't stretch to anything else, I was more than happy.
Curiously, this selection doens't include the duvet cover which matched the pillowcase as shown below. Perhaps the duvet cover was a later edition to the collection or what they describe as 'sheets' is in fact a duvet cover? I think a duvet was a new concept in the UK at that time. We used traditional bedsheets and blankets until the early 1980's.
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| Star Wars duvet set 1978 |
Next up are toiletries. I can recall having an R2D2 'soap on a roap' but not from this catalogue. The problem was I liked it so much that I didn't want to ruin it by using it. The R2D2 bubble bath looks vaguely familiar so I may have had that also.
The toy section included the MPC plastic model kits, all of which I was lucky enough to get for Christmas. I kept these displayed on my bedroom shelf until the mid 1980's when a house move necessitated a purge of all my toys. All four of my completed MPC model kits were sold to a lucky young boy at a car boot sale around 1985. I had looked after these well and they survived relatively unscathed. There's still part of me that wishes I'd kept these, but life moves on.
These MPC model kits were re-issued to mark the 20th anniversary of Star Wars around 1997. I purchased the Darth Vader Tie Fighter re-issue. It was identical to the original including the box artwork, from what I remember. I imagine it would be quite easy to pass off the re-issue kits as originals. If you looked very carefully there was some text on the box which indicated it was a newer version. The models needed almost no painting so were easy kits unless you wanted to enhance them further with extra paintwork. My C3PO was painted gold, but lacked the shiny chrome effect.
The 'laser sword' being sold here looks like a rather pathetic copy of the lightsaber and the C3PO costume would have looked better on a smaller child model. The short sleeves on this boy spoils the look!
These MPC model kits often appear on eBay. I was even tempted to buy another one but then wondered what I would do with it afterwards. Would it just end up in a storage box?
The final Star Wars item in this catalogue was the 'Escape from the Death Star' board game. At the time of writing, these were being sold on eBay for about £20.
Also available at that time but not included in this catalogue was Star Wars wallpaper. ICI purchased the world rights to the official Star Wars wall covering from 20th Century Fox in 1978. It was produced under the brand name Vymura and sold for about £4 per roll.
A childs bedroom just wouldn't be complete without a poster or two on the wall. In my case it was more than a few, but one of which was a Star Wars poster of C3PO and R2D2. I believe this had been purchased for me from a Woolworths store in 1978. Unfortunately I gave it to a charity shop during a house move in the early 1980's. However, about 20 years ago I started to search for one and managed to buy one from eBay for £14. I was surprised how cheap it was, even then. It was a mint example rolled up which aparently was old stock from a shop closure. The poster was one of several produced by a Swedish poster company called Scandecor. I've seen one of these for sale online at £175.
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| Scandecor Star Wars Poster 1978 |
Here's a couple more which adorned by bedroom wall until the mid 1980's.
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| A4 size from Star Wars weekly magazine No. 9 |
This next one was a folded 'pull-out' from Gamestar magazine and cost 40p. It was actually the reverse side of a 'game sheet'. It measured 87cm x 61cm / 34" x 24". Gamestar magazine included a number of different puzzle style games and this edition No. 1 was a Star Wars special. At that time, anything Star Wars related was a good seller - and I wanted it as much as I could get!
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| R2D2 & C3PO Gamestar folded pull-out poster |
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| Gamestar Magazine Star Wars sheet game front |
It seemed like Star Wars merchandise was initially slow to arrive in the UK following it's success in the US.
In 1977/78 I had a neighbourhood friend who had relatives living in Boston, USA. Because of that he had a good number of action figures before they were available in the UK. He even had the Death Star. I remember retieving his empty Death Star cardboard box from his outside dustbin just because of the pictures on it. He gave me his 1977 dated Kenner Star Wars toy leaflet with the action figures he had marked with an 'X'. I kept that until about 2010 and sold it on eBay with a few others for an astonishing £70.
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| Kenner Death Star Station 1978 |
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