Brocklin Toys of Nova Scotia
During a recent garage-cleaning, I was delighted to find a toy that I played with as a little kid. It is a hammer-and-peg “bench”, sometimes called a “pounding bench”, and I have seen it called a “cobbler’s bench” too. With your little wooden hammer, you pound the pegs down through; turn it over and pound them through the other way. I loved this toy – and here it was, some 65 years later. . . Or was it?
I had a good look at it: Lots of pounding dents in the wood of the bench where I “missed” a peg – and on the end of the bench was something I hadn’t noticed before: A logo gently burned into the wood: A simple outline of a horse and the words “Brocklin Canada”. Time to Google!
I found Brocklin Toys Ltd online, owned by Brock and Linda Savage – hence “BrockLin” – based in Nova Scotia. Ah! So the toy was either purchased for me on my family’s annual summer visit to Nova Scotia, or sent to me by my Nova Scotia relatives. But wait! It says here that Brocklin Toys were “Toy makers from the early 1970s” until the 1990s or later.
There must be some mistake. This is one of my earliest memories – like maybe 1960 or earlier. And yet Brocklin only began c.1970? Could I find out more?
Brocklin was a successful Canadian toy company specializing in wooden toys. A website called NovaMuse had a brief item based on an interview with Brock Savage in 1987 with the remark that in 2006 the company was still extant. Brocklin exported their wood toys across Canada and the United States and into Western Europe. In 1974, with 3 employees, they needed more room. They moved from Lawrencetown in the Annapolis Valley to nearby New Albany, NS and built a large steel building, and a few years later renovated an old barn, too. Unfortunately, 6 or 7 years later, fire destroyed the barn, but they were not deterred. They built another new two-storey building. By 1987 they were also cornering a portion of the Japanese market and they had between nine and fourteen employees depending on the time of year. For a time, they used their kiln as an offshoot of their toy industry to supply buyers with kiln dried wood.
None of this explained my 1960ish memory. NovaMuse did mention that the company “began as a cottage industry”, so maybe my toy had been made long before they became an “official” company? I decided to look for Brock or Linda Savage.
I found a Brock Savage of Savage Oil selling home heating oil in Middleton NS, close to New Albany. I decided to take a chance. “I’m looking for Brock or Linda Savage who used to make toys.” “Well,” he replied, “you’ve found one of them.” Then the fun began.
I described the bench toy, how beautifully made, the way the “bench” piece fits neatly into the end pieces. “Is the Brocklin burn mark on the end?” he asked. “Yes.” “Then it’s one of ours.”
I told him my tale, explained my Nova Scotia roots, and said I really remember playing with this toy and enjoying it so much. Then I told him my age.
There was a pregnant pause. Then he tactfully suggested – in the nicest possible way – that I either loved to play with my hammer and pegs in college, or my memory was distinctly flawed. We had a good laugh. “We didn’t start making that toy until at least 1970,” he said.
Brock asked me a series of questions:
“Are the ends screwed or stapled?” “Stapled.”
“Is the handle of the hammer clear varnish, or yellow?” “Yellow.”
“Are the pegs coloured or clear varnish?” “Coloured. Red and navy blue. Four of them.”
“Well, your eyesight is still working, anyway,” he quipped. I could feel the elbow nudge and the wink through the ‘phone. I can picture this good-natured fellow being a toy-maker! He said they definitely did not produce this toy until the early 1970s. He also explained that the “hammer and pegs” toy was an educational toy, designed to develop eye-hand co-ordination. I had noticed online that the Montessori schools use this type of toy and he agreed. A lot of their toys were purchased by schools. Brock knew his stuff.
We bantered back and forth and had a great time, but bottom line – the mystery remains. I must have had a toy similar to this when I was growing up, but it wasn’t this one. My son (born in the early 1990s) remembers playing with it, but he remembers “it looked really old” when he used it. So perhaps it was purchased for my eldest nephew. He was born in the early 1970s. I sent him a photo last night, and he remembers playing with it at his grandmother’s (my mother’s). When she passed away, he was ten and well past the “hammer and pegs” stage. It seems I must have “nabbed it” then, probably thinking even at that time that the toy had originally been mine when I was little.
In any case, this pounding bench provided a wonderful opportunity to learn about a Canadian company and have some fun with a Nova Scotian toymaker some 1500 kms away.
Today Savage Oil has a large truck fleet and serves the south end of Nova Scotia. Brock Savage’s company is very active in the community. The company’s handsome website mentions a large number of events and good causes that they support in Lawrencetown, Middleton, Berwick, Digby, and Bridgetown.
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