moc-btmoh-37-04 francis spear final edited transcript€¦ · me that when he first started at...
Post on 24-Jul-2020
0 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
Project: British Toy Making Project
Mr Francis Spear and Mrs Hazel Spear J.W. Spear and Sons
Interview conducted by Ieuan Hopkins and Sarah Wood
May 2011
Transcribed by Kerry Cable August 2012
Edited by
Francis Spear and Laura Wood August 2013
Copyright © 2011 Museum of Childhood
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
2
FULL NAME: Francis Spear and Hazel Spear
INTERVIEWER: Ieuan Hopkins and Sarah Wood
DATE: 6th May 2011
PLACE: Home of Francis and Hazel Spear, Ware, Hertfordshire
TYPE OF EQUIP: PMD Marantz 661, Wav, 48Hz, 16 bit
LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: 1 hour 20 minutes 32 seconds
CAREER BACKGROUND
Francis Spear worked for J. W. Spear & Sons, his family business, from 1949 to 1994. He
mainly worked in the manufacturing side of the company however when his father
died he took over as managing director and was responsible for the whole company. In
1953 J. W. Spear & Sons launched the popular game Scrabble in the UK, acquiring the
rights to sell the game in other countries excluding the USA and Canada in 1968. The
company was acquired by Mattel in 1994.
Spear's wife Hazel worked for the company as a secretary.
INTERVIEW SYNOPSIS
Francis Spear discusses his roles in J. W. Spear & Son; the products sold; the
atmosphere in the company; the decline of the company and take over by Mattel; the
Spear's Game Archive, and different versions of Scrabble.
Francis Spear's wife Hazel occasionally contributes her memories during the first two
thirds of the interview.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
3
IEUAN HOPKINS: So if you could start just by introducing yourself? <0:00:03>
FRANCIS SPEAR: My name is Francis Spear and I’m the great grandson of Jacob
Wolf Spear who founded the Spear’s games company. I worked for the
company from 1949 till 1994.
IH: And during that time what were your main responsibilities and roles within the
company? <0:00:31>
FS: Well most of my contribution looking back has been on the manufacturing
side. This is something that always interested me. And of course later on when
my father had retired I was managing director and I was responsible for the
company as a whole. [Pause] So, you just want me to plough on?
IH: You can keep going if you want, yes [laughs]. <0:01:02>
FS: Yes.
IH: I’d be interested to find out maybe when you first started in the company did you
sort of start at the bottom and work upwards, or how did that process? <0:01:14>
FS: Well there wasn’t a proper plan. I just started one day and tried to pick up
what I could by just doing things where they had to be done. It was actually
quite difficult because for the first 12 years I was with the company I had no title
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
4
and no defined duties and responsibilities so more or less if I did anything I was
treading on somebody’s toes. And it was a difficult time. I was just the
chairman’s son, you know. And this went on as I said for 12 years. Yes, the
company was basically run during that time by my father and one co-director
who name was Fritz Khan [spelling?] and he was a salesman but also in charge
of the factory and they handled a huge amount of detail between them. And
then Fritz Khan found this too much, he couldn’t cope with it anymore and he
called in a consultant to sort out a problem on processing orders or something.
The consultant came in and said, ‘Well what you need is a revamp of all the
managers’ duties,’ ‘cause there was nothing on paper, people knew more or less
what they had to do. And the consultants were in there for several weeks and
at that stage I got a job. The job was really a bit of a non-job, they just realised
that I wasn’t doing a lot of good as it was, working on specific problems but not
having overall responsibility for anything. And also during those 12 years my
father said he’d like me to take over the development of new products as we
call it. And he wanted me to do this but he couldn’t really let go. He always had
ideas what could be done and didn’t really have as much time as he wanted to
follow these through. And I was really I think fairly good on implementing
things, I didn’t have so many ideas so it could’ve worked quite well. But in fact
he never let go of the details so it just never happened, I never got the job.
IH: And had you always know that you were going to work for your father? Is that
something you decided fairly early on in life? <0:04:54>
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
5
FS: Well no, I was right at the beginning I was not at all sure that it was really
what I wanted to do but I decided to give it a try. There was a stage, about two
years after we had the consultants in, who I think did quite a bit of good in
bringing the company up to date, and I was going through a period of doubt. I
did have difficulties getting on with the co-director and I was actually planning
to leave. But then one day the co-director suddenly had a road accident and he
died a few days later and of course at that stage I scrapped the alternative and
said no, I’ll stay and help my father ‘cause he was on his own then. And I and a
senior salesman we had called George Hanna we were both promoted to
directors. He was responsible for the sales and marketing and I for the
manufacturing and my father carried on doing most of the work on the new
products. He had a very good relationship with an employee who did the
donkey work for him. And that really worked quite well.
IH: How big was the company at this sort of stage? <0:06:58>
FS: Well it was a lot smaller than it was later on. Do you mean in turnover or
numbers of people?
IH: Employees. <0:07:07>
FS: Employees, yes. I think we had about 200 at the time. The employees came
to a peak in the 1970s when we were still using largely old fashioned methods,
rather labour intensive methods. We had far too many different departments
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
6
in the factory doing different things. We had a wood shop and metal shop. We
made for example our own dominoes from just logs of wood, cut them up,
stained them, coloured them and polished them, then put the dots in and that
was a specialised job. Well later on we bought things like that in from outside
because you can’t be good at everything. So the number of employees, both
because we bought certain components in and also because of more efficient
machinery gradually dropped. And I think at its peak it was about 400,
excluding – we had a branch factory in Bournemouth that made jigsaw puzzles
– excluding them. I’ll talk about them later. There was about 400, and when I
left the company I think we were again down to 150 to 200, I can’t remember
the exact figures. I have got them if you want, but not here.
IH: And in terms of the culture of the business, everything I read it seemed to be very
much sort of family run and the family and the employees were very important as an
atmosphere. Is that sort of fair to say? <0:09:31>
FS: Yes, indeed. If you want to comment on that, Hazel?
HAZEL SPEAR: Well I’m an Enfield girl and I think I knew about six of the
employees just knowing them in my circle of family, friends. They always spoke
extremely well of Spear, what nice people they were and they were very good
charity wise, you know, to the churches, the local organisations, gave them
games. So I knew about them from the time I was 12. And they always spoke
very well of Spear. And people came there even right from the start in the 1930s
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
7
and were still there until they retired, which is something isn’t it nowadays.
And they had a lot of local people, you know, that area around Spear’s was a
very big Council estate and that’s where a lot of people came from. But I knew
them just knowing them that they worked at Spear, you know. And I think
nowadays we always say this, is everybody in Enfield either worked at Spear,
knew somebody at Spear, had a relation at Spear, it’s very unusual if they don’t,
you know. It’s true.
FS: It’s not because they left. If somebody didn’t like it they usually left within
the first three or four weeks. And if they were still there at the end of the first
three or four they usually stayed till they retired. That’s what I used to say
[laughs].
HS: They also took on the first ethnic people who came in the early ‘50s, which
was quite unusual, treated them very well. There were two ---. Well I’m still in
contact with both of them. I thought that was very good. From a lot of other
companies didn’t treat them like Spear’s did. And this man, and I think it’s
something I must say this, that I went to his son’s funeral last year and he told
me that when he first started at Spear, Wilf, Edie, came on the boat, did he,
were on the first boats from Jamaica, he said that Richard Spear walked around
the factory the first day he was there and said to him, ‘I’m a refugee as well,’
type of thing, you know. ‘I came from a different country,’ and he thought that
was absolutely marvellous.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
8
IH: Makes him feel welcome in home. <0:12:09>
HS: And so it had a very good reputation.
FS: And after the company closed we had reunions every year for about nine
years, and we invited any of the employees who wanted to come with their
families. And you see we’ve got a large garden there, had a marquee ---.
HS: We still do have smaller ones.
FS: Yes. Just obviously some of the employees we know a lot better than others.
IH: And day-to-day was there much contact between yourself and your father and sort
of other members of staff on the floors? <0:12:53>
FS: Yes. Used to ask me to help with this or that specific job. And for a while we
shared an office and he used to throw things across the desk and say, ‘Can you
do this?’ But after about a year we stopped this. It was quite a good
experience.
IH: And did you visit the factory floor sort of every day to ---. <0:13:22>
FS: Did he or did I?
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
9
IH: Did he or you visit the factory floor as such every day? <0:13:27>
FS: Yes. Well I was certainly down in the factory a lot and my father used to go
down too. He was interested in the technical side. You did ask what sort of a
background I had? Well I left school at the age of 17 and my father didn’t
believe in a university education, not if I wanted to go into the business. And
that’s been a bit of a struggle because I didn’t have any particular qualifications.
I was with Marks & Spencer's for a year and my father arranged that, as what
they call a guest trainee, and did a condensed version of what their future store
managers go through only they do it in two years and I did it in one year so it
was a shortened course. I found that extremely interesting but it backfired a bit
[laughs]. When I wanted to install some of these ideas in our company my
father said, ‘No we’re only a little company, they’re a huge company, these sort
of things are not suitable for us.’ And that [laughs] created a few arguments
I’m afraid.
IH: Would you say you found it more difficult working within a family company than if
it was just a company for example? <0:15:09>
FS: Well they’re different problems. I suppose some of the managers
particularly the directors we had towards the end of the time, they probably
envied me because I’d automatically got a job that they would’ve had to work
very hard for. But then you do, you know, you’ve got to be very careful where
you tread.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
10
[Material removed at the request of the interviewee]
IH: And in terms of it being a family company, when you were a director did you feel a
sort of extra burden of responsibility because of the link to the family? <0:16:16>
FS: No, I don’t think so. I mean as a public company we were responsible to the
shareholders. That included family people and institutions and friends. When
we launched the shares quite a number of employees bought them when they
could if they had some ready cash, and friends, relations. Did you want to know
my views about being a public company?
IH: Hmm, that’s an interesting process to go through. <0:17:08>
FS: Well at first I welcomed it because I thought it would sort of bring the
company a bit up to date. Later on I regretted it a bit. But to start with it was at
a time when we were making good profits and nobody was disatisfied. We
used to go and see the people who had launched our shares twice a year and
they said, ‘Yes, you’ve done very well,’ and occasionally they’d make some
suggestions about issuing bonus shares or something of that kind. But there
was no trouble. Later on when my father had given up work, well he never
really gave up working, became unfortunately more or less incapable of
working at the end, and I was left to sort of get on with it. And it coincided
with, and people probably won't believe it, but it coincided with quite a big
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
11
change. Shall I comment further on from being a Seller’s market to a buyer’s
market? It suddenly began to get difficult to get orders, and I will elaborate on
that in a moment.
IH: And the company was floated was it in 1966 it became a public limited company?
<0:18:44>
FS: Yes.
IH: Okay. But before that I suppose the first kind of key event was the purchase of the
licence for Scrabble, the British licence for Scrabble? Did that have a large effect on the
company? <0:18:59>
FS: That certainly did yes, although it was gradual. Scrabble had an interesting
history. It was actually invented – that’s maybe not quite the right word, it was
developed from just playing around with tiles on a table – in the 1930s and
nothing much was done with it except a few copies were made. And it was only
many years later, 1948, that a friend of the inventor expressed a wish to launch
the game commercially. And he did so in a most unusual way, not going
through the toy trade but advertising in national papers in America and
sending the games out directly to the user. And he did this for three years and
was getting rather tired of it and losing money thinking of giving it up, when
suddenly it took off. And the story goes that a director of Macy’s department
store saw the game, liked it very much, and asked his shop to send him up a few
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
12
sets to send to his friends. And they’d never heard of it and of course they
didn’t have it because it was not being sold through the trade. So he took it in
hand and before long they were so busy that they couldn’t think of doing
exports and they looked for licensees in other countries. And there was a lot of
people interested in it at that time because it had become known. And we were
of course one of them. But the company that had the US licence, a games
manufacturer called Selchow and Righter, had some 20 years earlier been
distributor for Spear in the USA and recommended us, we were very cautious
with the whole approach. We didn’t make extravagant promises that we would
sell X thousand a year, my father just said, ‘Well we’re do our best.’ But we had
a good reputation, they knew us and recommended us to get the UK licence. So
that’s how we started off. And then gradually as other countries were being
looked at or had one or two unsatisfactory licensees, and those countries
particularly in Germany and France were added to our licence. And the actual
purchase, we just paid a royalty at that stage which my father said [laughs]
wrote to them and said he thinks it’s a bit high [laughs]. Well it didn’t start off
like it was later, it started like all things in a fairly modest way. And the actual
purchase of the rights didn’t happen till 1970 when the man in America wanted
to retire. He sold the American rights to an American games maker, and the
rest of the world to us.
HS: Except for Australia.
FS: Except Australia, yes I think you’re right. But we bought that later.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
13
HS: And can I also say that I always understood that the man from Harrods also
recommended you to Brunot?
FS: It’s possible, yes. And we had a good reputation, full stop. Not only as an
honest company but reasonably reliable.
IH: And did having Scrabble how did that affect the company? Did it enable it to grow,
did it change the way it was run at all? <0:23:52>
FS: Certainly enabled it to grow. It was very useful on the sales side because
virtually every sort of proper toy business needed Scrabble. We used to
encourage them to buy a range of games. And we did make a policy decision at
the time that we would not become just a Scrabble company because again my
father was cautious and said, ‘Well you don’t know how long it’ll go on for,’ and
we always were a company with a broad range of games and crafts. And that’s
what we want to remain. But there’s no doubt that it was a tremendous help
and also on the manufacturing side we bought equipment which just wouldn’t
have been viable if we were only making small quantities of things. But
because we had Scrabble we could afford to buy it and then we used it for other
games as well and reduced our cost all round. There was a lot of work
connected with Scrabble of course, ‘cause there were very keen players, had to
organise competitions for them. There was quite a lot of argument. And
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
14
several books were written about the strategy of the game and even a
dictionary, a special Scrabble dictionary.
[Material removed at request of interviewee] <0:25:40>
IH: And thinking a little bit about, you said the range of products, how did the product
design work or where did the ideas come from for new products? <0:26:00>
FS: Many different sources. My father often used to resuscitate and make, I say
updated or modernised versions, of games that Spear’s had run a long time
earlier. That was one source. We were in touch with several inventors and then
increasingly towards the end inventors’ agencies. We did in fact stop looking at
inventions from the public, but I think maybe partly influenced by the success
of Scrabble and other games we were deluged with ideas from people that
were all, you know, going to be marvellous. And it’s quite a lot of work just
testing one game and so we had to leave that job to the agents. And the agents
would come and see us when they had several clients and something thought
would suit Spear they would come with great big bags and samples. And
occasionally we designed things complete in-house, not games, and people
sometimes think that we have an employee or even directors sort of locked
away in a room somewhere and sits and invents games. Well that never
happened to my knowledge. No, it’s a matter of finding what’s available and
then particularly discriminating. You know, I mean 90 something per cent of it
is really useless, you’ve got to just pick out the few that aren’t and that’s very
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
15
difficult. And game manufacturers are bad at it, that’s the strange thing. I
didn’t mention with Scrabble that in between the game having been sort of
developed as far as they could and they thought they’d now got a good game,
in between that stage and it being put on the market they sent a few samples
to the established manufacturers I think including Selchow and Righter, and
none of them were interested. The same thing happened with Monopoly, with
Trivial Pursuit, with Mastermind. That was turned down by us [laughs].
HS: Well not by you.
FS: Not by me personally, no, I’d never seen it. But a very junior person in the
office took it home and said, ‘Oh I didn’t think much of that.’
IH: And that was it [all laugh]. <0:29:07>
FS: That was the end of it. It was a very rough sample, you know, it didn’t look
anything like the finished job.
HS: You did have some very good ideas, like with the Travel Scrabble and that.
Don’t you remember?
FS: [Material removed at request of interviewee] [Yes, I did a lot of work on the
design]
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
16
FS: Another thing that became increasingly important was licences from other
manufacturers, for instance we licensed a game that was on the market in
Switzerland and the manufacturer wanted a distributor for the UK, so that’s
another source. Well there’s no shortage of things you can do, it’s a matter of
picking the right ones and then doing a good job with them.
IH: And the early 1970s seems to be a time of sort of great big expansion and change
within the company, is that fair to say? <0:30:11>
FS: Well the expansion was steady really well almost from the time the British
company was established in 1932 and obviously with the break during the war
when the factory was on war work, there was a fairly steady growth. There was
very few hiccups, even when computer games came along, and that didn’t
affect us to any great degree. Of course it was a different market. They were
expensive in those days and our games were always considered to be of good
value. I think Hazel you used to buy them for birthday parties, didn’t you,
before you knew anything much about Spear’s?
HS: Oh before I knew, yeah. I mean I joined the company in 1968 and I must say
that in the ‘70s it was absolutely a lovely trade to be in. It was a gentleman’s
trade. The big buyers when they used to come to the Toy Fairs you almost were
like royalty. You know, people from Harrods, Selfridges, that sort of buyer, you
know. And it was a very elegant, very nice, lots of nice people. And actually one
of our ex reps, he’s coming to stay with us in June, and I always said we had the
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
17
best of the toy trade. It was the most perfect time. Also of course you couldn’t
sell enough, you know, that was a good thing obviously, but customers were
treated with really regal sort of welcome, weren’t they? They were, Francis.
FS: Yes.
HS: It was nice.
FS: You mean we couldn’t produce enough or?
HS: Well yeah, you couldn’t produce enough, yes, sorry. Not sell enough.
FS: That’s what I mean when I said a seller’s market.
HS: It was, yeah.
HS: But it wasn’t just that, it was the atmosphere and all the big companies
were very nice to you. I mean do you remember when Waddington’s invited us
round for tea once, do you remember?
FS: Yes.
HS: I mean this was the sort of trade it was, which I don’t think you get now.
It’s more cut throat isn’t it, and it’s not the same. I mean his father was 71 when
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
18
I first knew him and he ran that company so well. Nothing ever went out
without he knew about it, did it? Everything that came in and went out, even a
letter than Francis wrote or anything, was still looked at. And I thought it was
really nice. Very fair, very nice gentleman. Again, a gentleman. And also I
mean Francis didn’t really have much help from other members of the family.
Ralph couldn’t help, Ralph has a few health problems, slightly autistic. He did
work in the company but he couldn’t take any responsibility. And your cousin,
Herbert went into a different thing, didn’t he? So there was only Francis, yes.
Yeah. There were other members of the family your father did try with,
didn’t he, as well. A big responsibility.
FS: I never found an ideal partner really. Now coming back to the changes over
time, I think a very important one was the small customers. When I joined the
company we were serving about 5,000 toy shops throughout the UK and this
was ideal for us because we made a range of games. Didn’t necessarily look like
a range but somebody came to Spear’s and placed an order that is quite a good
nucleus to start a games department up with. They used to come to the Toy
Fair at the end of January and place a big order for the following Christmas and
we would deliver the parts throughout the year as goods were made and that
way we could also plan ahead ‘cause we had a pretty idea how the orders were
shaping up. And we could even out the production through the year which was
very important. And they used to come to the fair at a weekend when the shop
was closed with the family. They liked us for other reasons ‘cause we gave
them all deferred payment facilities so they had part deliveries during the year
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
19
but paid round about Christmas. So this all worked very well. And
unfortunately over the time I was there the majority of those shops just
disappeared, they couldn’t compete. We did try to vet them a bit as well. When
I say we had 5,000 accounts, they were proper toys shops. We didn’t supply
wholesalers and we didn’t supply sort of news agents and people like that who
just showed a few games at Christmas because it’s Christmas time. We wanted
the proper stockists of Spear’s games. And these as I said disappeared
throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. And gradually taking their place were these large
chains, people like Toys R Us and the mail order companies who could place
very large orders but they were very tough people to deal with and they wanted
television advertising and wanted us to spend a lot of money on that and big
discounts. You know, there was keen competition between the different
retailers. This problem still exists of course.
IH: So how did Spear’s adapt with in that? I suppose it’s a changing market really isn’t
it? <0:37:11>
FS: Hmm. Well we needed more sophisticated sales people. I think sometimes
it was usually a – what do they call them?
HS: Marketing management?
FS: No, there’s name for these bigger accounts [key account mangers?].
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
20
HS: I don’t know.
[Material removed at request of interviewee]
HS: But I liked it better in the ‘70s because Saturday was the day when all the
big boys came like from Harrods and Selfridges. Sunday was the little people’s
day, all the little shops. Monday was export, wasn’t it? And, you know, this was
a pattern that you did ever so well with and it was nice.
IH: And there seemed to be a sort of very sociable, other people we’ve been speaking
to they remember Toy Fair as a very big sort of social event of the year. <0:38:12>
SARAH WOOD: Yeah, cocktail parties and ---.
HS: Spears weren’t into that much.
FS: The company grew up in Germany but really looking at the English speaking
market and they had a very high percentage of exports, about 40 per cent. And
then when my father came over and started the factory in Enfield we also did a
lot of export from there. We to start with only made English language game,
but we exported a lot of USA, Canada, Australia. They were the main markets I
think. New Zealand to some extent. And then of course later on again we
produced numerous versions of Scrabble for other languages. I think there
were 23 at the last count. And so we were always very export oriented.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
21
IH: And did you have to change the products much for the different markets or did you
try to have one product that would suit everybody? <0:39:35>
FS: Well the traditional games, such as Ludo, Snakes and Ladders tended to be
different in every major market. And yes, we adapted ourselves to that. Where
a worthwhile quantity could be sold we made it.
SW: You mentioned going round to tea with the Waddington’s people, what was your
relationship with your main competitors? <0:40:10>
FS: Friendly really. [All laugh]
HS: It was nice. We went to weddings, didn’t we, and the Glyndebourne with
Waddingtons, and they came to our wedding and ---.
[Material removed at request of interviewee]
HS:Mainly I don’t think there was much friction between any of the companies.
I think it was very ---. It was a gentleman’s trade. I don’t think it is now so
much.
SW: Did you think there was as difference between the games side of that and the toy
side of it? Do you think there was a distinct difference or across the board? <0:40:52>
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
22
HS: No, I think it was just, yeah, just across the board. People like Brittans were
very friendly with us. And it was nice. It was very pleasant.
FS: I said I’d just mention the Hayter’s, the puzzle company. That was an
interesting diversion. We were on very good terms with the Mr Hayter and he
didn’t have anyone to take his business over, so we bought it. It was not hugely
profit making but it was a very nice company with similar standards to us. I
think it fitted in well. And it became my sort of particular hobby you might say.
HS: You enjoyed that, didn’t you?
FS: Yes I enjoyed going down there.
IH: This was the factory in Bournemouth? <0:41:53>
FS: They were very old fashioned, both in production methods, sales and ---. I
can remember Mr Hanna’s face when he asked Gerald Hayter how much
discount he gives WH Smith, he said, ‘Nothing.’ [All laugh] And he said he
didn’t go to Toy Fairs ‘cause then people couldn’t ask him for discounts. [All
laugh] But they sold everything they could make. It’s a very labour intensive
job, that was the only thing, so the puzzles tend to be expensive. And in the
end this did kill it off when people in the Far East or Eastern Europe, I can’t quite
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
23
remember, sort of cottoned on how you made these things and they did it with
cheap labour, quite well too, so we couldn’t compete with that.
IH: And then you mentioned sort of the electronic and the computer games. I think
they were sort of first introduced by Spear’s in the mid-‘80s? <0:43:08>
FS: We didn’t make computer games. What have you got there?
IH: Audio games, sorry. <0:43:15>
FS: Oh there were just two, yes. We bought in the tape and I wouldn’t say we
were in the audio games market. It’s just like we did have right the end of my
stay there we had a very successful game called Atmosfear, have you see that
referred to? Sphere being spelt f-e-a-r. It’s a game with a video in it and you
have to draw the curtains, make a dark room and there’s fellow called the
Gatekeeper turns up and says, ‘You will listen to what I have to say.’ [All laugh]
That product was very successful but that didn’t mean we were in the video
games market. I think we would sum it up by saying we were happy to have a
go at anything. But people did ask me, ‘Well we know about Scrabble let’s say,
what’s your next best thing and what are you going to do when Scrabble stops
selling? And I said, ‘Well there isn’t a single item, we do a bit of this, bit of that.’
We always as I said just now would supply traditional games when there was
an ongoing market and take account of the differences in different countries.
But no, we were never really in the computer games business and the people
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
24
that were they didn’t do us any harm ‘cause it’s a different market. Computer
games were much more expensive than our sort of run of the mill stuff.
IH: And then sort of stepping forward I suppose in the ‘90s the company was sold
eventually. <0:45:16>
FS: Yes.
[Material removed at request of interviewee] <0:45:30>
IH: And you were working with a French company in the ‘80s as well? <0:46:27>
FS: Yes. We knew very well our distributor and Scrabble is a phenomenon in
France, it’s probably even more than the UK. They play it a bit differently, they
play this duplicate scrabble and they have competitions where everybody’s got
the same board with the same words in front of them. It’s a bit like if you can
imagine it, 100 people doing the same crossword puzzle and one gets it right
and all the others have to write it in, and you’re doing it with scrabble tiles
instead. Anyhow, we knew this company who did the distribution for us but
later one we had a financial tie up with them. Well we bought the company in
the end. It’s a very nice little family company. But in the long run there was no
role for them really, you know, when Mattel took over the sales. They offered
jobs to our people in England and in France, but not many took up the offer.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
25
I mean Scrabble has a revival with things. I mean I play scrabble on my
Nintendo. I mean things like this now, scrabble is very popular.
FS: Mattel, yes. Mattel have done a good job with scrabble. Pretty well
everything else has gone. Well of course it’s a long time now, it’s 16 years. And
most games have a pretty limited life.
HS: But Scrabble’s still here.
FS: Yes. Well Scrabble yes, and traditional games go on and on, Snakes and
Ladders and Ludo and Dominoes, Draughts, they’re still selling. But there were
a few sort of Spear’s specials like Coppit, Tell Me and, you know, this sort of
thing. Occasionally you see it in a toy trade paper and we saw a few when we
went to the fair, people will have some made and sell them for a few years and
then they disappear. Mattel threw out most of the Spear’s range in the first
year they owned the company. But of course Scrabble they have put a lot of
effort into it, but that was what they really wanted.
[Material removed at request of interviewee] <0:49:25>
HS: Do you want to know how we first met Hasbro people?
IH: Yes, I’d be interested because obviously they ---. <0:51:34>
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
26
I’d never actually met them before. Francis and I went to a wedding in Belgium
and at our table there was this very nice guy. I had no idea who he was, he just
introduced as Alan Hassenfeld you see. And I didn’t actually sort of register.
And after that he kept in touch with us and he was always a very good friend
and very nice person.
FS: And I mean Hasbro’s a huge company, but he always had time for us, didn’t
he?
HS: Yeah.
FS: He used to come to the fair and would come straight in to see us.
HS: Came and told me he was getting married, didn’t he? I was the first person
there who knew. No, he was very nice I must say.
FS: But he did say at that time that, ‘If you ever feel you want to sell the
company, you know, remember that we’re very interested.’ And then we kept
in touch. They built up a fairly substantial block of Spear’s shares, so to get
control of the company they only needed another 30 per cent I think or
something. Fairly modest. But there was always this very bitter rivalry between
them and Mattel. And, you know, as soon the chairman of Mattel heard about
it, must make an offer there, then there was a long period when the whole
thing was in limbo. It was about six weeks, wasn’t it?
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
27
HS: It wasn’t nice.
FS: No.
HS: I did appreciate how the Royals felt because, you know, people were
camping on your doorstep and always saying the wrong thing what you’d said
and it was a very hard time. It wasn’t nice. I didn’t like that.
FS: There was a court case as well. What did Waddington’s do?
HS: Waddington’s – Hasbro bought them.
FS: They sold, they didn’t sell Hasbro the company, they sold them the games
divisions there.
[Material removed at request of interviewee]
HS: Well it was Hasbro approached us.
FS: Have you read Victor Watson’s book? ‘Cause they had somebody trying to
take over them.
SW: Did you have a relationship with Mattel before they approached you? <0:54:31>
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
28
[Material removed at request of interviewee]
FS: My regret is that I’ve never had any contact with Mattel really. And we had
a few people from the buying department. They bought all their games in Italy
[microphone is moved, inaudible 0:55:18] and they came to see the archive. And
when we issues the Spear’s book which you’ve seen, I thought it’s only polite I’ll
tell Mattel we’re doing it and see whether they want to put something in the
introduction. I just a got a standard reply saying that this had been passed to so
and so. I never heard any more. You know, they’re just not interested in
history.
HS: It’s a different sort of company.
FS: Which is a pity ‘cause I was hoping that we could remain in touch at least. I
mean I would never have interfered with anything. You didn’t meet the Mattel
chairman, did you?
HS: Ammerman or something.
FS: Oh, Ammerman, yes, that’s right. He was taking us through all the different
people they’d taken over and he said well there’s only one who never realised
he’d been taken over [laughs] thought he was still running the thing. I
wouldn’t have been like him.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
29
HS: Well I wouldn’t have said when I joined Spear that your father ran the
company as a public company.
[Material removed at request of interviewee]
HS: There must be one thing I must say about your father. You know, like when
they’d have a referendum in England, which isn’t very often, or something
important like that, so many people would ask what is Richard Spear doing.
And I thought this was really nice. And Francis. They’d always ask, you know,
and they didn’t quite know what to do so they would ask what you were doing.
Yeah. And I think that’s lovely.
IH: It shows a lot actually. <0:57:21>
HS: It just shows you what sort of company it was, yeah. Do you need me
anymore, ‘cause if not I’ll ring Paul and pick up the children.
FS: Well like it’s quite good to have you.
HS: Are you going to show them the archive quickly.
FS: We’ve really only got the archive, to talk about.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
30
HS: No, but it’s nice to see it, just quickly to stand there and have a look.
FS: Oh yes. Yes, of course.
IH: Yes, but I was going to ask actually about the ideas behind setting up the archive.
<0:57:55>
FS: Yes, well let’s do that. Hazel, you can go and pick up your grandchildren.
You’ve said what you wanted to say, haven’t you?
HS: Yeah. I think so. Just give the impression as an employee what sort of
company it was, and it still is. We have this charitable trust which covers any
employee and we’ve done an awful lot of good with it. Only if I know I can do
something, you know, you can’t always tell. But I have a girl in Enfield who
keeps her ear to the ground and if we find something that’s gone wrong we can
help out, which is nice.
[Material removed at request of interviewee]
FS: Yeah, we’ve had these reunions.
HS: And because I’ve known them for such a long while it’s quite a good thing,
you know. I try and help out where I can.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
31
SW: And what was your actual role when you were at the company? <0:59:22>
HS: As his secretary. Didn’t do anything really. [All laugh] Yeah, as I say even
before I, when I was about 12 I knew about the company ‘cause I met some
people who worked there and a family friend, you know, she also worked there
in the factory didn’t she, Gladys Ray. I knew quite a lot of people and it was a
bit of a different company I always thought. But again companies were
different then as well.
FS: Well Hazel just ring Paul and come back.
HS: There’s actually nothing else really, is there?
FS: I’ve got nothing particular to ask you, no.
HS: No. I mean the archive was yours anyway. You were always intended to
make an archive weren’t you?
FS: Hmm.
HS: Which was good.
FS: Okay, then well ---.
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
32
HS: Okay. Nice to have met you.
IH: Thank you very much. <1:00:21>
HS: I’m sorry, I do have obligations.
IH: No, no, we can’t keep you from your grandchildren. <1:00:27>
HS: I’ll see you later.
IH: So had you been collecting the products as they were being produced when you
were working there? <1:00:39>
FS: Theoretically yes. Well first of all it’s necessary to explain that we had two
businesses, one in Germany and one in England. And I won't go through the
whole history because it’s quite complicated. But at the time the British
company closed down the German company, which was independent ---. Well
can I read that? Yeah, that’s probably best ‘cause it’s difficult to explain. First of
all I was aware that when toy companies had sold so often items of historical
importance are lost. Apart from the plc Spear family members through a
limited partnership owned a factory in Nuremberg, Germany. In 1984 the
factory was closed and the partnership was liquidated by me as the managing
partner. The archive consisting of around 1,300 games plus documents was
sent for safekeeping to the Enfield factory where it remained for 11 years
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
33
virtually untouched. At that time my wife and I were planning to move and our
new home had an outbuilding which with some refurbishment could be made
suitable for displaying these games. The Spear’s Games Archive was opened on
the 17th June 1986, which was my 65th birthday by Dr Helmut Schwarz the
curator of Nuremberg Toy Museum. It was then added to from time to time
over the years, both through gifts and purchases. Ever since the opening the
archive has been available to view free of charge by appointment. In 1997 Dr
Schwarz organised an exhibition about the company at his museum using
items loaned by the archive and by other museum in Germany and private
collectors. At the same time he and his assistant wrote a book about the
Nuremberg games industry in general and the history of Spear in particular
which was published in English and German to coincide with the opening of the
exhibition and this is still available. Also apart from the games all my life I’ve
been keeping documents, particularly catalogues, I’ve never let something like
that be thrown away. And I had a cupboard in my office with a compartment in
which I put anything like that without really knowing what I was going to do
with it. Then I realised that this could be turned into a very nice little sort of
museum. And it has been visited – I haven’t got the statistics what they are, I
have to work it out – but several thousand people have been there and we’ve
kept a visitor’s book from the time it opened. And it was a great eye opener to
me because my father didn’t used to talk much about the past and he must
have known about all these things, but a lot of the games they produced I had
no idea. And it has been an interesting hobby since I retired really. I have a
website with a facility for people to send me emails without divulging my email
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
34
address and I get all sorts of questions. And people put in Spear’s games on the
computer and they find the website and very often people who had something
to do with the business in the past send me an email and say do you remember
me, I’m such and such and it’s been very useful. And I’ve got all the catalogues
listed on my computer, the different games which catalogue and page they
appear on so I can usually answer questions about the age of a particular game,
which seems to be appreciated by collectors.
IH: That’s marvellous resource to have I would imagine. Is it mostly collectors who
contact you or is it sort of broader? <1:06:24>
FS: No, I’ve had a lot of local clubs always looking for some new place to go for
an outing. We don’t charge for showing people the archive, it’s always been
free, but we offer them food afterwards and we do charge for that. I pull
Hazel’s leg and say well they only come for your food really. [All laugh] I think
it’s sort of got a reputation as a cheap restaurant. [All laugh]
SW: Okay we’ll have to bring the Museum team. [All laugh] They haven’t been up
here. <1:07:04>
FS: You’re very welcome. I mean anybody who wants to come and see it. The
best way to see it really in a small group. As I say we get them all in this room
first and I show them slides illustrating the history of the company and a lot of
the products. And that gives a maximum of 20, we can just squeeze 20 people
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
35
into this room. And usually groups are a bit smaller but, you know, the smaller
the better really. Well you can go and have a look, I’ve got these cabinets with
very large drawers that you pull out, and if there’re too many people around it
just gets chaotic. But I have had serious collectors here as well. When it was set
up they were the people I had in mind and it was rather designed to suit that
purpose. But in actual fact they’re fairly few and far between. But they’re the
most interesting people but I don’t see them very often, and the people who
sort of come for an evening out have been much more frequent.
SW: And have you got gaps within the archive that you’re still looking to fill? <1:08:50>
FS: To buy you mean?
SW: Hmm. Are there things that you don’t have represented that you would like?
<1:08:53>
FS: Oh plenty, yes. I haven’t actually tried to compile a list. I started with the
German archive which I explained. But I’ve had a lot of things given me since
then and I did get a lot of games from Enfield when they closed down. I think
they had a day and said we’re emptying this room tomorrow and if you come
down right away you can take whatever you want. I went down there with the
car and I filled the back seat right up to the roof. And a lot of the stuff went
‘cause I didn’t have room for it, went up into the attic and I’m still working on
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
36
cataloguing that and deciding what to show. I’m afraid I shall run out of time in
the end.
IH: It’s a big task, isn’t it? <1:09:53>
FS: I also like being out of doors a lot so I don’t like spending all day in the
archive.
SW: And were you ever involved in the Scrabble Championships? <1:10:04>
FS: Yes. Well as more or less spectators, certainly not as a player, and occasional
discussions about how and where to organise. But they were as I said quite
heated quarrels sometimes. We had a public relations man who actually did
the organisation, he and his wife, of the national championships, but our views
didn’t coincide with those of the serious players. There’s something APSP,
Association of Premier Scrabble Players I think, and they took it very seriously.
They used to learn whole dictionaries by heart, you know, and that sort of thing.
And it was never, well in our view it was never meant to be a serious game. I
don’t mean as a frivolous game but not studying dictionaries for hours on end.
[All laugh]
IH: Are you still in contact with any of the other, sort of like the Waddington’s for
example or any other? <1:11:27>
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
37
FS: Sorry, say again?
IH: Are you still in contact with the Waddington’s or other families? <1:11:32>
FS: Not often no. Both Waddington’s and ourselves got an award from the
American game collectors and this was in 2005, so we met there and each gave
a little talk. And we send each other Christmas cards but that’s about it. They
are the north of England. I don’t know what else I can tell you really.
IH: I think that’s good. <1:12:17>
FS: I’ll just have a quick look through and see if there’s anything we haven’t
covered. [Pause] I think you asked about adaptation of the products?
IH: Hmm. <1:12:36>
FS: I think you’ve been studying our annual reports, haven’t you?
IH: I have had a look through them, yeah. <1:12:43>
FS: That’s the sort of wording, 1980 period of change.
IH: Yes. <1:12:50>
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
38
[Material removed at request of interviewee]
FS: Revamping of advertising, I’m not quite sure what was meant by that. We
tended to use television more at the end. Earlier on, the 1970s, we didn’t
consider television as suitable ‘cause we were selling a range and it’s very
difficult to show a range. You want to show one toy and leave it at that really.
But later on we were looking for few products but larger quantities and then it
became possible to put one game on television. And also the buyers as I said
earlier sometimes insisted on this, you know, we’ll put it in our catalogue
provided you put it on television, sort of create a demand in advance. I think
that’s what he meant. The invention of plastics did change the toy trade quite a
lot. We didn’t go in for these big plastics, or only just shortly before the
company closed. But before that the main raw materials were cardboard,
wood, occasionally. Somebody wrote the other day about he’s got a game with
bone dice in it. That again would be either wood or plastic if it was made now.
I’m not sure about counters, there’s something called Galalith I think. There
were all sorts of materials that weren’t actually plastic but forerunners. And die
casting we used which again die casting is metal but a similar process really to
injecting moulding. You have a die and you melt the metal and feed it into the
die under pressure and you’ve got a, you know, these Dinky Toys made that
way. And the other thing I wanted to mention was we didn’t follow the trend
to order everything from China, this was already happening long before I left
the company, but we concentrates on the things we could do well which was
mostly anything made of cardboard. I worked this out once, 85 per cent of what
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
39
we sold we made the boxes and the 15 per cent went in the traditional type of
box but they were of flimsy carton. Because the contents was coming from
China they put it in a box of sorts which usually didn’t last five minutes. But
that was one of my pet things to say about the company really that the boxes
were of excellent quality and a lot of people have still got the games now in the
original box and they’re amazingly strong. And the story I like to tell people is
when we had the factory ceiling redecorated there were some piles of boxes
there and we didn’t have time to move them all, so the decorators just levelled
it out at the top, put a dust sheet over and scaffold boards and stood on top of
this pile of boxes happily painting the ceiling. So they are very good quality.
SW: And were you involved in Junior Scrabble? Was that a development under you?
<1:18:46>
FS: Oh yes. It came from America like the original game. But I think later on we
produced a different version which was entirely British. Yes, the popular
editions were standard Scrabble, Deluxe with the rotating turntable, Travel
Scrabble with the pegs, tiles with pegs on the bottom and there was a pocket
edition. I think that’s about it. And Junior Scrabble of course.
IH: I think that’s it. Unless there’s anything else you’d like add? It’s been extremely
interesting and very comprehensive as well. <1:19:54>
FS: [Pause] No, I think we’ve covered everything. Any other questions?
Francis Spear & Hazel Spear
40
IH: I think that’s it. <1:20:28>
SW: Yeah, that’s really good. Thank you very much. <1:20:30>
FS: Good.
[END OF RECORDING – 1:20:32]
top related