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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

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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.


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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


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>


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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


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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


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.


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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?


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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.


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


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


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.


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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


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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


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]


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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


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


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


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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?].


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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.


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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 ---.


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>


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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


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


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.


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.


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.


HS: Do you want to know how we first met Hasbro people?

IH: Yes, I’d be interested because obviously they ---. <0:51:34>


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?


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.


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>


28


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.


29

HS: Well I wouldn’t have said when I joined Spear that your father ran the

company as a public company.


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.


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.


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.


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 ---.


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


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


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


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


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>


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>


38


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


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?


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]

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