John Bright has his huge toy and children’s memorabilia collection on display at the Bright Foundation youth theatre he founded (Picture: Getty/Alice Denny)
When walking into the Bright Foundation, a youth theatre charity, visitors might not expect to be greeted by a huge dolls house, a collection of puppets, and dozens of stuffed animals.
The theatre was set up at Rodgers Farm near Hastings, East Sussex, in 2022 by John Bright, an Academy Award and BAFTA-winning costume designer.
He set up the foundation as part of his long-lasting legacy – but at the same time, he wanted somewhere to display his huge collection of children’s toys and childhood memorabilia, which he’s been collecting since the 1970s.
At first, his collection began as a potential venture for his costume business, Cosprop – but on National Old Stuff Day, John told Metro.co.uk how the century-spanning collection grew into something much more.
‘One of the reasons I started collecting toys is because I thought the firm that I run might expand into actual props rather than just costume,’ he explained.
‘One of the things I’ve noticed in television and in film is that they often get the toys wrong for the period.
John Bright set up a museum to house his huge collection of children’s toys and memorabilia (Picture: Getty)
There are hundreds of toys, both behind glass on display and out for children to touch and play with (Picture: Alice Denny)
Over the years John has collected around 500 puppets from all over the world (Picture: Alice Denny)
‘Then I found that if I was setting them up in a place I had to pay rent on, it wasn’t working financially – because toys don’t appear in lots and lots of shows, whereas clothes always do – it just wasn’t working.
‘But because I’d become interested in the toys, I thought then that I would save them towards a children’s museum, which is now what I’ve done.
‘It started out as a commercial enterprise and now it’s a useful addition for the Bright Foundation to have.’
John has always been a market-goer, and visiting the same ones week after week allowed him to ‘exploit’ his knowledge of which traders had the best items.
The oldest item in his collection, he believes, is an 18th century half-carved wooden doll which is frozen in time, never to be completed.
Possibly two of the most eye-catching items in his collection are the dolls house, which he had made to house the unusually large doll furniture he’d collected, and the Punch and Judy puppet show.
‘We’ve managed to collect from various sources, each European country has their own version of Punch and Judy,’ he explained.
‘The story may vary slightly but it’s still basically Punch and Judy, which we believe originated in Italy and came to England in the 1660s. So it’s quite old!
‘I remember it being on various beaches around the country, when I was a child.
‘I found quite a lot of dolls house furniture which wasn’t the same scale as the modern dolls house.
‘A modern dolls house is 12th scale, in other words it’s an inch to the foot, so everything within it is based on that measurement.
‘These things were bigger and there’s always been an argument as to whether they’re apprentice pieces, or if it’s more to do with someone wanting something bigger, something they could properly handle.
‘In the 1980s I got them to build a large dolls house, so this sort of furniture would fit into it. That’s one of the main big things on view in the museum.
‘It’s larger than most dolls houses and like the 18th century one it’s called a baby house because it is larger than the normal.’
Punch and Judy is one of the most nostalgic childhood memories for many Brits (Picture: Alice Denny)
This adorable 19th century toy elephant on wheels was a big hit with children – until it had to be repaired (Picture: Alice Denny)
John’s collection is split into two halves: the items which are delicate or not necessarily safe for children to use, which are preserved behind glass or out of reach; and the stronger, more robust toys which young visitors to the Bright Foundation can play with.
He explained: ‘I realised some of the things I’ve got were not good for children to actually handle, they could look at but shouldn’t be allowed to touch them because it would shorten their life.
‘I did then start to buy with the thought of children seeing and being able to touch things that were big mainline toys, but it still means that sometimes things get a bit hurt.’
But as a museum, how does John balance the need to preserve in some cases centuries-old items, with the fact that, at their core, these toys were made to be touched and played with?
‘I think it’s probably by trial and error in our case,’ John said.
‘Some of the sewing machines and things like that are amazingly robust, so that’s very good and you can easily get a child to see how to machine a few stitches with the machines, because they are much stronger than more recent versions of sewing machines.
‘The thing we found most is that children like things of a scale that they can actually function with. We built a little room which represents a room in the 1920s and I managed to get all the furniture and furnishings, china, saucepans etc into the right scale.
‘When you see a three- to four-year-old in it, they look exactly right with their little dustpan and sweeper. Near the launch one mother had to wait at least 20 minutes for her child to complete the “clearing up” of the day, it was very sweet.’
Most of the toys are dated to the 19th century (Picture: Alice Denny)
The entire display captures the imagination of children who get a better idea of how their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents played (Picture: Alice Denny)
At any one time about a fifth of John’s collection is on display at the museum – the rest is either in storage, or has been sent away to be repaired or restored.
It’s important to rotate the items on show, he says, to make sure repeat visitors, like children from local schools, get something new to look at every time.
But it’s also important for the children of today to see, touch, and understand how the children of previous generations played, John said – because what child born in the last 15 years or so would understand a childhood without smartphones, the internet, and videogames?
He explained: ‘These things were created in the last 200 years, and they just show a different lifestyle to children.
‘It’ll become even more important in the future for children to be able to see what their ancestors played with and how their lives were shaped by the way they played.
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‘It is part of what we do now, we share visions of the past with children growing up so they can understand better how their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents lived.
‘It’s important for them to know because they’re part of a progression. Whether we’re progressing in the right way, who knows, but certainly it’s part of that progression of life.’
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