Harry Mctavish interview
name ?
Ray
online name ?
Harry McTavish
location ?
Spotswood about 5-10 mins north of a small rural village called Cheviot in the South Island of New Zealand
First vam/gi joe/mam or 1/6 figure ?
I was born and raised in a small town called Timaru. So all I had was a cheap imitation until a met an English lad the eldest of two boys of a couple who had just moved in down the road. Wow look at his Action man, Fuzzy hair and gripping hands. His mother, who he had to interpret for me, her speed and accent was just to much for my poor little brain to fathom, agreed he could sell him to me. I only had the one outfit for him, green pants and jersey and a pair of boots. Action Man never really had the following it had in Britain, mainly because he just wasn't available, so I wasn't able to get him any outfits but I still had a lot of fun with him and loved him to bits. One of my favourite memories is making a parachute out of a plastic bag and throwing him off a bridge in Timaru with my English friend. He would use his Planet of the Apes figure. Always makes me smile when I think of it.
Favourite figure now ?
I have an EE talking commander thats a bit special because I got it from Dal and don't know if I could get one here in NZ and my first PH which Dan helped me with.Lastly my Hybrid which is the same as the one I had as a lad. I'm sure I'll have more favourites as my collection grows.
Most desired Item ?
At the moment a full polar explorer with dog sled and maybe a french foreign legionnaire
What will you do with your collection as you get older ?
Who says I have to get older,I've been 11 for thirty something years. Sorry but I just refuse to grow up.LOL
do you set yourself a budget ?
Love too but not possible.I bought two Mams a while ago thinking I might get a remote control vehicle to put them in but when I got them one had fuzzy hair and that bought back certain memories, so that it was it, I had to try and get my childhood Vam. I got lucky and ended up with two. I thought they would be hard to get here in NZ as as I said I didn't think they came out here. Maybe they did in the bigger cities. Anyway at the moment I'm lucky to have found a very nice lady,Mary on a NZ auction site. Mary claims to have been collecting since they came out in 66(the year I was born) and has two of almost everything, so Mary has been my main supplier lately and I have been very happy with my acquisitions so far. Price wise they are quite expensive, anything from 90 to 100 dollars. But then my only other option is ebay and then its in pounds. Its ok if its really cheap, like the Mam I bought for nine pounds, when you convert it it comes to 18 dollars nz but when it comes to something like a polar explorer for a hundred and seventy pounds it comes out to 340 dollars nz. So I take what I can get. I've sold a few of my other toys to help fund my addiction and I'm a self employed window cleaner, cash jobs, so I just put a bit aside so sometimes it may take a couple of weeks to pay but then Mary doesn't seem to mind and besides I don't mind going hungry for a bit if it means another Vam, a bag of rice goes a long way LOL. Have just recently got some money from me old mans estate so I'll use some of that.If Mary would stop putting nice things up for sale that would help.
worst vam/gi joe/mam or 1/6 figure ?
Would have to be the Space ranger seems like nobody really likes him.
views on 40th reproductions ?
I've only seen them on ebay so no expert but maybe they should have come up with something more original than just copying Vam.Something like a present day version of some of the outfits ie what the british infantry wear today.
Best thing about collecting vam/gi joe/mam or 1/6 ?
Getting the outfits I could only dream about as a lad.My childhood friend had a lot of the outfits but they went to his younger brother for his AM,and I'd seen a catalogue so knew what was out there.I saw there was one with a beard and thought that was cool, now I actually have one.
Do you think your collection will be collectible in the future ?
I think so, some people have some very old dolls. I bet if you asked a Victorian that question back in the day they wouldn't have thought so but I'm sure there's a few nice Victorian doll collections out there somewhere.
If you did not collect vam/gi joe/mam or 1/6 what would you collect ?
I guess I'm a bit of a magpie and collect a lot of useless junk. I didn't realize how military obsessed I was till I answered this question.I collect the odd bit of militaria if I see something that takes my fancy. I also have a small collection of military planes and at the moment I'm collecting The Combat Tanks Collection which comes out once a fortnight of which I have seventy.
why do you like ammo ?
Because of its warm and inviting atmosphere. And some real decent blokes who don't mind some clueless kiwi asking stupid questions. Honestly I would be lost without you guys. As I said, I grew up with one Vam with one outfit, so I don't have a clue when it comes to what goes with what. I look at things on ebay to get some idea, like my green beret I saw one on ebay with a scarf and quite a few accessories so assumed that the scarf at least was part of the uniform.And my British Infantry fella looked complete apart from his waterbottle and I saw he had puttees which thanks to ammo I knew was hard to get but thanks to Dan I also found out his sten gun is hard to get. So with out ammo and all its wonderful members I'd be completely in the dark and have a wonderful mismatched Vam collection and no one to share it with. So sorry guys but ya stuck with me.
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Subject: Novembers Interview (first On AMMO) - HarryMctavish 
Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:05 am
. Sounds like you had a great childhood mate, full of happy vam memories 
