Ray guns...

Ray Guns – Come on boys, what’s not to love?

It was all space adventure when I was a boy - Dan Dare, Lost in Space, Bleep and Booster, Doctor Who, Forbidden Planet and (Yes, I know I’ve said it before) Klaatu barada nikto! Later it was Star Trek. But somehow I never fancied a Phaser; Phasers didn’t look ‘spacey’ enough, in fact they looked more like a cross between a hairdryer and an electric drill than a galactic alien monster destroyer.

No, I wanted a proper Ray Gun, one of those guns that I guess we’d call retro today, all fins and twiddles, flashing lights and fire. How I longed for a Dan Dare Ray Gun, the red and silver one, the Cosmic, the one with the green, white and red beams. They were available direct from The Eagle for around ten week’s pocket money. I started to save, but somehow I never quite managed to stop munching Blackjacks and Fruit Salads for long enough to save up enough to buy one. Besides they weren’t making them any more. My Eagle Annual was from the mid-fifties and the Cosmic was a thing of the past – retro even then.

The closest I came to Dan Dare’s Cosmic Ray Gun was a red ray gun water pistol bought off the Tuesday market. It was okay, but not really a ray gun. Real ray guns made a clattery noise when you pressed in the trigger and shot sparks not water.

I guess that I was just born too late.