Fun times at Pocket Money Corner

Read Guy's column every week in the Western Morning News

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A land of Mansels Models, back in the day

NCE upon a time in Paignton, the junction of Winner Street and Palace Avenue was Pocket Money Corner - and it got me the closest I ever came to getting a proper wallop from my dad.

He was never given to such things, and we rarely fell out over anything. I certainly never had a wallop.

But the exploding cigarette trick saw me treading a very thin line indeed.

On one side of Pocket Money Corner was Mansels Models - a whole shop with numerous rooms completely dedicated to model-making, its shelves groaning with everything from the most basic Airfix Spitfire which could be thrown together (badly) in an afternoon, to radio-controlled things that flew overhead or careered around in the dirt.

Mansels had it all.

On the other side of the road was the Joke Shop, and right now it's hard to believe that such a thing existed at all.