“I first met John Dixon when we both started working at Marx Toys in Swansea - a young John as Export Manager and me as Development Manager. Two English strays trying to find a house to move in to, in Welsh Wales! At the time John and Ingrid bought their house, I was living on my own and having to cook meals for myself. John came up with the proposal that if I helped him with his DIY, Ingrid could just as easily cook for all of us and the food would be better than mine... and this would be in return for my labour. So we embarked on the Sketty Improvements phase of our relationship, under the eye of Ingrid. This sometimes meant doing the job over two or three times to ensure satisfaction. I seem to recall the two fireplace arches in the front room being particularly taxing as the cement set real quick. There were some memorable moments - the installation of the central heating being a particular favourite. This involved threading pipes under the floor, John at one end pushing, me at the other end pulling, Ingrid in the middle relaying the “pull now” or “push now” messages... the result was an early pull and push getting muddled up and John ending up with his head and arms under the floor, his legs and arse above, well stuck, in pain and shouting something in what must have been his very first attempts at speaking Welsh! Ingrid and I could do nothing except sit on the floor, crying with laughter, totally unable to pull him out. John got even later, however: after we finished the job, the commissioning had been flawless, no leaks and everything working fine. It was the early hours of the morning, I got changed and said goodbye to Katie the dog, leaving John to put the floor boards back down. On reaching the front door, I turned on the hall light and watched in horror as the glass light bowl slowly filled with water. John had, with the skill of an experienced carpenter, nailed the floor board exactly through the water pipe. We were very tired, dirty and late for work the next morning!
Toy Fair in Nuremberg: The police force escorted us across town in heavy snow with lights and siren to the local US military hospital after Jock Gordon, in an over enthusiastic bout of Yam Sing drinking, smashed the glass and cut half his finger off - we had to get it sewn back on quick.”
Stamford, Connecticut: “The US phase of our relationship began when John, Ingrid and Emma moved over to Stamford and John began work for Marx Toys, US. Lesley and I came over on holiday and John and I ended up re-roofing the house and wrecking Emma’s paddling pool.”
Dixon Manning Ltd. starts business: “After Marx US went bust, we all scratched around doing whatever we could to earn money. I became President of Aurora US and at the same time an illegal immigrant and John became Sales Director of Aurora UK. This is about the time when John came up with the bright idea that if we could install central heating, repair homes together and teach wives to drive, we could take on the world and surely design and sell toys. Who needs money, offices, workshops? We were young enough to overcome these minor problems! I came over to England so we could go over the details and happened to celebrate his birthday in Lewes... where a funny little waiter took a real fancy to John! On the way home I managed to wrap John’s car around the gatepost, then over another bottle of wine we agreed to work together again. So Lesley and I packed up and moved back to the UK, into Hayne Barton together with mad Fred the Fighting Cockerel, William and Mary the geese, Genghis the dog, the three Dixons, plus a lot of small noisy mice, and started Dixon Manning Ltd., our partnership together which was to last over 26 years.”
“We designed on the kitchen table, often messing up dinner, and dissuaded customers who wanted to see our facilities! We came up with ideas, survived, did all the Toy Fairs. Through the years we worked hard together and achieved a degree of success. We had some tough times in the beginning (when there was no money coming in) some good times, when things went well, and some very good times (flying Concorde before it got decommissioned).”
“After many years and too many Toy Fairs, I have seen so many other partnerships disintegrate. We’ve been fortunate to have stayed together for so long. I hadn’t realised John was so old! I am sure some of his longevity is due to eventually giving up smoking, being well looked after with good food by Ingrid (which was sometimes not appreciated!), and drinking good wine has helped...”
“Have a great time, old boy. I’ll be thinking of you and hoping you will be at my 70th. It should be easy, now that we don’t have to everything by Tuesday!”
- Peter Manning
