Northampton woman rescues and restores iconic 1980s memorabilia from busy town centre McDonald's - do you remember this?

A Northampton woman has rescued and restored an iconic bit of memorabilia from he 1980s which was enjoyed by thousands of children at a popular McDonald’s restaurant in the town.

The Chronicle and Echo recently published retro pictures of the town centre in 1993, kindly supplied to us by Duston resident Scott Austin.

One of the pictures was of McDonald’s in the Drapery, which prompted 42-year-old Jemma Dorling to get in touch to say her family has rescued and restored a children’s train table from the restaurant.

Jemma said: “I acquired it from a lady in Boothville who used to work there and has had it in her garden for 30 years. When McDonald’s was doing an upgrade [in 1993] the train was going to go in the skip, so this lady saved it.

"I got it last summer because she advertised it on a free site on Facebook and we rescued it. We’ve given it some love and restoration and now it’s in my mum’s garden being enjoyed by foster children and our grandchildren.”

Jemma revealed the reason why she wanted the sought after item.

She said: “I’m from Northampton, I was born here, some of my first memories of going to McDonald’s was being on that party train so we just thought it would be a really nice thing to have.

"It would have been mid-1980s and it would have been one of them things we done on a Saturday with mum, that would have been our treat, to go on the train at McDonald’s.

"I'm sure many people remember good times on this train.

"Lots and lots of people wanted it but luckily enough I was the first one to get in there.”

The mother said the restoration job was ‘definitely a rescue mission’.

She said: “When we first got it, it had been getting rusty so we restored it. It was definitely a rescue mission.

“We spent about £10 restoring it. The only thing that is not original is the old table tops, which were wooden and rotten and have been replaced with plastic. Apart from that, it was a jet wash and a bit of elbow grease.

"It was more time than money that went into it. Between me, my mum and my uncle it probably took about three weeks to get it to where it is now. It was a nice little family project.

"It should last at least another 30 to 40 years.”

Click here to see how McDonald’s in the Drapery used to look like back in 1993.