'I created the Star Wars toys'

In 1976, American toy designer Jim Swearingen was working at Kenner, a mid-sized company in the American Midwest.

When a script for a new film called Star Wars landed on his desk, Jim was intrigued. Larger toy companies had already passed on the chance to make the figures.

"It was difficult from the point of view that it was a movie, could be in and out of theater in weeks, maybe months," he said. "It was science fiction, and toy buyers at that time had been turned off to science fiction because they still had a lot of Star Trek on the shelf. And it was opening in May, which is completely counter to the toy business. We sold toys from September to December."

Jim tells Rowan Bridge how he persuaded his boss to take a chance on Star Wars, what it was like seeing the film for the first time, and about the doomed attempt to get the toys into shops before Christmas.

Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.

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