General Chat

What sort of toys did you have, apart from dolls, prams, bicycles? Ludo, snakes and ladders, meccano. Don't they all sound so out of date now when you see computer games?

I had a whip and top (the top we used to colour with chalks to make a pretty pattern when it rotated), a small piece of marble which was honed to make sure it's sliding power was phenomenal for hopscotch. A very small Rosebud Doll (with dark curly hair) which I was very much attached to apparently, also a doll that wet itself (but actually smelled disgusting - pints of water poured into its mouth and only a small amount came out of the orrifice - the rest must have been lurking in the body cavity - ugh!!) When older, I was given a 2nd hand boy's bike which had been hand painted corporation green!! The bike was stored in the passage way of the house and I remember that all through that December, I was told "dont take any notice of that thing in the passageway, its not yours!!" - so whose was it then?? Come Christman Morning, guess what I had for Christmas? I have to say that in retrospect I had much more fun from the small things I was given, than the younger generation seem to get from the variety of electronic games and devices they are presented with today - God, I sound just like my gran!! lol Jacqui

Jacqueline, Yes, I fully agree with you. We were happy with little. When I hear what my mother had for Xmas I was better off. She had an orange and a piece of coal for the fire in an old sock. Trying making a youngster happy with that today!

lego, fuzzy felt ,typewriter, tennis rackets and lots of books. paint by numbers, tapestry and chess loads of others. for my kids i always bought educational toys bricks sticklebricks paints playdough anything that gave pleasure, but educated at the same time. they always loved bubbles and would chase them for hours. a large matchbox and going in the woods to see how many different things they could collect, and then named what they had got and would make pictures. sandra

My sister and I had a shop, - actually a wooden box,covered with fancy wallpaper and which had one of the larger faces on a hinge so that it dropped down and rested on a table top. The upright part had a shelf with little spice sized jars full of lentils, sweets etc. We had a toy scales, a cash register and 'pretend' money and would play for hours, weighing selling and serving with our friends.

I used to keep a large box of old clothes for my children to dress up in - even my wedding dress. All their friends enjoyed these clothes too. My husband built a jeep for my son and (we were in Africa at that time) it would take about 6 boys. It was pedal-driven.