I recently asked on a forum I visit what toys people had when they were kids! The thread was very popular and here's the summary!
Do you remember the toys you had when you were a child?
Some people had lots of soft (Sometimes called plush toys) toys more than anything.
They were like teddy bears. They all had their own names and identities. Each
room in the house was a separate town. My favourite was ET, one person told
us!
Another person loved meccano but was never very good at it!
Firm favourites with lots of people were books, Lego, cuddly toys and train
sets. Nintendo got honourable mentions from the younger adults!
For others Dolls houses and sylvanian families were real favourites! Syvannian
families are still available today and with an ever expanding range!
Thomas the Tank Engine has been a firm favourite for many years and I'm sure
many young boys and girls have spent hours watching the videos of the shows
including one of my own favourites - The crashes and splashes video where there
are several accidents with trains falling off bridges!
Tomytronic 3d and Big Trak were two more unusal entries in the favourites list!
But seeing the programmable Big Trak many people wished they'd had one!
One woman told us she had a Sindy who she thought was much better than Barbie,
and she also had a Vulcan sewing machine, a wendy house, a second hand folding
bike and a Tiny Tears that she loved playing with!
Another huge list came all from one person: second hand bike, old-school wooden
skateboard (76 model), Frisbee, blue suede roller skates, various footballs,
toy guns (especially the Starsky and Hutch model), action man with arctic warfare
gear and improvised plastic parachute and later the ZX Spectrum with Atic Atac
and Defenda games being top favourites.
A Spud Gun! These are still available today but perhaps not encouraged as toys
for children as they once were.
A football fan told us Subbuteo was their favourite!." Loved it. Only
had a few teams so Brazil would often play Bristol Rovers. I had a team of broken
players with heads missing and legs snapped off. I called them Manchester United".
Some people had mostly board games. A favourite was "Escape from Colditz",
and another was Movie Maker! These games are still played today in some households!
Risk being a popular game although games might last more than an afternoon,
indeed some people have memories of them lasting days!
For some it's always been computers, whether Vic 20s, Amstrads, Ataris or others.
One person who answered our suvey told us they had a BBC Micro (payed for by
a paper round and birthday money, about £200 back in the early 80s). It
was a good little machine for its day and they spent Saturdays copying in games
programs in Basic from magazines. One was called something like Dinosaur Maze
3D and they fully expected to be entering some VR world like the Lanmower Man
at the end of it. After six hours of copying the code into the machine it showed
an error they couldn't fix so I went and watched the A-Team instead. Happy days!
Another person also had the C64, and told us they got through three joysticks
playing Daley Thompson's Decathlon! For others it was consoles namely the Sega
megadrive and they spent far too many hours playing Sonic the Hedgehog!
For someone else their first computer was a Texas Instruments TI99-4/A!
Perhaps more out of fashion these days are chemistry sets and airguns but 'go-carts'
are still hugely popular and much more advanced these days!
Another person share their list with us too - Lego, air rifle, Atari 2600,
Commodore 64, pen, paper and my imagination!
Other toys that get an honourable mention are Mr Potato Head which is in Toy
Story now of course so still well known with kids! It's made from bits of plastic
made into shapes of ears, eyes etc and you stuck them into potatoes. "I
suppose we ate holey potatoes later".
Fuzzy Felt, Evil Knievel stunt bike, Lego, eagle-eyes Action Man, plastic kits,
Games Workshop miniatures, books, Commando comics, Star Wars toys, Playmobil
and Weebles,Meccano, train set, Matchbox cars.
Wooden Trike £34.99
This is a must for kids who love cars! Ferrari F1 12v Electric Ride-on Toy is suitable for ages three upwards. It's got an electronic gearbox with two forward gears and a reverse gear making it one of the most realistic electric cars available for children! It's suitable for children up to 6 years or 50kg to drive.