What was your Favourite toy

[Hughie]

Can you recall what was your favourite toy when you were growing up? Mine was a simple wee US army jeep given to me by my aunt Cathy Wishart (nee Hand) who at that time I believe lived next to the blacksmiths in Paisley Street, Ardrossan.

Like others I was envious of those who had meccano sets.

[canfactory]

I was lucky Hughie I inherited my brothers Meccano set and loved it

The earliest favourite toy I can remember was a clown hanging from what I remember as a rubber band. To make him do somersaults I'd have to squeeze the two sticks on either side of him which, if I recall correctly, were stuck into an oval heavier base.

Jings, the memories. I haven't thought of that toy for well over 50 years.

Campbell

[BigIan]

The best one? Hmm, probably the chemistry set.........the less said about the special bath crystals I made for Mother's Day the better!

I got given an empty box once and was told it was the "Action Man Deserter's Kit"

[Meg]

Canfactory - you also had the best skates ever - they had bigger wheels than everyone else and went faster! Don't usually envy much, but I envied you those skates
Meg

[Milda]

Billy ,my teddy,I was given him when I was a year old and still have him.Actually he is going on the long sleep with me because I don't want to leave him behind to get thrown out. I am sad ,I know.

[down south]

Now my big sister Anne was the only girl you probably ever heard of who enjoyed playing with Meccano. She had inherited my dad's old set, and I spent my early childhood marvelling at the working models she built . And she grew up to be a computer expert who enjoyed tinkering with cars ; butI this is nevertheless the same sister, I should point out, who ALSO came top in domestic science and liked making her own clothes....

But I didn't seem to have inherited those family " engineering " genes, and in spite of her example the thought of playing with Meccano myself never appealed to me. I did quite like building houses with Lego, but that was mainly so I could make up stories about the people who lived in them.

And when it comes down to it , my favourite toy of all, at a slightly earlier stage, has to have been my dolls' house. Quite a simple single-story one , with a lift-out partition between the rooms and a folding board for the roof, and a small set each of kitchen, bedroom and sitting-room furniture; plus a very miscellaneous collection of little dolls who lived in it...in fact anything of the right size that came my way ended up living in there, including odd ornaments and a Noddy-shaped eggcup .

It sat in the corner of the living room, next to the piano , and when the dolls got bored with life at home they used to set out on all sorts of exciting adventures round the room, mounaineering over the sofa with an ornamental donkey as pack animal, or travelling in a plastic toy stagecoach.... anything was grist to the mill of my imagination in those days.

In fact one of my other favourite " toys " when small cost nothing at all; just a collection of grocery packets and containers that my mother had saved for me, and with which I happily played at Shops for hours .

Susan

[sweet caroline]

Roller Skates ,went everwhere with them on.Well nearly every where

sweet caroline

[canfactory]

Meg

I'd forgotten about those skates too which came all the way from my great-aunt in Canada. Do you remember how we used to strap a book (usually the Beano or Dandy) to a skate, sit on it then almost get ourselves killed travelling way too fast down any hill we could find? The best and steepest I can remember led down from Alloway Place to garages.

C.

[VivAyrshire]

Favourite toy : a garage which had its own lift... Very well made at the time. I used to put weebles in the lift, and pretend they were going to collect their cars.

Also, roller skates (although I was very poor at skating - no co-ordination compared with other local girls). I remember going over a local wall with the skates.

Also, an orange rubber thing (can't remember the name of these) - they were orange and round with faces, and you bounced around on them.

[BobP]

Billy ,my teddy,I was given him when I was a year old and still have him.Actually he is going on the long sleep with me because I don't want to leave him behind to get thrown out. I am sad ,I know.

Yes you must, whilst you may never know, somehow I feel that anticipation of that sleep will be better

[BobP]

When I have time to reflect on this, I`ll post.

I`m sorely tempted to start on a 3000 word essay on the symbolism and objectivisation of childhood attachments
And then I thought, nah, save it for the words I leave my son.

Just wanted to flag up what for me was and is one of the greatest films of all time, perhaps you will remember it and perhaps even re-visit it

It is Orson Welles Citizen Kane. You all know the synopsis but for me, as a young man and now as an old man, the symbolism of his attachment to Rosebud, the sledge he had as a child moves me in ways I could never start to explain

[little plum]

Also, an orange rubber thing (can't remember the name of these) - they were orange and round with faces, and you bounced around on them.

VivAyrshire, I think the name you are looking for is " space hoppers"