Do kids play with toys any more, or are they just plonked in front of a tablet or smartphone as soon as possible, and left to it? I guess in many ways this is the same question as people were probably asking twenty or more years ago, only with "tablet or smartphone" replaced by "TV or computer".
I occasionally think back and have fond memories of playing with toys as a kid. I was fortunate enough to have parents who would buy me cool things for birthdays and Christmas, but who were disciplined enough to not cave in to my every demand at other times, thereby helping me to understand the concepts of Enjoying What You Have and Delayed Gratification. On top of that, I have a brother ten years my senior, which meant that I had a bunch of cool hand-me-downs that I was able to enjoy. They may not have been the latest and greatest, but I still enjoyed playing with them, regardless.
I had all sorts of different things. I've written about Manta Force before, and that was definitely a favourite. I was also very fond of Scalextric and the Hornby train set we had — though both of those were something of a "luxury" option that only got taken out on particularly special occasions and/or when we could convince my Dad to go up into the loft.
There were smaller bits and pieces I have fond memories of, too. We had a big brown plastic box full of Lego, for example, and I used to enjoy fitting together the big "road" pieces from some sort of city set, and attempting to build buildings and cars to go into these scenes. Among this Lego was a beautifully constructed house that (I assume) my brother had built at some point in the dim and distant past, and I could never quite bring myself to take it to pieces — I never quite managed to make something quite as elaborate as that myself, but I enjoyed the attempt, and the tactile nature of just putting the pieces together.
One set of toys that stick in my mind oddly vividly is a collection of sci-fi themed-toys from a firm called Britains. These were distinctly 1950s "retro" in style, but I always thought they were pretty cool as they were modular — in other words, they came apart, and you could slot them together in different ways to make your own custom spaceships and vehicles.
They didn't really do anything by themselves, but for child me, they were a powerful spark for the imagination. Much like I did with Manta Force, I would imagine myself being among the little toy soldiers and their vehicles, playing out a story in my mind, not even thinking about the possibility of getting lead poisoning from these solid-metal models.
I sort of miss that, and I do often find myself wondering if today's kids have any concept of what playing in that way feels like. I, likewise, find myself wondering quite how many adults of my age take a bit of time now and again to disappear into an imaginary world, helped along by a few potentially toxic props. Because, after all, isn't that all people are really doing with a train set or Scalextric track?
Note to my wife: don't worry, I'm not about to start collecting 1980s toys. I absolutely do not have the room to do that. But I am thinking about maybe getting the old Scalextric out again for an evening or two…
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