​Retro: The toys of Christmas past

Every decade had its must-have toys, whether it was Kerplunk, Scalextric, Girl’s World styling head, Teletubbies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Weebles, Twister, Spirograph or Etch a Sketch.

Sadly, the appeal of certain toys wore off quite quickly. Some readers may recall how Slinkys didn’t slink down the stairs like the did on the TV ads.

Likewise, the adverts for Mr Frosty showed ebullient children slurping homemade slush puppies, but in reality did anyone get anything but crushing disappointment from a Mr Frosty?

However, there were plenty of toys that did deliver, like Sindy dolls, Care Bears and Cabbage Patch Kids –the latter dough-faced, woollen-haired, piggy-eyed dolls weren’t ‘bought’, but ‘adopted’. A shortage caused punch-ups between parents at toy shops - always the mark of a good Christmas craze!

The Rubik’s Cube was another 1980s craze. One could spend hours trying to figure out the colourful six-sided gadget, or you could simply peel off the stickers and pretend you’d solved it!