Jilly's Blog: Friday Five

Good morning Friday Fivers! Last week we had a great time remembering all the old commercial jingles, so this week I thought it would be fun to remember 5 of the toys we cherished as a child. There were some wonderful toys back in the day, let's hear about the one you loved the most! Post your link here: http://fridayfivegroup.multiply.com/journal/item/39/Friday_Five_Childhood_toys

This is the challenge for this week, it should be easy for me as I did my own blog a while back on childhood toys. I am trying to think of others that I didn't mention before. You know I have just looked back at that blog entry see it here: http://jillys.multiply.com/journal?&=&page_start=40 and I think that covers most things. I also did an entry a day later which has more toys.

So what to do? I don't want to repeat myself. I thought I could do 5 toys from my own children's early years.

1. Cabbage Patch Dolls. These were really quite ugly, character dolls. Each one was supposedly different and they came with "official" adoption papers. They were VERY, VERY popular. So popular that the shops would sell out as soon as stock came in. People would queue up early in the morning before the shop opened so as to be first in the race! There were even stories of women fighting over them in America!

My girls had to wait over a year before they had one each for Christmas. With 5 children I didn't have time to queue up outside shops! I am fairly certain they had them for Christmas 1990, which means Coralie was 8, Verity was 6 and Saskia 4 years old. I think we may still have a Cabbage Patch in a box in the loft. I will have to try and find it for Ellie. We are gradually bringing out toys that we kept from years back. Ellie loves them because they are different to what she has at home.

2. Tracey Island and Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds was originally a "sixties" children's TV programme and I imagine that there were toys produced then to go with it. However the programme was reintroduced to a whole new generation in the "nineties" Sales of toys to go along with it soared. The sort after items were "Tracey Island" and of course Thunderbird one.

It was Josh our youngest, who got into Thunderbirds, Sam was a little too old really. It was another toy that caused early morning queues at the shops before Christmas and we eventually managed to get one by phoning around friends and relatives and getting them to check each time they went to the shops! I think it was my sister that eventually got one for us at Toys R Us in Stevenage.

3. Monsters in my pocket. These were very small, maybe a couple of inches high, plastic Monsters. There were about a 150 different ones to collect and each one had an actual myth about him/her/it! They were not made up but actually taken from texts around the world! Samuel was the one who loved these and he had quite a few! They made good stocking filler presents for a number of years. Take a look at the website: http://www.toyarchive.com/MIMP/MonsterInMyPocket.html

4. Care Bears. These were plush Teddy bears. Each Care Bear came in a different (usually pastel) colour and had a specialised insignia on its belly that represented its duty and personality. This insignia was known as their "tummy symbol. It was Verity who had one of these Bears for Christmas when she was about 5. It was pink but I can't remember it's name or it's tummy symbol I think it may have been a rainbow. Perhaps Verity would remember.

5. Sylvanian families. What can I say about these...... they were the curse of our life for several years. They are tiny plush covered animals. They started out I think with a family of bears, but there were families of virtually every known animal after a few years. Saskia adore them from a very young age. She always loved tiny things and I think that was part of their attraction for her. She ended up with lots of different families and the house and furniture that went with them.

The reason they were the curse of our life was that she had a particular attraction to baby bear. She carried baby bear in her little toddler hand everywhere she went. Baby bear was about an inch high. I lost count how many times baby bear would be lost and how many times we purchased a new baby bear to keep her happy! We must have spent a fortune on baby bear over the years! I think we probably still have these in the loft somewhere too.