When you were a kid, what were your favourite toys?

But my favorite toy of all came from one of my dad's overseas jaunts -- an honest to god pachinko machine. Loved that thing.

And I liked Mechano and Erektor Sets. (No dildo jokes just yet, please.) In fact, anything I could build stuff with. I hated dolls and stuffed animals and all that nonsense, and I never liked pre-fab product endorsement toys with No Imagination Required.

Throughout most of my early childhood I also really wanted one of those wooden trainsets they sold in Early Learning Centres. My parents couldn't afford to get me one, so I had a plastic analogue instead, which was still great fun, but just didn't feel as nice as the wooden one in the shop.

Runners up also include: Light Bright or Lite Brite or whatever it was called. I always thought their designs were lame, so I'd turn the paper over and make my own. Or else just use regular black construction paper, which probably wasn't fire safe at all. I mean... drawring with light, how cool is that?

I also loved chemistry sets. But only because I got to blow things up.

The most disappointing toy I had was Domino Rally Action Alley, which looked terrific on the adverts in the run-up to Christmas, but it took hours and hours and hours to get set up and was over in seconds (if it worked properly). A total rip off. And there was always an auntie who saw fit to give me a basket weaving set. Ugh!

In my day it was still made of wood.

Kate: I'm down with you on the Spirograph and Lite Brite. Lincoln Logs also rocked and I wanted to buy them as a present for a friend earler this year, but went to FAO Schwartz and found they're now made of plastic. I would imagine the company changed from wood logs etc. because they might have become potential Lawsuit In A Can. Lego and Playmobil rocked too, as did the board game OPERATION.

However my obsession until I was about 11 was Breyer model horses. I had tons of them and got the tiny Stablemates sets every time I went to hospital for Tests. I was not allowed to ride because of health problems and the expense. There was a big Cult Of Horse in my school and about 10 of us were insanely competitive about which ones we had, etc and they became our substitute Barbies.

The SAS outfit was fantastic. Gas mask, balaclava, body armour = brilliaaant! I had a load of Nazi uniforms as well. I didn't know what I was doing.

And Star Wars figures. Piles of Star Wars figures. That's why I have an aversion to Star Wars now, I think - it completely took over my childhood and turned me into a consumer junkie. I HAD TO HAVE the latest figure. I drove my poor mother mental with my ceaseless search for Greedo and Walrus Head.

I had a few Battlestar Galactica figures as well. The Cylon figures were the coolest things to own.

And marbles...

Once built a massive (2.5m square) papier-mache mountainside as terrain for my toy soldiers. There was a town at the bottom, w/ bridge over a river, and I had an electric train set, track curling up the large mountain, going through a tunnel, then across a bridge which spanned a ravine, to a second hilltop town. Also a road curling up the mountain w/ two collapsible bridges. I painted it up and glued real shrubbery and stuff. It was awesome. Then I destroyed it w/ firecrackers, sending flame and soldier bits all over my room. Cool!

Also had a go-kart w/ plastic wheels which WOULD NOT TURN THE GO-KART at speed. So as I hurtled down our v. steep driveway w/ bend in the middle, I'd turn for the bend, the wheels would skid straight ahead, and the hedge would be the surrogate brake. Cool!

Board games are cool we still spend many an evening playing the old favorites. A great one I found in a school jumble sale when I was about 9 was one called Totopoly which was like monopoly but with horses. On one sode of the board was the training board where you went round and bought sold and trained your horses and then on the other side was the racetrack where you raced and gambled on the outcome. However, I am the unluckiest person in the world with dice so I would always lose at most things but especially RISK.

I was big into RPGs for a while. Big big big.

Lego yeah - nb sorry Kate but I love how we socialist Europeans call it Lego (cuz if you even only have one brick you are still participating in the mighty lego communion) and American pig-dogs call it Legos so they can boast of how many they have.

Duddest toy ever was BIGTRAK. It cost eighty quid or something similarly absurd and the kids who could afford it were insufferable, and for what? A fucking box with wheels which you could 'program' to trundle really slowly about and which would be fucked to pieces if it encountered the minutest obstacle. Most larffable thing was its 'laser gun'. The appeal of Robot Wars is surely down to childhood fantasies of seeing the smug kids' Bigtraks get trashed.

Other toys... I loved Lego, too. Was really into HG Wells so built War of the Worlds Tripods and destroyed my little lego cities. Then there was Star Wars, but not much as the craze was ending as I grew up, then Transformers (I still have lots of these!), then Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Which probably gives away my age... I loved my old Atari 2600, too, when I was little. Used to kick ass at Pacman and Defender...

Has anyone been to Legoland? (UK or original). Lego is just starter IKEA really.

But I exacted my revenge with Sindy and Action Man. I had 3 Sindys (a blonde, a brunette with 1 arm called Anna for some reason and a redhead called My Fair Sindy who scandalised me when I got her for Xmas as she had red hair but was wearing a fuschia pink dress) and there were only 2 Action Men. Ginger Sindy used to dress up in AM's clothes so she could perform acts of derring do e.g. parachute out of the landing window, use the training tower with one of those slidy- down-a-rope things (which I broke).

Lucky Sindy also got my cousin's 1970s Sindy hand-me-downs, the best being an inflatable brown and orange pool with a full range of pool furniture. The poor doll had no bikini though so had to swim in her pink bra and pants.

I miss my Sindy after all that...

I have an Action Man now which my ex found in the woods. My mum then found an old AM water bottle in the back garden and gave it to me. My new AM does not have eagle eyes, boo. Nor does he have welded on blue undercrackers, double boo.

Lego yeah - nb sorry Kate but I love how we socialist Europeans call it Lego (cuz if you even only have one brick you are still participating in the mighty lego communion) and American pig-dogs call it Legos so they can boast of how many they have.

Ha ha.

I had one of those, I also had a little case with a blackboard on one side that you stuck those magnetic letters to (you know the ones its oh-so-trendy to stick on yer fridge now?) Everyone had one of those and WW3 nearly started in my street between my mother and Debbies mother coz Debbies mum accused me of stealing her Y, the cheek!

I also had a tree house that had little people and the tree was hollowed out with a slide inside (a la Jamie and the Magic Torch or The Magic Faraway Tree) did anyone else have one?

Also: Lego, Transformers, Go-Bots, other things that looked like robots or could be made into them

did anyone else use the instruction booklet with Transformers? Everyone I've met just figured it out on their own but I always was really anal about how to "transform" them.

Bah, rules are made to be broken.

I had (among others) a red headed Barbie. She came in some kind of Jane Fonda-esque work out suit, with head band and legwarmers and, shockingly for Barbie, trainers (although she still had the stupidly high arched feet of all Barbie dolls). I resurected her during a kitcsh phase a few years ago, she was chosen from amidst the Califirnia blondes because of her hair colour and dressed in Barbie underwear from the department store I was workig in at the time. Barbie underwear is shockingly slutty for a toy. She is currently sitting under my mirror dressed in purple baby doll night dress with matching french knickers and stockings.

M.U.S.C.L.E. Hard Knockin' Rockin' Ring = rub

Doesn't my childhood sound so Victorian?

I had little black baby doll that my mum had to hunt for everywhere, apparently baby doll manufacturers were not particularly culturally diverse with their ranges in the 70's

Anthony M, I was the same about following the instructions to the letter when my Transformers were new.

Who else had a security blanket and, if so, what was its name?

(now would be a good time for my boss to walk in)

Er, not really, I never had a security blanket, just my cuddly bunny, the one I still have (it has a neck brace now, as I mentioned elsewhere).

Martin and Smee, these were my favourites, Nelson and Rosebud, they were both my mums, Rosebud is 51, Nelson is about 41, he had fur that covered one eye, and was also called Big Ted for a while, like in Playschool. Rosebud had her head smashed in about a year ago by a young child (kids today) I cried, she was repaired at great expense, and not very well.

This is the best thing ever:

http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/toystan.asp?Queryid=pre634

I'm getting terribly nostalgic now, thinking about this ... Ah, Zoose ...