Childhood Treasures

I still have a toy box in the shape of a treasure chest in my bedroom after all this time, although these days it houses an extension cable and miscellaneous objects in addition to a small number of toys that I couldn't bear to remove from my immediate presence. I'll go through some of the best ones below.

Here's Woody, who has been with me since shortly after the debut of the original Toy Story in 1995. The main thing about Toy Story is that it makes you feel incredibly guilty for even considering giving away your toys, so Woody is still here, and still telling me about the snake in his boot, clear as ever.

I believe when I was an actual tiny, wriggly baby, this frog was encased in a clear plastic ball and rolled along on the floor. At some point we seem to have freed it from its spherical prison, and subsequently the frog became a bath toy, floating around the tub in its doughnut, liberated and wet.

These pink fish were also bath toys, although that was their intended use. Their sticker eyes are doing pretty well considering they accompanied me through several years of baths. They apparently came with a mummy whale as well, but I have no memory of this. I've always loved their weird "mouths".

I loved this weird glow-in-the-dark spider because of its oddness and its ability to shoot across a room at speed. I definitely enjoyed things with wheels generally, but this toy was amazing because there's so much to it - the fact that it's a vehicle/arachnid hybrid, the flower antenna, the cute cheeks, and the capacity for glowing in the dark! A perfect piece of design.

I think this simple car was from the Early Learning Centre, although I have no idea why I think that. Again, it's a toy with wheels, so I enjoyed it a lot as a young child, but I think the brightness and simplicity of its design was what made it a firm favourite.

My little Scrooge McDuck figure was my ultimate prized possession for a while. I loved Scrooge McDuck so much - really to quite an extreme point (probably because he's both Scottish and rich) - so naturally this toy became the best possible thing I could ever own. Look at him wafting those dollar bills about! I love him.