I must admit that today’s prompt has made me think really hard. I fished out my old album to try and jog my memory about the toys I had back in the day. There were definitely dolls in the pictures and I vaguely remember playing dolls house with my sisters from time to time but that’s about it when it came to toys. I do remember treasuring a tartan teddy when I was really little but he disappeared during one of our moves.
The things I treasured most when I was a kid was books. I loved reading. My mum had bought us a set of 12 Disney books that I read over and over and over again. I remember The Jungle book and there a few Donald Duck books. There was a donald duck story where they had they had to ask a donkey to wiggle his ears and coins would fall out. It just so happened that my father could wiggle his eye so he would do it whenever he read the story to us. You can imagine how many times he had to read that book!😂 I was very curious so I read our reference books cover to cover as well. One was called Disney’s Wonderful World of Knowledge and I still have it today even though it looks absolutely battered. I just can’t part with it. Once I was old enough to venture to the library by myself, I made sure I was there at least every 2 weeks to swap my 3 books which was all I was allowed. When I wasn’t reading I was trying my hand at slantwords and crosswords and the like. I didn’t do puzzles though and colouring in was definitely not my thing and still isn’t.
When I wasn’t reading or doing word puzzles, I was outside playing with the kids from the neighbourhood. We played hopscotch and hide and seek and ‘stocking’. We rode our bikes and skated with our roller skates. I remember being horrified that my parents had bought me these adjustable metal skates with straps over the top while everyone else had the boots. In the end though it didn’t stop me from having a blast everyday with them. In summer I was at the public pool swimming my heart out. It was just up the road from our house so I was there every day. I was so sunburnt and I didn’t even realise it. I found a pic of myself from back then not so long ago and almost didn’t recognise myself. I was burnt to a crisp …lol. I also had ballet classes twice a week so I was a pretty busy kid.
I have actually enjoyed writing this piece. It brought back wonderful memories of being a kid. I am so glad that I grew up when I did. We had loads of fun and barely spent time in front of the TV. Toys were cool but for me books were probably way more important and still are. I am still constantly surrounded by them physically and even electronically. I love reading and I love learning.
Thank you for taking this trip down memory lane with me. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Grounded African 