Does anyone remember the kaleidiscopes you could get as a child? A cardboard tube, brightly coloured, with an eye hole at one end and a plastic cover at the other end. You could see little plastic blocks inside the cover which was slightly transparent. As you looked through the eye hole the little coloured blocks would turn and move and because there was a mirrored surface inside you got a symmetrical pattern which was so beautiful.

As you turned the tube the pattern would change, you could hear the little plastic bits move and rattle as the image changed. The pattern was never the same, and because the blocks were different colours it was like looking at a moving stained glass window.

Today it’s all changed, you can create patterns using digital apps but they don’t seem to stir the same feelings of creativity in me. I would play with my kaleidiscope for hours.

Nowadays we have computer games, and video games, but where are the simple toys? I feel nostalgic about spirographs and etch-a-sketch toys too. I was very lucky to get things like that as Christmas presents.  I wonder how children would react to them today?

I know we should use less plastic, but maybe they could be made with recyclable materials….