I’m talking about the Skip-It, which basically consisted of a rotating plastic ball on a length of flexible plastic that was attached at the other end to a plastic ring. You placed one foot into the ring, then by skipping up and down you could get the ball rotating around your leg. You then had to skip over the long chain-like part of the toy whenever it came round by your other foot.

Whilst I can’t prove that the ball and chain was the inspiration behind this toy, it seems pretty likely given that it looks exactly like one and was worn in the same way!

The Skip-It first appeared in the Eighties and became one of those instant fad toys that everyone wanted to have, and before long there were many badly constructed but cheaper copies of it in the shops, and children up and down the country were tripping over themselves trying to master the action required to keep the ball in motion.

In the early Nineties the popularity of the Skip-It was on the wane, but the makers then had to great idea of adding a counter to the ball which kept track of how many times it had been swirled round your ankle. A great idea, assuming it was accurate of course, as it then meant you had the aim of trying to beat your highest score, and you could compete with your friends to be the playground Skip-It champion too!

There’s something completely irresistible about these toys. Put them in the hands of even the biggest pacifist and the urge to pull the trigger whilst aiming it at somebody to give them a little squirting becomes near impossible to stop.

The fact that the average water pistol was made out of transparent plastic is also a master stroke, as it means a quick glance is all that is needed to see whether you should be planning a quick retreat to the nearest tap for a reload any time soon.

In my day you couldn’t get much more than a simple pocket money water pistol like the one that illustrates this post, but these days water pistol design has really gone to town with things like the Super Soaker range.

These new weapons of mass soaking boast vastly increased water tank capacity, with detachable bottles which you fill with water and then screw back onto the gun. Many also feature a pump facility which allows the gun to put the water under far greater pressure and thus increase your range and the power of the water jet immensely.

Whilst these new fangled guns may be a lot more cool (and have a higher price tag to match), there’s something reassuring about the fact that the good old fashioned kind still have one advantage over their bigger cousins – it’s far easier to do a stealth soaking as it’s possible to hide the gun far more easily behind your back!

Forgive me, but they were rubbish. The wheels didn’t really run very smoothly so you didn’t so much skate as just push your feet forward and slide along a bit.

This would have been the late Seventies, so forward time a little bit and suddenly there is a craze for a new style of roller skate. These consisted of a pair of proper boots that looked like trainers that went above your ankles, which were attached to a plate with four smoothly rotating ball bearing mounted wheels (they looked very similar to the sort of wheels on a skateboard) and a big rubber stop under the toes which could be used to come to a halt.

These were far better and when my older cousin (the same one who gave me the other skates) got a pair I immediately wanted a pair for myself. I saved up my pocket money and finally got my own pair after a trip to a Sunday morning market (you know the ones, the big ones with all the clothes stalls and those blokes selling the weirdest variety of things at knockdown prices from the side of a lorry).

I loved those boots, which weren’t that dissimilar to those in the image (with the colours reversed if I remember rightly, I’m sure mine were mainly yellow with blue edging), and whilst I never really got that good at it, I enjoyed skating up and down the road and doing the odd slightly wobbly turn on the spot. I was never brave enough to stop myself with the big rubber stops though, instead I preferred to let friction do the work and bring me to a stop naturally.

I certainly remember these from my childhood, although I never had one (instead I had a cool police pedal car instead). I did however recently get one for my daughter for her birthday, and she absolutely loves it.

The Cozy Coupe celebrated it’s 30th anniversary last year (it actually first went on sale in 1979) and to celebrate it has been given a little remodel and now boasts a large pair of comic eyes on the front, a licence plate (OK, a sticker) on the back, an ignition key, and, get this, a drinks holder!

Despite these new additions though it basically still looks exactly the same as it always has, and the picture above is from before the restyle. This classic design comprises a red plastic body, complete with a single opening door and petrol filler cap, and a yellow curved roof on yellow supports plonked on top.

Whilst it has a steering wheel, complete with one of those horns which most youngsters find a little too hard to operate, this isn’t used to control the direction of the front wheels – probably a good thing given the intended age of the driver. The front wheels are on metal prongs which allow them to rotate which ever way they need to.

You might be tempted to call it a pedal car, but unlike my afore mentioned police car it isn’t really since it doesn’t have pedals for propelling it. Instead it is driven by scooting the feet along the floor in a manner not dissimilar to that employed by Fred Flintstone. There’s also a helpful handle in the roof to make it easier for an adult to push the car around, which is what normally happens in the end (I speak from experience here).

The red and yellow version is undoubtedly the classic design, but there is now also the inevitable girl friendly pink version (although we went with the red one for my daughter) and a police car styled version as well. Just be prepared if you’re thinking of getting one for your little munchkin, they are a little awkward to build, as you have to screw into plastic with no prepared holes and the entry point is such that you can only really use one of those little stubby screwdrivers to do the job.

The Swoosh Ball looks a bit like a plastic rugby ball. It is threaded on to a couple of lengths of cord which have grip handles on each end. Two people each take hold of two of the grips, and the Swoosh Ball is positioned at one end of the strings.

The player starting with the ball at their end can then pull the strings apart quickly to make the ball go shooting along the strings to the other player, who must then do the same thing before the ball reaches their end and crashes into their fingers. Ouch…

I guess the idea was to play a tennis like game, sliding the ball back and forth until one player failed to return it, although apart from getting tired arms I don’t think it would have been that hard to miss sending the ball back, as there wasn’t an awful lot of skill involved it would seem.

Anybody out there remember these? I never had one personally though I do remember seeing them advertised on TV and thinking they were pretty cool at the time. Looking back now I can’t imagine why I thought that…

Laser Tag was a laser gun game (of course, it didn’t actually use lasers but infra red, something like the system used by TV remote controls – Infra Red Tag doesn’t sound quite so cool though does it?) where each player carried their own laser gun and wore a vest with a sensor on it. The idea was to fire your gun at your opponent’s sensor in order to take one of their lives, without getting shot yourself. A bit like paintball but less messy and a lot less painful when you get shot by some idiot in the knee cap or nether regions…

The packaging and advertising for Laser Tag was, as you might suspect, a very futuristic affair with people shown running around in a variety of Bladerunneresque costumes consisting of lots of lycra and body armour, shooting each other in some science fiction themed warehouse setting. Contrast that to Peter and Billy running up and down the street with only lamp posts for cover and wearing the sensor over their school uniform. Not quite the same, but then that’s why we’re given imaginations, isn’t it?

Surprisingly enough, you can still get Laser Tag sets today, and it seems they’ve made them even more sophisticated. I think I prefer the sleek looking laser guns of the original sets to the rather overly complicated guns they seem to favour today, but the sensor now look a little more exciting, with some extra body armour moulded on.

Nowadays I’m probably a bit too big to hop around the back garden like mad on a piece of inflated orange rubber, but I can take the fun inside with these rather nifty little Clockwork Space Hoppers, available from Stocking Fillers.  These little guys hop around frantically for ages once you’ve wound them up, and better still they come in backs of two (one in the classic orange colour, the other a dark blue) so you can even have indoor Space Hopper races!

To use a Pogo Ball you had to balance on the plastic foot stand, grip the top ball between your ankles, and then jump up and down in order to travel about. Sounds simple in theory, but in practice getting started was the hard part, whilst keeping going was the very hard part. All that jumping was extremely tiring, so the Pogo Ball was never going to become a major form of transport.

I guess the Pogo Ball could be considered as being part Pogo Stick and part Space Hopper. Personally I found the Space Hopper easy and therefore more fun to play with. My skill level with the Pogo Stick could probably be described as pre-beginner, and I didn’t do much better with the Pogo Ball either, in fact probably worse. On a pogo stick you at least had a handle to hold on to, but with the Pogo Ball you had to hold on with just your ankles. Now, hands are infinitely better at holding on to things than ankles. Its what hands were designed to do. Ankles on the other hand are merely boney lumps with little gripping power, so I usually found myself becoming separated from the Pogo Ball in mid-air, and therefore came crashing down fairly often.

I remember watching the TV advert with all these kids bouncing around on their Pogo Balls and having a whale of a time, whilst I sat there nursing my scuffed knees and twisted ankles and wondering what I was doing wrong. Seems like there are some people who are actually quite skilled on these things though, as the following video clip shows.