Toy cupboard

No I didn't have a toy cupboard. In fact I can't really remember where I kept my toys. I think it must have somewhere like the bottom of the wardrobe. Or maybe under my bed. I didn't really have many big toys - had 2 or 3 dolls, which I used to make clothes for, skipping rope, balls, a recorder. Oh a scooter that was kept in the garage, and later a bike. I remember a little farmyard, with tiny grey bricks that I fixed together to look like drystone walls, and lots of tiny farm animals. I loved that set! There must have been lots of other bits and pieces, which came and went over the years, but escape my memory now.

Greyduster I was given a set of paints like that when I was about 5 or 6 - my mother said they were far too old for me and promptly put them away until I was older! I loved them when I finally did get them but they had dried out and broke up

My dolls house was hand made too - from the casing of an old radio divided into four! There were bits of carpet in each 'room and some bitsof furniture. No front. I loved it!

I had a loobyloo doll and a golliwog and a three wheeler bike with a boot at the back that I kept them in. These were my favourite toys has a young child, my uncle also made me a dolls house with all the furniture hand made that was really special.

My toys were kept in a built in cupboard beside the fireplace. Games and paints / crayons were kept in a sideboard cupboard. Cuddly toys and dolls were arranged on a bookcase in my bedroom [I did have a lot of books - and still do!]. For outside play I had a triang red car and tricycle but best of all a large rocking horse which took up residence in the kitchen. It was the first thing our puppy weed on when she arrived!!! I had a dolls house too in my bedroom which had electric lights but wasn't as posh as my friends dolls bungalow!

I always had a new set of paints at Christmas - I seemed to go through them like goodness knows what. One year - for my eleventh birthday - my father bought me a special set of Reeves paints in a metal box with little square pots you could refill. I was so proud of it and didn’t use it for ages because it was so lovely just to open the lid and look at it! A couple of years ago, at an antiques fair, I found a box exactly the same, still in its cardboard sleeve, with the majority of the paints unused, so of course I had to buy it. I did intend to use it, but still just open the lid and look at it. Takes me back!

I think we were happy because everyone had less. We also looked after our toys because we knew they wouldn't be replaced. My step children are very careless with things because their mam simply replaces anything that gets broken .....even expensive things like phones and tablets. We're much stricter. If you don't look after something and it gets broken then tough. You'll be more careful with the rest of your stuff.

Don't our childhoods sound idyllic? I'm sure they weren't all sunny days full of fun (curlilox your dad's story is very sad) but in my memory that's how they seemed. As an only child I possibly had more than some but my parents were in business all their working lives so my mum always said I brought myself up and I wasn't a spoilt child. Christmas wasn't all about how many presents we got which were often handmade - my husband remembers his dad making him a garage one year and a wooden Popeye lamp another. My greatest memories are of my wonderful aunt arriving to stay and sharing a bedroom with her, of getting into bed with my parents on Christmas morning and my dad going down to light the fire then shouting upstairs 'he's been' I never had a stocking or presents on the bed - they were always downstairs by the fire. I remember playing with bits of material my mum got from somewhere - lovely flowing chiffon and making tents with the clothes horse. Happy days

I was born mid 1950's so not a lot of toys, a couple of dolls, gw (didn't we all), my teddy bear (still with me he's 62 like me), paint set & lots of books on shelves in my bedroom. Games were in a linen box in the hallway, these were only played with downstairs as were jigsaws.

We weren't deprived, lived in the country so I played outside a lot of the time. Got my "grown up" bike at 11 which gave me some freedom.

I don't remember a toy cupboard. Games and jigsaws were kept either in or on top of the wardrobe. We had shelves for book. On the landing was a table with a book shelf containing Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedias. Later on this was changed to a bookcase with Encyclopaedia Britannica. All were well thumbed. I know we had paints and colouring pencils etc, but where they were kept I have no idea.
In my house my GDs have a wicker hamper of dressing up stuff and games, jigsaws etc in their wardrobe.

We didnt have a toy box but they were stored under stairs and on your bed ...well my dolls were anyway .I shared a bedroom with two older brothers so you can imagine the storage problems.Luckily we didn’t have too many toys as the outdoors was our playroom .Woods, parks....scrumping for Sunday’s apple pies.I had a blackboard and chalks but the chalks never hot re-breed so I’d pinch a bit from school. Teachers knew about it but turned a blind eye! I had 4/5 dolls , Usually a bit broken , a spinning top, and a cricket set between us and a bag of marbles .... we were NEVER in the house to play with this stuff anyway.The brothers had footballs, toy guns , archery sets, and a box of toy cars.We always had a dog and cat...and I kept a hamster that ate my mum’s curtain overnight .Great days, healthy days. Now my grandkids ha e a room full of toys and electronic stuff but no freedom to run and play away from adults. I really do pity them.. they have no idea what they’ve missed!

I was a pre war/wartime child so had very few toys. The only cupboard was a kitchen cast-off for my books which mostly came from jumble sales. I had a china doll (second hand) which was too good to play with ; I longed for a doll's pram but never had one. A girl up the road had 3 prams and I used to sneak off to her house to play with her and her prams but always got a slap round the legs if Mum found out--apparently their family was not desirable because they were Christian Scientists and vegans!! My only other toys were a little plastic square with tiles that you moved around into one space to line up numbers, a tiny Bakelite spinning top and a dolls house that my Father built for me. It was furnished with beautiful pieces passed on to me by a friend of Mum who had been Nanny before her marriage to a Countess's children . The Countess passed on clothes and toys to Mum's friend's daughters and hence to me. Consequently I was dressed in silk, velour and velvet when I longed for gingham like all the other kids around. When I came home after my first term at University, I found that my Mum had sold my doll's house and all my books to the local second hand dealer for 7/6d---and I didn't even get the money!

I had a tall boy cupboard, which I shared with my brother. It had two drawers on top that my parents kept things in. I sometimes see them in antique centres and it brings back memories, they didn’t hold very much!
I also had a dolls house that my cabinet maker Grandfather made for me. I was very proud of it because it had electric lights and opening windows.

I had a toy cupboard. Mine was in my room as part of loft. My room was added to bungalow to turn into a chalet. So it was a small cupboard. My brother had one under the stairs .

Had a toy box but it was in the 50s I remember I had a doll called Christine, I had a gw, in those days they were very popular and a Teddy. Few books and paper and crayons, colouring book. Also a book which had two dolls made of paper and clothes think it was called dress your dolls.

I grew up in the 1950s and a lot (not all) of my toys were hand made. However I never felt deprived at all. I think today's children have far too much and don't play with half the things they have.

I had an old cupboard that came from my Grandpa's house. My Dad painted it pink and stuck sticky backed plastic covered with pink and white roses on the top and in the inset sections on the doors. It also had pink plastic handles. He also made me a doll's cot and wooden boxes with drawers split into sections for my Lego. He was a great (and very clever) Dad. I felt very sad when I found out years later what an awful childhood he had at the hands of his Dad and wicked stepmother. He had practically no toys and he told me he never had any sort of Christmas present, not even an orange in a stocking. His stepmother used to beat him with a walking stick, which was why he always had a bad back. He vowed he would never treat his children badly. He kept his word.

I had a small toy cupboard downstairs ( shared with shoe cleaning stuff I think!) also soft toys and dolls on my bed (about6) and a bookshelf in my room. As I had older brothers tgere were other book cases and more grownup toys and games around too but nothing like the amount my grandchildren have! (Rooms full!) my own children had more than me but fewer and less expensive than the GC - where will it all end?
I loved books, crayoning, dressing those paper dolls, playing with proper dolls too - I had a dolls pram and a golliwog , (now political incorrect and horrifies my DC) He was the only male so frequently married the dolls

I think there was a cupboard in my bedroom where toys were stored but I can't really remember. I did have quite a lot of toys though. A big walking doll called Marilyn and subsequently got one of the first rooted hair plastic dolls, my two teds which I still have, a Silver Cross dolls pram which I swapped for a pushchair when I was a bit older - my mother was furious - I understood why when I grew up! My dad made me a dolls house bungalow with real working lights too. He would take me out on a Thurs afternoon to the toyshop where I could chose something for it - a red metal telephone and tiny dolls pram were favourites. I too had string puppets - one was a Pelham but they made the other one from a kit I think - dad made me a puppet theatre which had purple velvet curtains. He also made me a small wardrobe and chest of drawers for my dolls clothes - we still had the chest of drawers when we got married and used to keep all the money for rent, electric etc in envelopes in it . I spent the first 8 years of my life living in a terrace 2 up 2 down which was also a fish shop so the actual shop floor was my playground after closing. I had a wigwam in there at some point but I did play outside and remember playing with the corner (pokey) chip bags and filling them with stones in the gutter

I had a toy box, I think. Not very big because I didn't have many toys. I was a wartime child, almost pre-war, so toys were mostly home-made. Luckily my mother was good at this. She made a koala and a wonderful monkey which stretched and stretched (it wasn’t meant to) until it was the longest monkey in the world. I also had a cloth elephant that had belonged to her when she was little. I did have a couple of dolls, but I preferred animals.

One thing I remember with interest is that when I was nine, not far off ten, I was very ill with mastoiditis, and my grandfather (who was not given to spending) bought me a toy farm with cows and sheep and hens, a farmer and his wife and a milkmaid. I absolutely adored this, and was still playing with it when I was 12. I can’t imagine this happening nowadays. Also, my doctor gave me a lovely book, Peter Pan. I can’t imagine family doctors giving patients presents now. It probably isn’t allowed.

We had a whole playroom, as the only house my parents had been able to afford was really too big for a family of four.

Out playroom was rigorously divide up into my end and my sister's. There was an age gap of 3½ years which is a lifetime when you are small. She was careless of her toys, I loved my huge family of dolls and teddies and supplemented the dolls' pram, cot and beds I had with boxes - any and all kind from a wooden sugar box to shoeboxes so all my dolls had beds, even if some of them slept three to a bed!
We had tons of toys, as great-aunts and others of that generation disparagingly remarked. Heaven knows how my parents afforded it, as they were not well off, but bless them for it!
And yes, I had an old wooden trunk, and my sister an old tin trunk to keep balls, cars, skipping ropes etc in.

I had a big toy box that I could hide inside.
I did have a lot of toys but some were made by my grandfather & dad- both excellent woodworkers & my dad was an electrical engineer so my doll's house had real working lights. I had string puppets with lovely clothes my Mum made. My farmhouse had a proper thatched roof & dutch doors on the stables with real hay in the stalls. They were too big to go in box but had pride of place on a table in my room. I was aware even then that I was very lucky.
How I would have loved these wonderful things for my own children & GC but Mum decided one day when I was at school that these & my large collection of foreign dolls (my aunt & uncle travelled the world with the Airforce & brought me a doll from every country they visited) should be given to a local children's home as in her opinion I was getting too old for them. I was heartbroken. They would have been brilliant family heirlooms. Probably why I have great difficulty throwing things away this day,

I had a cupboard with a door on the left and 2 or 3 drawers on the right. I think I used to empty the cupboard side out and climb in and pretend I was in Cinderella's coach.

I am very careful not to buy too many toys for the DGC, especially as we usually have to post them or pack them in a case when we visit. Books are the better investment.

When clearing out, I try to chuck out all the soft toys and cheap plastic items that accumulated when my own DS were small, so I never get anything like that for the DGC.

No need for a toy cupboard didn't have many toys played outside most of the time

I had a toy-cupboard. It was two big shelves in the kitchen where I kept board games, packs of cards and construction toys. My dolls and books lived in my bedroom though, as did stationary.
When my own children were small we had a lovely old Scottish linen cupboard of board games and craft items. I still have the cupboard but over the years the least loved games have gone and other things have moved into the vacated space.