Toy story

Today's queues may be digital, but the fight to secure that must-have present and avoid small, disappointed faces is timeless. Tom Howells looks at the toys topping recent (and less recent) Christmas wish lists

- Tom Howells

PLAY,' Albert Einstein once said, 'is the highest form of research.' The frazzle-haired physicist had a point—our childhood psyches are profoundly shaped by the toys with which we grew up. Not simply objects to idle away a day, they offered imaginative windows into faraway worlds, a means to learn the ethics of competition, were conduits for education and, in the form of plush animals, heartfelt companions (some, as with Evelyn Waugh's doomed Sebastian Flyte and his bear Aloysius, became firm friends for life).

Many of our most popular toys also possess fascinating creation stories and reflect the historical and cultural milieus into which they were born. Here, we present 14 of the most influential, intriguing and inexplicable playthings from the past century or so.

Small, but mighty

Toy soldiers (1893)

Miniature military men have existed for millennia—examples in clay date back to ancient Egypt—but were revolutionised by British toy manufacturer W. Britain in 1893, with the invention of the cheap technique of 'hollow casting' figures in lead. This was quickly emulated by other companies, including John Hill & Co and Hanks Bros, and the UK's soldier-making method became the industry standard. The fantastically detailed, tabletop armies of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k may have usurped the traditional soldier, but W. Britain still creates meticulous, multi-era American Civil War, Revolutionary and Anglo-Zulu models (to name but a few) from its new base in Ohio, US. The rules of toy-soldier warfare would be standardised by none other than science-fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, in his 1913 book Little Wars.

Bear it in mind

Steiff Teddy Bear (1897)