Nostalgic parents fuel demand for wooden toys
Pastor Dale Morgan
Nostalgic parents fuel demand for wooden toys*
By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Reporter
Last Updated: 3:05am GMT 24/11/2007
Parents looking to recapture some of the magic of playing with a doll's
house or building blocks are behind a surprise renaissance in classic
wooden toys, either store bought or homemade in the run-up to Christmas,
new figures have revealed.
Middle class parents have fallen in love again with toys from their
childhood
Sales have hit record levels at John Lewis, with turnover up 24 per cent
compared with a year ago. A wooden train set, which costs £20, is sold
every six minutes.
Best sellers at Hamleys include a £14.99 tub of building blocks and a
Rivelin rocking horse costing £1,500.
Gwyneth Dear, from the National Association of Toy and Leisure
Libraries, said young children loved the tactility of wooden toys.
"They are sustainable, durable and can be passed down through the
generations," she added.
Even Tesco has started stocking wooden train sets, which a spokesman
said "are proving to be very popular".
Overall, plastic toys are still more popular than wooden ones. Britain
imported 357 tons of plastic, rubber and textile toys from China last
year, compared to 1.3 tons of wooden toys.
Gary Grant, who runs The Entertainer chain of toy shops, said: "They are
never going to become a mass-market best seller. They are just too
niche. Grandparents love to splash out on wooden stuff, but that doesn't
mean the kids want it."
Anthony King, the finance director of John Crane, a manufacturer that
specialises in wooden toys, said: "This market will continue to do well
- there are sufficient numbers of people who earn enough and want to buy
something just like they had as a child."