With shopping days before Christmas running out, youngsters told reporter MICHAEL PURTON what they think of this year’s top 10 toys and what they’d like from Santa. Parents, you have been warned.
 

THIS year’s predicted top 10 most popular Christmas toys list includes some surprisingly traditional items alongside the latest high-tech gadgets.

As well as a multi-functional action figure based on the Transformers film franchise, there is a scooter, a hobby horse, a teddybear, a telescope and a sewing machine.

In this age of all action video games and remote control cars that go almost as fast as the real thing, would such simple toys still appeal to children?

I met with a group of youngsters who had been playing with the top 10 toys at the John Lewis store in Bluewater and they told me, and their parents, which they like best and why.

For Lauren Dossiter, aged four, of Green Walk in Crayford, a high-tech digital camera, the V-Tech Kidizoom, appealed most.

The pupils of Wyborne Primary School in Footscray Road, New Eltham, said: “I like the camera best because I like to take pictures of flowers and give them to my mummy.”

A high-tech toy was also preferred by 10-year-old Ben Dack, who chose a Hasbro action figure based on a robotic character from the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Ben, who lives in Oakfield Lane in Dartford and goes to nearby Oakfield Primary School, said: “I chose this because it’s got all kinds of different things you can do with it.”

With the first two children I spoke to choosing state-of-the-art toys, it seemed old fashioned devices were going to be shunned by modern youngsters this Christmas.

Then nine-year-old Annabel Aiken told me the toy she liked best is a simple scooter, the Micro, with three wheels and no batteries needed.

Annabel, who lives in Green Way in Hartley, said: “I like the scooter because its fun to play with. If I could get any present for Christmas it would be this.”

And the second favourite toy of the student of Hartley Primary School in Round Ash Way, Longfield, was also a traditional item - a sewing machine.

Foxcroft Road in Greenwich resident James Gordon, aged 10, showed boys can prefer simple toys too when he chose a John Lewis telescope as his favourite.

James, a student at St Stephen’s Primary School in Albyn Road, Lewisham, said: “I have chosen it because at night I’d love to look at the stars.”

So, while for some children a toy has to have flashing lights to light up their face on Christmas morning, for others it does not have to make a dent in the energy bill to please them.

The top 10 toys list was compiled by John Lewis, and can be viewed at johnlewis.com