FROM queuing up at Christmas for a toy, or popping in on a Saturday to spend pocket money, readers have been sharing memories of their favourite toy shops in York.
What was your favourite toyshop - and toy? Join the conversation, share stories and photos in our Facebook group, Why We Love York - Memories. You will find us at: www.facebook.com/groups/yorknostalgia.
Meanwhile, here are some readers' memories from their childhoods:
Ruby Florence Lea was one of many readers to plump for Precious's in Low Petergate as their favourite toyshop.
But she also fondly remembers Hamley's from its brief spell in Coney Street, and sent a photo along with her memory. "My daughter won a huge Care Bear on her 7th birthday in September 1987. Sadly it wasn't there long in Coney Street."
Joan McBurney: "Gilbertson's Paper Shop on Silver Street in the 1950s/1960s. It had a wonderful window with row after row of Britain's farm animals, horses and wild animals."
David Knapton: "Loved going in Precious's toy shop in Petergate. Also the large side windows of Gilbertson's newsagent on the corner of Silver Street and Church Street. I remember the cowboy and Indian Swoppet figures displayed there that I'd spend my pocket money on."
Trevor Jackson: "Precious 's Low Petergate had hundreds of Hornby Model Trains in the boys' window with prams dolls and girly stuff in the other window a bit like two separate shops. Queued out in the weeks before Christmas.The excellent Monk Bar Model shop now seems to be only models shop left trading."
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Read next:
* 'When we queued at York Toys 'R' Us for Tamagochi, Teletubbies and Furbys'
* Remember when York looked like this? Photos from 1970s
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Neil Lewis: "My first clockwork train set came from Precious's in Low Petergate... I still have it 55 years later!"
Jill Dunlop: "Definitely London's. My mother June used to manage the shop."
Peter Mitchell: "We took our young daughters to London's every Saturday to spend their pocket money. They loved the Brittain farm animals and later My Little Pony."
Dan York: "I loved London's. It was near my Grandma’s house. Loved upstairs where the Star Wars toys were."
Steve Porter: "London's on a Saturday morning armed with 2/6d pocket money sitting on the stairs for ages trying to choose an air fix kit then back home to build it to my usual standard windows covered in glue, wheels won’t turn (too much glue again)! Ah well I’ll get another one next week."
Heather Heeles: "I loved going into York with my mum and dad and always going into Precious in Petergate I used to always come out with a little something. Fond memories."
Stephen Oxlade: "Not much in the way of toys when I grew up in the Second World War as all the factories making munitions. My one and only toy, from London's near our house pre-war, was a wind up, tin submarine I could play with in my bath tub. A very precious possession to a ten-year-old lad, alas gone with the wind!"
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