IN Fenwick's toy department, I once saw a rocking horse for sale. It was the size of a Shetland pony, with just the same sort of hairy coat and a beautifully made leather saddle and bridle. It's probably a good thing I wasn't a grandmother at the time, or I might have been tempted to buy it - though as I seem to remember, it cost the best part of £1,000. Maybe not.

If you've a long pocket there's no limit to the toys you can buy. There are sports cars that are exact models of the real thing, teddy bears as big as a teenager (or a real-life bear) and dolls that do just about everything. At the more affordable end of the market, there are juvenile Karaoke machines and working, mini vacuum cleaners and any number of spin-off toys from children's films and TV series. There are toys that teach numbers and letters, too, by means of bright plastic and a lot of noise; and toys that - well, just make a lot of noise.

Our grandson may not have as many toys as some children do, but he's still got more than he can ever play with in a day or even a week. The most loved soft toys are taken to bed with him every night. He likes his train set, especially since he went on the Weardale railway and found out what a real steam train is like.

Lately, he's discovered Lego, to the delight of his dad, who for most of his boyhood, wanted nothing more for Christmas and birthdays than a box of the latest Lego.

But a great many of Jonah's toys have hardly been touched since he first unwrapped them. And when we stayed with them last spring, what were his current favourites? A plastic pudding basin ("My hat!") and a huge cardboard container that had been round one of those flat-packed-for-easy-self-assembly pieces of furniture ordered by his parents. For Jonah, this packaging became by turns a house and a car. He spent hours playing in it, dragging along any available adult to join him whenever possible.

He has another set of toys at our house, too, for when he comes to stay. There are soft toys nearly as old as his grandparents, and so much loved that they've hardly any fur left on them. But there are new things too: cars, a tipper truck, drawing things, lots of books. Jonah enjoys rediscovering them every time he comes and they're mostly well used. But all the same, last time he was here the thing he played with most wasn't a toy at all. No, what he really wanted was his 'car'.

To the rest of us, it was just an immoveable stone bench, made of three large blocks of stone piled up alongside the garden table, big enough to seat two adults. To Jonah, it was definitely a car. He'd spend hours getting it ready for departure. He'd order Nana or Mummy to come and be his passengers - in the back, of course: Jonah's always the driver. He'd bustle round gathering pebbles as 'money' for the journey, push a stone into a crack by way of petrol. Then he'd gaze at the bench with a frown. "It's broken down," he'd declare. "I must get some Sellotape."

He'd pick a blade of grass and crouch at the front of the car with great concentration, moving the grass this way and that. All right, he hasn't much idea yet about how a car actually works, but wouldn't it be good if Sellotape was really all you needed when it broke down? You'd save a fortune on garage bills!

What with all this, I'm not sure that he ever got us moving, but it didn't matter. His 'car' kept him happy for hours. And if it wasn't fit to be outside, he'd make do with a couple of chairs indoors instead.

It does make you wonder if there's really any point in spending lots of money on toys. I have a feeling that a great many of them are aimed at catching adult eyes, rather than amusing children. And what about parents who haven't much money and yet feel guilty that they can't give their children expensive toys?

They've nothing to feel bad about at all. There are a lot of ordinary household items that can be turned into playthings, given a bit of imagination. Haven't we all come across children who've been kept amused for ages with just a saucepan and a wooden spoon? Or babies who've enjoyed the Christmas wrapping paper more than the things that were inside them? No wonder the toy manufacturers have to spend so much on advertising. Where would they be if children were just left to find their playthings by themselves?

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