ABSTRACT
This chapter considers three groups of toys which are 'timeless' in two senses. They are toys which meet the needs that children have always had: to explore, to invent, to create, to test out their skills, to show off, to stretch their physical limits, to fantasize, to role-play and to act protectively to something less powerful than themselves. Country children are still able to develop big-muscle co-ordination jumping streams or negotiating stepping-stones, riding a recalcitrant horse, climbing trees, leaping through heather, slithering down screes or sandhills, scaling tussocky hillsides or rolling down grass slopes. Swings, rope ladders and ropes all give opportunities for both swinging and climbing, and can as well be attached to a tree, as a climbing frame, if a big enough one is available. See-saws are one of those 'natural' toys that must have been around for as long as there have been planks to borrow and solid objects to pivot them on.
