Family: Visit the museum in which you can kid around

Up in town from the Borders with her two grandchildren who are about the same age as my daughter Ellen, my aunt suggested meeting up at the Museum of Childhood on Edinburgh's High Street.

"I've been there before," announced my nine-year old. My heart sank. "But it's good, so I'd like to go back again". Heart returned to normal position.

On entering the museum there were two surprises in store. First, there is no entrance fee, and secondly, the shop is actually crammed full of really decent stock as opposed to the tat one is usually faced with.

This Tardis-like building has five large rooms given over to exhibits, so it can take quite a while to get around if you inspect everything.

"Ooooh, look at that," said my aunt as soon as we entered the first gallery. Cases all around the walls are packed with toys and other reminders of childhood of long ago, such as one dedicated to child miners. The size of the little leather shoe on display bears testament to the tender age at which children were once shoved down the pits.

The lack of entrance fees may be one of the reasons that two of the coin-operated machines were not working - the Nickelodeon is in need of repair but there are no funds to do this. My aunt was surprised that someone somewhere in Edinburgh wasn't capable of mending the machine as a philanthropic act.

There has been huge effort put into this museum, from reconstructed schoolrooms and tapes of children chanting their times tables to an amazing collection of dolls (the wax ones are really very creepy), dolls' houses, a farmyard and circus.

However, rather oddly I thought to begin with, there were few children there, just lots of excited adults ooohing and aaahhing as they came across something that jogged their memory. "There's no Cremola foam," I overheard one woman say, standing by a case displaying children's foodstuffs - certainly a lot more appealing to me as a child than the cod liver oil which was there.

So what did I learn from my trip to the museum? Well, the kaleidoscope was patented by a Scotsman in 1817; there used to be specific toys for playing on a Sunday (Noah's Ark, for instance) and my aunt still has a doll she was given for her 5th birthday.

Do go, make a donation and remember to take granny.

Museum of Childhood, 42 High Street, Edinburgh. Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12pm-5pm, tel: [phone], www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/Venues/Museum-of-Childhood.aspx

This article was first published in The Scotsman, 22 January, 2011