Children's Museum in Bethnal Green

Do you remember the Raleigh Chopper? It's a design classic but, like most classic designs, it looked better than it was.

I remember getting a second hand one for my son James. I touched up the paint, polished the chrome and put on new brakes, but bits kept falling off. The plastic guide for the gear shift went first. It wasn't that safe to ride on either but, all the same, I wish we still had it.

What did you wear on your chopper? I'm betting a short, bomber style jacket made of something that looked like carpet, with a fake, fleece collar? Another design classic, apparently. It made James look like a junior member of "The Professionals"; the scruffy one, only more cute.

All this and much more came to mind when we visited the V&A's annex in Bethnal Green, which is dedicated to childhood and toys.

Its a pretty basic, railway-era construction, built on the cheap in 1871 to house the "Food and Animal Products" exhibit from the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. Then the Royal Family used it as a place to dump unwanted gifts. It closed during WW1 and was reopened in 1922, but the new curator noticed that the place was filled with unrelated objects and bored children, so he set about making it more interesting for them. It is now the V&A Museum of Childhood, but a lot of people call it the Toy Museum.

Dan liked the cafe best and simply ran around the three floors of the building at great speed until we fed him, so we didn't see anything in detail, except the food, which wasn't bad. Nick managed to take some shots of  Chinese and Indian dolls' houses, some clockwork toys and a Noah's Ark, all from long before his (and my) time, in the days of the Raj. But I was on a nostalgia trip. Even youngsters could get nostalgic there. They have all the early game consoles, for example.

I spotted Robbie the Robot, some Scalextric tracks, two Hornby train layouts and some Meccano from my time, but it was the Raleigh bike and the related exhibition from the early 70s that really caught my attention. The photos took me back top my days as a dad and teacher at Tidworth on Salisbury Plain. I went and looked at a few Airfix kits to complete the image.

If you are in the area, it's really worth a visit and a poke around the neighbourhood with a camera would be rewarding. There are some grungy, photogenic railway arches across the road, all used by local businesses and some nice properties and pubs round the back, through the park.

We heard some hideous parrot noises coming from a private garden and discovered a feeding flock of ring-necked parakeets in residence. There must have been twenty or more in the gardens and the local park. I pushed by camera up against the chain-link fence and fired off a few shots which were surprisingly sharp, especially considering the greyness of the day.

We used our day out to meet up with our son Nick. Unfortunately, Robin had to work in the cafe at the Hornsey Library where he is known as the Library Pirate! We had a very pleasant visit there too, on our way back to Brampton.