In the 1940s, in the years during and after the war, toys were not easy to come by. Somehow, my parents managed to find me a second hand, large black tricycle which made all my friends very envious. But, although I was a child who much preferred books to dolls, there was one year when I yearned for a black doll and on Christmas morning I woke up to find just such a doll sitting on the end of my bed, wearing a pink spotted dress and bonnet - the same material as a dress my mum had made for me. That is the one present I remember but I have no idea what happened to her.