Visiting my parent’s home over the Christmas period, I was looking out about what is still here that relates to my childhood back in the halcyon days of the 1970s. Certainly, there are many items of furniture and possessions my parents still have that I recall from my childhood, but what about items I remember using or playing with as a mini-professor-to-be?

There were numerous answers to this question, but this one struck me because I distinctively recall playing with it, it has then presumably been used for a long time as a temporary door-stop, before finally being affixed in a semi-permanent position to tiles. I refer to a yellow plastic boat bath toy that has been reused as a door-stopper to prevent the back door opening too far and hitting the tiles and oven. I distinctively remember it from my first baths and it remains a part of the house I grew up in. Now it greets me every time I visit. I say farewell to it when I go too.

Perhaps this will outlast my parents, me and subsequent occupants? A small vestige of mini-me.