What a wonderful thread. I remember a lot of the above but we had a wonderful cupboard in parent's room full of treaseures - crystal radio sets - needing mended but dad always said 'Leave it alone - I'll fix it!'. One of those magical 'things' in there was a wind-up record player that played 78's! It had a horn and no volume control save two doors at the front! Great fun on a wet day in the city! No fun on those days in cardboard boxes or newspapers etc eh? The Beano, Dandy and the Topper used to give away those noisy cardboard - gosh I nearly had the name for them there! Best times were though when mum sang to us.