And the most boring toy ever is…

Did any of you have a Spirograph? Wasn’t it just the most boring toy ever? I nagged my Mum and dad to buy me one for Christmas in 1966; I just had to have one and I nagged so well that they DID buy one for me - what a waste of a Christmas present.

The Spirograph was made by Denys-Fisher and came in a red box with pins and pens and lots of geared clear Perspex wheels. It looked so exciting. I could hardly wait to Spiro all of the 36 styles that were printed on the inner lid of the huge rectangular box!

I carefully took out one of the rotor gears and pinned a circular stator to one of the sheets from my Spirograph pad. I’d pinned the paper on top of the thick corrugated cardboard backing sheet so that when I placed the red biro in one of the rotor’s holes, engaging the teeth and beginning the Spiro, the whole assemblage would remain static and in position. At first I was rubbish, the rotor kept disengaging from the stator, I couldn’t get the teeth to stay in place and the pins kept wobbling and spoiling my drawing. The cardboard was useless and kept tearing and it was even harder when I tried to use the straight stator. After about two hours of pen-slipping, card ripping, frustration I called it a day and watched the telly instead - what a rubbish Christmas present my Spirograph was!

But I’m not one to give up, so by the end of Boxing day afternoon I’d mastered the Spirograph and learnt to take my time, go gently so as not to wiggle the pins and I’d found a better board to stick them into. By teatime I’d made lots of lovely, colourful, very complicated Spirograph drawings and by the time bedtime came around I’d completed all 36 basic shapes and even mastered the straight stator. I was a Spirograph master with dozens of intricate Spiro drawings proudly displayed on my bedroom wall… So now what? What next?

And that was always the problem with the Spirograph. Once you’d done it, you’d done it. Yes, the patterns that could be Spiroed were almost infinite in their number… But once you’d done the first fifty or so the variation was so slight that it was almost unnoticeable which made it pointless, tedious and boring.

And then the pens ran out of ink.

My Spirograph languished for a while in it’s box until, piece by perspex piece, they vanished down the back of sofas or slipped and were lost under wardrobes and desk drawers, until one day I threw the rest, pins and all, away.

I bought a Mini-Spiro in a pound shop recently, just for old time sake. It was much easier to use, no pins, no card, just a small orange plastic frame that held the rotor as it turned. I made a dozen or so Spiros and you know what? It was just as boring as it was back then.

The Spirograph by Denys Fisher -‘hours of fun for all the family’- about eight hours total and it gets my vote as the most boring toy ever.