The Museum of Childhood

The Museum of Childhood is about a five minute wall from my flat, so I figured I should go at least once. It is definitely more of a children's museum, but they did have an interesting exhibit called modern British childhood, which chronicled childhood of people in Britain from right after WWII up to today. It is possible that I will have learned more about history in these six months than in all my formal schooling experience (voluntarily, anyway).

I now know why Margaret Thatcher was called "Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher". I didn't even know she was called that, much less why. I also learned that that disturbing children's tv show that goes by the name "Teletubbies" is actually a British creation. And here I was thinking that particular brand of terror was America's fault. Aside from the giant Teletubbies statues, there were plenty of other nightmarish toys that would have kept me up at night as a child. Let me just say that I really glad that I didn't grow up in the 1800s (for multiple reasons, but the toys are definitely a main one).

-El