IF a museum curator was collecting toys so the people of the future could marvel at what entertained kids in 2023, what would they choose?

It’s hard to say given nobody plays with Mr Potato Head and Etch A Sketches any more, no child even wants a Buzz Lightyear. Everything is either screen based, or poo based.

I’m sorry to be vulgar but if you were Christmas shopping for a child under the age of 10 last month, you’ll probably have seen the array of lavatory-themed amusement: from Plop Trumps cards to endless board games where you have to avoid being shat on, and Poo Head, where somebody wears a brown Velcro cap while kids throw woollen turds at them.

I gave my own children Dickens, of course, and they were happy with their own copy of Barnaby Rudge. No YouTube for them!

I jest, they watch hours of it and so do yours.

While we may laugh at the simple toys that the Victorians made do with, they would probably be disgusted with us, to think we’ve had a century and more to come up with better.

Of course, you’ve always been able to take the reverse trip and zip back in time at Pollock’s Toy Museum, the oldest of its kind in the country, over in Scala Street, Fitzrovia.

For decades, people have spent rainy afternoons peering at forgotten teds, old dolls and their houses and puppets, albeit some of the latter sometimes seemed more suited to a Wes Craven film rather than a playroom.

Then there are the toy theatres, a vast collection which has always been the pride and joy of the trustees overseeing the museum.

So even if you haven’t popped in for a while – and we are always in danger of losing the things that we like if we don’t pop in enough – then it was sad to see an announcement on Wednesday that the doors of the museum have closed.

It has been unable to agree terms with the building’s new owners, and so must depart its kooky little home.

This is important because while Pollock’s says the story doesn’t end here and that while the collection is in storage a search for a new premises is now under way, part of the charm and experience of the old place was the tour up winding staircases and through different creaky rooms.

It is the perfect setting to have a seasoned bear stare back at you and for you to wonder what it has seen in its life.

If these stitched mouths could talk, we’d probably all be a little wiser.

Let’s hope not only that the museum finds somewhere soon, but somewhere with similarly mysterious spirit.

In the meantime, the twisty building in Scala Street will probably end up as just another home to a Pret A Manger.