Darwen's Father Christmas

He already sports a bushy grey-white beard and has a twinkle in his eye.

And he knows almost as much about toys as, well, the real Father Christmas.

Howard has run the toy stall in Darwen Market Hall for nearly 30 years and his parents had it for 15 years before that.

I go back even further to when Jack Cowburn ran it and I spent what must have been hours as a child admiring the lead soldiers and the knights, the tanks and the galloping horses, the aeroplanes and the castles in the magical display windows.

Toy soldiers? “Not these days,” says Howard.

How about girls’ prams and peashooters and catapults and cowboy and nurses’ outfits?

How about guns and marbles and biff-bats and harmonicas?

Father Christmas did his best not to disappoint me too much but he allowed himself a gentle snort.

“Elf ‘n’ safety and trading standards knocked most of that lot on the head,” he smiled.

“And times have changed so much.

“Would any self-respecting nine-year-old lad be seen dead wearing a cowboy outfit in the street and shouting ‘Bang! Bang’?

"Would an eight-year-old girl walk round wearing a nurse’s outfit?

“Not in a million years. And, anyway, who lets their kids play outside these days?

“It’s all computers. Especially those little hand-held things they’re glued to all day long.

"Ping. Ping. Ping. Computers – and CDs and DVDs and electronic games and mobile phones.

"Oh, and designer gear and fancy trainers.

“Yes, their grandparents might buy a harmonica or a spinning top as stocking fillers but the kids wouldn’t know what to do with ‘em.

"I sold my last catapult 20 years ago; my last peashooter 25 years ago.

“In the early days I had 1,500 members in a Christmas Club.

"I sold prams and pedal cars and go-karts by the thousand.

"I couldn’t get enough Cindy dolls and James Bond cars.

"Every Christmas I’d play Santa and deliver piles of toys on Christmas Eve.

"It was non-stop and a couple of times I only just made it.

“I remember one Christmas Eve getting home after a hectic day and quite a few jars and falling into bed around 2 o’clock.

“I suddenly woke up at about half four and remembered the car was still full of toys for a lady up Cemetery Road who had several foster children.

“So I had to get up and race round with them. I made it just as the little ones were waking up.”

In recent years Howard and his partner Val have diversified into stationery as well as toys.

They have just sold the market coffee bar they opened 12 years ago and are looking to retire.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” says Howard, 59. “But things have certainly changed.”