Some say that the old toys we used to play with as children were the best. I’m inclined to disagree; I much prefer, on the whole, the technology we have nowadays. iPads win over Etch a Sketch for me any day.

I recall a time when, as a child of the seventies, Science Sets were all the rage. Big shiny boxes with a photograph of a child wearing a white coat and spectacles on the front. Holding in their hands a bottle of some brightly coloured liquid and a pipette. Always a pipette. Test tubes, potions and conical flasks found their way into many a bedroom- turned laboratory.

But they were not for me.

I never had a Science Set. Perhaps I never asked for one, I’m not sure. It seems unlikely, given that the only toy I was interested in experimenting on was a Girls World; hairstyling and make up appealed more to me than staring into a microscope.

I did, however, own a kaleidoscope. One of those garishly coloured tubes with a twisty end and a lens to look through.

A toy which, on the face of it, could not compete with the Science Set. A toy which was easily disregarded and unlikely to make it onto most children’s Christmas lists. Undesirable. Though, if your childhood was anything like mine, then you probably got one anyway – it was the kind of toy your Granny would buy you.

Yet it was a toy that held a secret.

A toy that, when you held it up to the light, something beautiful happened – if you looked inside it. Brightly coloured shapes would form into patterns, shifting around as you twisted it. A new landscape with each turn. Different, each and every time. No pattern ever quite the same. Vibrant. Drawing you into its charm. As you closed one eye, whilst the other peered through the lens, all else around you became obscured.  A toy that took you into a new, mysterious and enchanting world.

Mesmerising.

A toy that did not have to be cleaned up or packed away in its box. A toy that, when most other toys had lost their appeal, kept on giving. All you had to do was take it in your hand, put it to your eye and look up. Look up at the light and take a closer look at the beauty that was within.

Along with me, those mini scientists grew up. Most abandoning their childhood experiments in favour of other career paths. But some continued. Their interests awakened at an early age and their skills honed in a state of the art, technological era of scientific discovery. They are the scientists of today. Brilliant minds pursuing new and exciting technologies.

Some of them have made new discoveries. Most recently in the field of pre-natal screening. They have found more advanced ways than ever before of telling a pregnant woman whether the baby she is carrying has Down’s syndrome – though they are not always as accurate as those who sell the tests  sometimes claim.

More advanced ways to view the unborn life using big grown up Down’s syndrome detecting Science sets.

If only they’d use a kaleidoscope; they would discover so much more.

Look up at the light, see the landscape.