Toymark Award Success For Rachel

WIGAN, U.K. - Nov. 18, 2014 - PRLog -- Rachel Fairhurst 37, a mum of two from Wigan, set up the shop after seeing a gap in the market.  She now has premises in Chorley as well as her online shop. She stocks good quality toys from mainly British based companies and links her toys to activities and age groups rather than gender.

Rachel says; ‘when I was a child I went to ballet but I also played with lego, I enjoyed playing football with my dad as well as cooking with my grandma.’ I just don’t think there was the same gender stereotyping and certainly not around toys.  Now you go into some major stores and there are literally aisles labelled toys for girls and ones with signs saying toys for boys. I just think all children should be able to enjoy whichever toys they like, we are supposed to have evolved but to limit choices in this way and encourage girls to love pink, seems to me to be going backwards. ‘

Rachel‘s shop had to go through rigorous scrutiny from the Let Toys Be Toys campaign group before being given the award. The group wants the toy and publishing industries to stop limiting children’s interests by promoting some toys and books as only suitable for girls or boys.

‘I make sure that my farm toys for instance have a cowgirl and a cowboy and lots of my toys have characters with different skin tones too,’ explains Rachel.  ‘Those who come into my shop really love the experience of seeing these toys and they consider them good value and much more interesting than many of the toys they see elsewhere.’

Rachel also stocks toys in different languages. Her interest in these developed when she had difficulty sourcing gifts for her nephews who speak Spanish as well as English. Rachel stocks toys which help with counting, telling the time and other useful skills in different languages including Italian, German, Polish, French and Welsh. ‘It can be hard to find toys featuring another language, and I‘ve found that I have customers who want them all over the world as well as many customers living in England.  I‘ve sent toys utilising Italian to the US and Australia for example. ‘

In addition to her desires to give all children maximum choice and the option of exploring different languages, one of Rachel’s other values is to be conscious of the environment and where possible she uses recycled packaging for the goods she posts to customers.

Editors notes;

1)    For more information visit:

http://www.rachelstoyshop.co.uk/

and http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/

2)    For further details, more photographs, or to arrange to interview Rachel, please contact:

Susan Brookes-Morris of Positive Publicity on 07890 051638

or at info@positivepublicity.biz