Issue 1411

Toy story
‘Tis the season of present buying, but is gender stereotyping in the toys we choose having a harmful effect on our children? Experts, campaigners, a mother and her children share their thoughts with Simon Bland.

Workshop wonders
They might not be elves but some people are busy in their workshops making toys for little girls and boys to unwrap on Christmas morning. Susan Griffin talks to the traditional toy makers keeping the spirit of Christmas past alive.

A message to you
Vendors from the North West send their customers messages of seasonal goodwill and gratitude for buying the magazine in this most difficult of years. Look out next week for messages from our Yorkshire and Humber vendors.

An Old Northern Kesmas
The mills might shut on Christmas Day but they’d reopen on Boxing Day. You were more likely to eat goose than turkey. And reading aloud comic sketches in dialect was the pastime of the afternoon. Paul Salveson looks back at traditional northern Christmases.

The pigeon among the fat cats
Born in Leeds and raised in Wigan, it was in New York that Owney Madden made his name as The Killer. A notorious gangster during Prohibition, he was a showman at heart and also a keen pigeon fancier. David Barnett describes his life and feathered legacy.

Keeping it one hundred
Star of new heist thriller Wrath of Man, builder, pilot, family man, dog lover and all-round nice guy, Chris Reilly tells Mia Bleach why success in one field will never define him.

Plus
News, arts and entertainment, columnists Roger Ratcliffe and Saskia Murphy, and Michael Sheen’s letter to his younger self, in one of our bumper Xmas editions.