We just wanted to play games but they didn't want to admit they were simply buying us a toy, but via our youthful vantage point of technical knowledge we helped assuage their guilt.

By his own admission, Burton was an introverted, destructive child – he would try to convince the boy next door that an alien invasion had begun or would tear the heads of his toy soldiers.

Asked why Playmobil makes any tiny toy guns at all, Mrs Schauer admits "otherwise, we probably wouldn't be accepted by boys."