My father was a very creative and really quite talented artist. A person who could sketch you in a minute and capture your likeness exactly. He ended up starting a company and running an incredibly successful design company with 40 employees.

So my entire childhood was surrounded by creativity and different media and when I would go to his office on Sundays, I could sit at someone's desk and be surrounded by hundreds of Magic Markers. Thick felt tip pens of every single colour. More professional markers than you have ever seen.

Then we would walk into the store room and he would give me huge collections of pads of paper and tracing paper, mechanical pencils and bits and bobs and anything I wanted. Then there were clever machines that would do all sorts of things before computers existed; foil printing, embossing, photo-stating... all things that are easy to do with computers now.

But it is ironic that of all this creative, arty experiences and slick professional looking results the one thing I remember the most is the smell of Das modelling clay.

I remember, many, many years ago, when I was a small boy, making an amazing dinosaur from Das modelling clay. Making the coat hanger armature and nailing it to a board. Then opening the shiny thick Das packet and building it up on the coat hangers.

But that smell. It's putting a smile on my face as I am writing this.

I remember completing that Triceratops with the horns and then painting it and then letting it sit on my bedroom shelf for years and years and years... where is it now... probably accidentally left in a loft after a house move, but hey!

But the smell of the Das Modelling Clay, in my brain, is so iconic, so unique, so wrapped up with happiness, excitement, spending time with my father, creativity, something wonderful and fun. Amazing!

My parents soon after got divorced and then everyone has to grow up and move on. And then you are just left with a few tattered memories that you occasionally try and grab back.

But you know what? I can't remember the colour I painted that dinosaur. And weirdly rather than the look of that dinosaur, which has now faded to almost nothing, the smell of the Das modelling clay, mysteriously I can recall so easily.

So what did I do?

I went and bought some Das modeling clay, not because I necessarily want to to make something, but mostly to sniff it, lol!

But whilst I have it, I think I'll drag my son off the xbox, grab some coat hangers and a board and start teaching him about what real dinosaurs look like. And then, let him open his first packet of Das modelling clay.

Thanks for reading
Dan