If you grew up in 1970s Britain, you lived in Tom Karen’s world. If you were a child, you may have played with Karen’s ingenious Marble Run toy, which is still in production today. If you weren’t cruising the streets on a Raleigh Chopper, you envied the kid who was. And you were waiting for the day they invented a levitating landspeeder like Luke Skywalker’s in Star Wars (and possibly still are). If you were slightly older, you might have driven in a sleek new Scimitar GTE, like Princess Anne did. Or, if you were a little harder up, maybe a three-wheeled Reliant Robin. Karen, who has died aged 96, had a hand in all of these and many more products.