IT’S been 50 years now... and for her millions of adoring fans it hasn’t been a day too long.

Yes, Barbie has reached her half century. Yet she still doesn’t look a day older than when she sprang onto the scene on March 9 1959 at the New York Toy Fair, brainchild of sharp-eyed mum Ruth Handler who noticed how keenly her daughter Barbara played with a German doll called Bild Lilli.

Before Barbie, dolls all looked like babies. Bild Lilli was the only grown-up doll Mrs Handler had ever seen. But try as she might, she couldn’t interest her husband’s toy firm, Mattel, in producing one.

Now, of course, the doll first marketed as a ‘teenaged fashion model’ is Mattel’s best-selling product with three being sold every single second.

So far, more than a billion have been bought, in more than 150 countries across the world and if every Barbie and friend ever sold were placed head to toe, they’d circle the earth seven times.

Barbie is constructed at roughly 1/6 which is known as playscale. She’s had 80 careers, from rock star to palaeontologist, astronaut, in the military, and as an Olympic swimmer.

There’s been Summit Barbie (produced to commemorate the end of the Cold War) Hispanic Barbie (1980) and Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force Barbie whose costumes were reportedly approved by the Pentagon.

But could our heroine be getting a bit long in the tooth?

Well, she’s had some competition from Bratz, the sassy Jade, Sasha, Yasmin and Cloe.

And, according to Katie Larman, store manager at Toymaster in Poole’s Dolphin Centre, she is also competing with Disney’s Princesses for little girls’ attention.

“The Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, they’re very popular with the girls who would normally have gone straight for Barbie,” says Katie.

“We don’t actually have a Barbie section anymore but we do still sell her.”

She explains that toy retailing now reflects the fact that girls tend to grow up faster than boys so: “We like to have things in that will appeal to them.”

So what is appealing to our children, at the moment?

“Iggle Piggle from In the Night Garden is popular, and so is anything to do with Thomas the Tank engine: plastic, wooden, cuddly, he’s well on his way to being a children’s classic,” says Katie.

Even so, he’ll have to go a long way to compete with Barbie.