We took the plunge yesterday and bought a pair of these walkie-talkies, and they arrived today. They're sitting on charge now, but it's ok as it's raining today and the kids are inside anyway.

We tried these walkie-talkies out and they worked really well. The kids like them - they think they're cool, like spy stuff. My wife loved the fact that even if the kids were out of sight she could speak to them and the kids loved the freedom of being able to wander a little further.
They're made by Cobra who are a US firm and they're sold fairly extensively. I think Costco do them and I've seen similar types in John Lewis and even Tesco.
The best price I've found for them so far is from a site called walkie-talkie-2-way-radio.co.uk which has a good range of Cobra radios in stock.

So where to start

Some friends of ours have these walkie-talkies which they used when they went skiing last winter. They said the best thing about them was they could get hold of each other wherever they were in the mountains. Because they were high up, the reception was brilliant, they said, so I arranged to borrow theirs to try.

The search begins...

The thing about kids is that I don't want my 6 year old to have a mobile phone. I don't think it's appropriate for a child so young but I still want to be able to speak to him when he's playing with the other kids down the lane.
We live in a rural village with no traffic, and one of the reasons we moved here was so the kids would be safer. The other thing is the mobile coverage isn't great, so that means we have to look around for a way of talking to him without a mobile.