I adored lego when I was young. Absolutely loved the stuff and played with it for hours and hours building all manner of stuff.
My nephew, I think he's 3, just got a lego set. Firstly it is designed to build only one thing, for which you are issued instructions; second, there's so many specialist bits, what happened to the days of simply different size bricks and imagination.
And lastly, its labelled +6yrs, so I didn't expect him to be able to do it. But dear God, its taken me over an hour and its not even that big!
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>> I adored lego when I was young. Absolutely loved the stuff and played with it
>> for hours and hours building all manner of stuff.
Wasn't around when i were but a sprog - I had Bayko
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayko
and Meccano.
My lad had lego tho, and we had a good time the pair of us.
>> My nephew, I think he's 3, just got a lego set. Firstly it is designed
>> to build only one thing, for which you are issued instructions; second, there's so many
>> specialist bits, what happened to the days of simply different size bricks and imagination.
Because he has been given a lego kit, not just a bucket of lego, which you can still buy.
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>>Wasn't around when i were but a sprog
Jeez, the modern lego brick has been in the UK since 1963. Just HOW old are you?
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There was a British version as well "Betta Builda" or similar. That's what we had 'cos we were broke most of the time.
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Think I#'m a year or two under Zero and I didn't have Lego, and I don't recall any of my mates having it. I had Minibrix though www.minibrix.com/
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>> There was a British version as well "Betta Builda" or similar.
Me too! The roofs looked good but the little green slates were an a*** to put together.
www.bettabilda.com/bettabilda-gallery.php
I didn't know it was by Airfix though..
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 6 Mar 15 at 17:02
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I had a building set which had mini bricks made from a fired clay-like material - about 10mmx20mmx6mm. You built them using something like wallpaper paste as mortar, and there were window frames and doors. but I cannot remember how roofs were constructed.
Anybody know what these were called?
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The modern ones are from a German company called Teifoc.
I have no idea what older ones might have been.
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Loved Lego as a kid. Hate finding it with my bare feet, second only in pain to the upturned three pin plug ime.
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>> Loved Lego as a kid. Hate finding it with my bare feet, second only in
>> pain to the upturned three pin plug ime.
>>
The Sticklebrick was specially designed to maim at 3.00am when left on the bathroom floor.
www.ucs.ac.uk/Courses/UG/Early-Years-Practice/Early-Years-Practice-Ips/EYP-stickle-bricks.jpg
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I wondered who'd be first to mention the Sticklebrick. I nearly did earlier.
I can remember these at my nursery. I recall once hiding under the cupboard so I had a chance of getting the Stickbricks to play with. I think I got into a bit of trouble. I am now in my forties! So that was a long time ago. I also remember I wouldn't eat the tomato soup there (made from tinned powered soup) so I had jam sandwiches.
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>> (made from tinned powered soup)<<
Having worked till very late last night and back in today in a few minutes, I've just sat here bleary eyed trying to work out what tinned tomato soup was 'powered' rtj!
Please don't do this to me again:)
BTW, I had Meccano.
Pat
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That will have been the self heating tins.
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Missed out the 'd'. Powdered. It was awful stuff. It came in massive tins.
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>> Missed out the 'd'. Powdered. It was awful stuff. It came in massive tins.
Ahhh, catering sized tins of powdered soup. Seem to remember something similar from scouts.
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>> >>Wasn't around when i were but a sprog
>>
>> Jeez, the modern lego brick has been in the UK since 1963. Just HOW old
>> are you?
Hmm let me see, in 63 I was 9, and rushing around the fields at the back of my house on a Lambretta LD150
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When I was 9 I was almost certainly still playing with lego, probably action man and airfix planes as well.
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I turned 8 in 63. My mate with the rich parents up the road had a really good Scalextric set, I had a lookalike.
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Looking at NFM2R's link rolled back the years. Windows and above door and window beams are the abiding memory...ours were all second hand by the way.
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Mine too.
I remember my Father coming home from the factory with a bag of Action Man clothes that he'd bought from a workmate for my Birthday.
Those outfits were damned expensive, so a bag full just made my year.
I fondly remember village jumble sales. In those days it wasn't all over-priced junk and you could get comics, and old annuals, and second hand toys and loads of stuff for a fraction of what it would cost new.
I used to cycle to a Jumble Sale about twice a year, 10 miles-ish from where I lived. I used to come back loaded with "treasures".
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 6 Mar 15 at 17:29
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Funnily enough I was looking up something about Lego the other day. I absolutely hated it as a kid. I couldn't be bothered with making the things on the instruction sheets, and when I tried I could never do it anyway, and I had not enough interest or imagination to do anything else with it.
That kind of mentality still sticks. I simply don't get, for example, the point of something like Minecraft, not that I tried it for more than six minutes on a free download. Nor did I have the slightest interest in Meccano or anything similar.
I did like board games though, but only simple ones where you roll a dice and do what you're told. Couldn't be doing with Diplomacy or the like.
It's a shame cos part of me says this kind of stuff must must be exciting, look how the whole world loves it.
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I was 10 in 1963, but we had a big box of Lego, probably because I have a 4 years younger brother.
Had Bayko too - like that.
Never had a train set though, so I had to buy my daughter one for her first birthday.
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>> I was 10 in 1963, but we had a big box of Lego, probably because
>> I have a 4 years younger brother.
>>
Snap - although mine was a sister not a brother. The Lego was for her, don't think I had any Lego of my own. Meccano for me!
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Because pretty much everything we had was at least second-hand, we pretty much never had any instructions with anything.
But I would spend hours imagining things to build both from lego and from a hand-me-down early 50s meccano set.
Happy days.
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I was doing my accounts yesterday upon receipt of my State Pension statement - even though I don't think I'll "need" the money - my wife thinks I'm a bread-head, maybe we're looking at cause on this very thread...
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>> I was doing my accounts yesterday
counting your lego?
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>> >> I was doing my accounts yesterday
>>
>> counting your lego?
I knew exactly how many of each sized brick we had. My brother didn't care he just built stuff. There in a nutshell is the difference between us!
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I must have been a Lego pioneer. My godmother gave me a set for my fourth birthday which would have been December 1963. The early bricks were of a thinner plastic and slightly different moulding. Diddn't click together as positively as the later iterations. Had a bit of Betta Builder too - it wasn't compatible with Lego.
Carried on playing with it until perhaps early teens including a acquiring a motor at one point, Godmother again I think. She and her husband were, thinking back, astonishingly generous. We were not related in any way, rather she was a friend and neighbour of my parents when they lived in Stalybridge.
There was Bayko at my maternal grandmothers, possibly from younger cousins of my Mother or jumble sale. At one stage Dad got me Meccano which had been the 'thing' in his pre-war youth. I didn't get on with it though.
Messed about with lego into my teens and left bits of it in various places. Remnants recovered when parents moved on from the by then oversized family home. Still the odd bit of mine in a box in loft mixed up with stuff my own kids had.
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>>not just a bucket of lego, which you can still buy.
Many moons ago I obtained some sort of bucket/ plastic paint can full of Lego, mostly bricks.
I then had the job of sorting them into Lego and fakes.
I was surprised to find about five different " makes" of copies. All were of softer materials and did not snap together.
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I still love Lego. Our 16-year old finds it a useful complement to his construction and architecture college course. He's built an impressive model of the Taj Mahal. (Domes are quite difficult with rectangular bricks)
Real afficionados spurn the one-model constructor stuff with instructions, and go for the freehand approach with thousands of bricks and plates.
There's a big collectors' thing on eBay, and some of the earlier bits and colours are quite rare.
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>> I still love Lego. Our 16-year old finds it a useful complement to his construction
>> and architecture college course.
There was a course at work where one session involved building a bridge with Lego. Had to be done as a team and with costings for bricks etc. Quite a fun morning.....
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I'm a Meccano and O-gauge person. I liked Minibrix but didn't have them. Lego is well after my time.
Nevertheless I have a little box containing a lego speed cop and the little plastic carphound's radar speed detector complete with tripod. The policeman has a winsome smile and long hair under his hat.
Someone gave it to me for my last birthday or Christmas, for reasons best known to themselves. Must find a place to put it so I can take it out of its box. Waste not want not.
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At the Poly/Uni, where I worked, there was a leisure studies course where all new students were taken for a weekend at a sports centre to get to know each other. One of the activities there was a game with Lego. The students were divided into teams of 5 or 6 and each team was given a set of Lego bricks. The idea was to build the tallest tower in a given amount of time. On the occasion when I got to watch an all-female team won. From the outset, it was obvious that they were more creative in the way they joined the bricks.
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>> One of the activities there was a game with Lego. The students were divided
>> into teams of 5 or 6 and each team was given a set of Lego
>> bricks. The idea was to build the tallest tower in a given amount of time.
>>
It was a common team-building exercise in business environments.
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>> It was a common team-building exercise in business environments.
We always had the poles, the rope, some bricks and the need to get the team from one island to another.
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>> We always had the poles, the rope, some bricks...
Yeah, been on those. I always used to sit under a tree and have a fag at that point. When asked why by course tutors I'd usually say I was "empowering" the others.
Load of horlicks.
( no I'm definitely not a "team" player )
;-)
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>> Yeah, been on those. I always used to sit under a tree and have a
>> fag at that point. When asked why by course tutors I'd usually say I was
>> "empowering" the others.
>>
>> Load of horlicks.
Deffo management material then.
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Well, strangely enough that's exactly what happened shortly after !
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Went on one of those. It was, shall we say, an experience. There was a fake monk, me getting stuck up a tree, a cliff walk with blacked out scuba masks and of course the never to be forgotten insistence of the instructors that we all to go into town that night with the men dressed as women. A refusal from one chap wasn't countenanced at all, until he broke down sobbing, and we instead spent the evening listening to him telling us all about how he'd been abused as a child, the poor chap.
Can't say it was a roaring success and I had and have no idea what the point of any of it was, other than it was a compulsory three days. The company has now gone bust, incidentally.
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Ours involved trips to Ireland and pubs. Far more productive...
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Ours involved walking from a pub car park in the Lake District to a point on the shore of Windermere.
I and a very bright lad who worked for me set off a bit after the others, and I got hold of the map, took aim, and set off towards the destination. The other chap kept trying to tell me we were going the wrong way but I knew we weren't so I more or less ignored him and ploughed on.
We reached the destination an hour before everybody else. He had been trying to tell me there was a route to follow, whereas I had taken the straightest line possible. I thought it was a bit awkward when we had to go through some gardens at one point.
Once everybody had arrived there was the raft building, using plastic drums, planks and ropes. One bloke who claimed to have been a sailor keep undoing and retying everybody else's knots, and when we set off across the lake to the hotel on the other side he stood on the front like Ahab in pursuit of the white whale shouting orders to the paddlers. Somebody pushed him in.
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>>
>> Once everybody had arrived there was the raft building, using plastic drums, planks and ropes.
>> One bloke who claimed to have been a sailor keep undoing and retying everybody else's
>> knots, and when we set off across the lake to the hotel on the other
>> side he stood on the front like Ahab in pursuit of the white whale shouting
>> orders to the paddlers. Somebody pushed him in.
Sounds suspiciously like a Brathay Hall course to me. One of their team building exercises was to find a series of clues around the area without using public transport. We phone up a taxi company on the premise it was private hire. The taxi driver knew all the answers to the clues, having done it numerous times from previous inmates course participants
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 6 Mar 15 at 21:16
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Cragwood Hotel I think, just looking at the map, although the name didn't ring a bell. The raft building would have been about 1989. About 15 years later we went to friend's daughter's wedding at the same place. We walked down to the lake and found the moss covered barrels and planks among some bushes near the shore.
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I had Meccano - load of carp. Could not be a***d with it.
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Serious thread drift follows;
>>and found the moss covered barrels and planks among some bushes near the shore.
Its strange how that happens. How something can be so important and relevant and then simply be abandoned.
I should skip the next bit if I was you;
I come from a family of Labour voters about as far back as there has been a Labour party. (and no, Bromp, I don't actually care when that was). Both my Grandfathers were shop stewards, in quite different industries, and that's what the others aspired to.
But nonetheless, all the family males aspired to be members of the local Conservative Club. In our local Conservative Club there were snooker tables - three. And they were upstairs. Women and children were not permitted. Which didn't really matter since the women wouldn't be seen dead up there (they were too busy downstairs with the £25 fruit machine and the Bingo) and everybody hated all the kids wherever they were. At 17, I think, I just about scraped into acceptability.
Anyway, there was a waiting list to join the Conservative Club. Having mounted that obstacle there was a waiting list to join the Snooker club within it. And finally, of course, there was the inevitable blackboard with the initials of the next people up to play. If you weren't in there with your initials up by 7.00pm then you weren't playing that night.
Other than championship nights, when the games were scheduled far in advance.
It was a big thing. Very important, full of controversy and even the local politician joined in.
About 4 years ago I went to the funeral of one of the old chaps who used to play snooker at the club; lovely old bloke who was always kind to me. And he was old in those days so he must have been about a squidrillion when he passed. His wife had arranged the sherry and sandwiches after at the Conservative Club.
Everything was the same. Hadn't changed in 30 years. The decor, the dodgy stage, the wallpaper and the sticky carpet. So I went for an explore and went upstairs to the snooker room. Everything as I remembered. Tables, scoreboards, cues and all. Except there were old bits of wood, decorating supplies, old bingo machines, old optics and all the other detritus of life in a bar stacked on the tables, between the tables etc. etc. And a layer of dust over the whole thing.
I chatted to the steward and he told me that nobody had played snooker up there in years, nobody cared what happened to the room, and so they just threw all the old junk up there.
I found it sad. Even if nobody else cared.
There's not much I miss from the 60s and 70s, but the few things I do miss, I miss very much indeed.
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I was too old for Lego, in '63 I joined the force and my interests were girls and motorbikes by then.
The kids had plenty in the 70s and I used to make complex and exquisite mausoleums with it whilst keeping an eye out to rap any little knuckles trying to get in on the act.
Mrs Ted to be used to sometimes shout 'Leggo ' during wrestling time on her mother's spare room settee !
What Sherlock referred to further up, I think, was ' Brickplayer '. You mixed up your own mortar and built with little bricks. The stuff dissolved in warm water for you to use the bricks again.
I had Bayko as well but my joy was complete when my Chrimbo pressie from me ole mam, about 1957 was a Triang train set. Just a circle of grey track, A Jinty engine and a couple of wagons. A battery powered controller kept the action going. I still have the engine and it still works fine !
That, and living in a junction where the Great Central and Midland main lines came together and became the Cheshire Lines, kindled a life long interest. Now, I have around a hundred locos...and I've kept most of the boxes to add value.
Now, about that bigger shed, Mrs T.
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>>>What Sherlock referred to further up, I think, was ' Brickplayer '. You mixed up your own mortar and built with little bricks. The stuff dissolved in warm water for you to use the bricks again.<<<
ted
thank you for that, having Googled, it brought back memories www.brickplayer.co.uk/photos/the-kits/1
I must have had a Kit4 because the strongest visual memory were the 45 deg Bay windows. if I remember correctly there were special 45 deg bricks to help make the bay correctly. What i had not realised was that the kits were scaled approx to O gauge Hornby.
By the time I had the the Brickplayer kit I had moved on from my clockwork O scale Hornby to OO Hornby 3rail electric. The rolling stock was so much better than the plastic Triang. Compatability was the big issue as the toy industry was then moving away from the 3 rail standard. ( about 1958 I guess. - I still get wound up about my mother having sold the OO gauge kit at some point!!)
I was obviously well provided with toys - although at that point we did not have either a car or TV.
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As a result of this thread that reawkened my in interest in Brickplayer, I found a decent collect only buy on EBay. Am now the proud owner of Kits 3 & 4. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brickplayer-Kit-Vintage-/131444776898?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item1e9ab81fc2
Will serve as an educational present for daughter and grandaughter!
Only problem is collecting, since my opportunities for a practical collect are rapidly disappearing.
Any offers of store and collect from Sonning Common would be gratefully received.
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As a HMRC management trainee we were required to build a bridge out of Lego that we could all pass under. We built it very low and took turns to pull each other through by the arms. Minor carpet burns were worth it for the win.
The pubs of Blackpool did quite well out of that course.
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>>
>> We always had the poles, the rope, some bricks and the need to get the
>> team from one island to another.
>>
What do you use the bricks for - they don't float?
In the school cadet force we had poles, ropes and old oil drums. The task was to build a raft and get across the lake. The secret was to test the drums first and discard those that leaked.
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>> little box containing a lego speed cop and the little plastic carphound's radar speed detector complete with tripod.
It will surprise no one that I've made a mistake showing how out of date I am. The speed cop isn't Lego but Playmobil. Not the same thing at all. But similar looking to one of my age.
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> The speed cop isn't Lego but Playmobil.
>>
I did wonder as I read your post.
I love Playmobile too. Engaging little people, and go nicely with Lego constructions.
Always fun to join in the games, and I get an impish pleasure from mixing the characters in the wrong settings - traffic cops and vikings versus the pirates and air ambulance men.
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My first Airfix kit was the Westland Lysander. Me ole mam set me up with a card table and chair on the back lawn in the sun to see how I went on. Blue remembered days then. Sat in the Summer heat enjoying a cold orangeade with Bongos running past the end of the garden 30 yards away with the Parkeston Quay trains and Patriots and Jubilees across the field on the other line attending to the St Pancras expresses !
I remember that I moved on to the Lancaster and many other kits. I still have.....boxed and untouched.......the vintage fire engine, frogeye Sprite and a Kitmaster ' Spamcan '
I wish I had the Beyer Garrett......the new model one is about £200 !.
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On of the best inventions of our time is Lego.The oldest lad just build a complex battle ship of Lego.Looks good gathering dust.>:)
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>> On of the best inventions of our time is Lego.The oldest lad just build a
>> complex battle ship of Lego.Looks good gathering dust.>:)
>>
It's been mothballed because of defence cuts.
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>> My nephew, I think he's 3, just got a lego set. Firstly it is designed
>> to build only one thing, for which you are issued instructions; second, there's so many
>> specialist bits, what happened to the days of simply different size bricks and imagination.
>>
Totally agree, although you can still buy bags of plain bricks if you prefer.
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>> what happened to the days of simply different size bricks and imagination
Lego make more money if they forget kids should have imagination.
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Folk keep buying my grand-kids those kits. I spend half-an-hour putting it all together and they take seconds to dismantle it and all the bits end up in their Lego box, never to be used again!
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That is done to allow them to use their imagination to build all manner of things from their vast accumulation of Lego bits. Sounds like they need some inspiration from grandad.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 9 Mar 15 at 17:46
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I agree. I don't get those kits. But then huge numbers of toys today are created to appeal to children for three seconds flat, rather than offering an opportunity for the imagination. The person they really appeal to is the parent who gets to buy their child a spacecraft and kid themselves it's educational.
I was astonished - in Geneva airport last week - to see a box of Lego aimed at the 16+ market. I find that difficult to believe. By that age (and indeed before) my 'playing' involved lathes, saws etc. etc. or spades, canes and seeds. Surely you don't need toys at that age.
One of the best toys I've ever seen was - from the 1930s - a Construments set. My father had one, but it no longer existed, so I bought a set on eBay a couple of years ago. The range of optical instruments you could build from a few lenses etc. etc. was fun; and of course it was all made from brass, unlike today's plastic things.
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>>
>> One of the best toys I've ever seen was - from the 1930s - a
>> Construments set.
I had one of those from a jumble sale years ago. I always remembered the maker's address label,
Construments Ltd,
Construments House,
.....
which we though terribly funny for some reason. We used to collapse into giggles fabricating even more ridiculous addresses for them:
Construments Road, Construments New Town, Construmentia, etc.
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Lego - Zero
