LEGO

This danish toy has a lot to answer for. I spent lots of hours of my childhood building things with it, probably too many hours. It's almost certainly responsible for me becoming an engineer. However, before I get too sentimental, lets look at some of the things I built over the years.

Ferry - approx 1981, 4 yrs old

This was the first really big thing I ever built. It used pretty much all of the lego I had to build it - I used railway rails to finish the roof, and I even had to persuade my mother to buy me an extra set to finish the red bit along the bottom...

Train - approx 1984, 7 yrs old

This was built from my first proper train, with electrified rails... I probably got bored with what the set was supposed to be fairly quickly, and decided to rebuild it!

Gladiator and Typhoon - September 1988, 11 yrs old

Two of the least camoflagued military aircraft you'll ever see. I was having fun putting motors into things...

Land Rover - late 1988, 12 yrs old

This is a lot more like it - Land Rover Defender 90, with independant suspension (and dodgy wheel angles). The rather oddly positioned spare wheel operated the steering!

Tufted Duck - late 1988, 12 yrs old

Er, yes, well, that is a Tufted Duck. Made out of lego. Aah. Remember I was a YOC member...

Town - late 1988, 12 yrs old

I built this town for my brother. OK, so most of the vehicles and the fire and police station were commercial sets, but the rest of it I built myself...

"The Pathfinders" - early 1989, 12 yrs old

Bearing no relation to the WWII RAF bomber squadrons, this was some kind of airbourne task force. There's a Harrier, helicopter, Douglas DC3 Dakota cargo plane, truck, and scout plane. The helicopter and DC3 were motorised, and it looks like I had taken to sticking paper stickers over everything by now...

Rocket III - Spring 1989, 12 yrs old


The first "Rocket" truck that made it onto film. My friends and I built quite a few trucks, improving their strength and looks as time went on. This is quite an early one; The scale of a lot of things wasn't quite right, especially the roadside cafe!

Rocket XI - August 1993, 16 yrs old


This was the crowning glory of the Rocket trucks, and one of the last models I made before I sold everything. It had working lights and a curtainsider trailer, was about 1.25m long overall, but best of all, it was radio controlled! It used a standard two channel 27MHz radio system, along with a mechanical speed controller from a Tamiya car and a very low powered 540 size motor, in an attempt to look after the transmission...

Of course lego is not designed to run at high speed or under high load, and Rocket XI ate its transmission on a regular basis. Above you can see the transmission module under maintenance, and broken gears removed from it.

Selling Up - Autumn 1993, 16 yrs old
I decided that if I was to get any work done at school, I had to sell it all. I needed the money anyway! So I built everything up into its original sets. Looks like I had quite a lot!


There's lots of Technic lego, including the original Car Chassis and the newer Test Car, Tractor and Pneumatic JCB, quite a few railway and town sets, plus a few space sets.
I was fortunate enough to sell the lot eventually!

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