A headline in a recent newspaper caught my eye which in turn had me thinking nostalgically about the plaything that as a child I returned to again and again. I don’t mean teddy bears – they don’t count as toys – they are loyal confidants; one of life’s necessities (Bear ones) and I wouldn’t be without mine. I’m not talking about skipping ropes, board games or dolls. I was never much interested in the latter although I of course had them. I was a little girl, after all, and dolls are what girls were meant to play with. I had a dolls pram too – maroon if I remember correctly – a miniature version of the sturdy Smart-Car-sized Silver Cross that my mother perambulated for years. The doll’s house was used initially but quickly abandoned – a shame really as it was made for me by my grandfather – a facsimile of his own home.
But it’s the humble Lego brick to which I pay homage. Apart from books which have always been a constant companion, the androgynous red and white bricks of my Lego-filled youth provided me with hours of creative activity and sparked imaginings beyond even the wildest playroom. I think the first set I ever owned consisted of a few bricks of each size and a flat grey base unit. I built houses. I built cottages by the sea; I built state of the art tower blocks; I built castles as my collection grew – whole towns once the Lego street map arrived. I made farms and zoos. Each Christmas stocking produced a tiny box containing much needed single tenners or double sixer bricks or window shapes, some with tiny closing shutters. Envisage my utmost delight when Lego brought out the translucent brick and I designed my architecturally inspired sixties houses with integrated translucent walls and imagined internal spiral staircases. This was only surpassed a little later by the production of a tiny circuit board with bulb, switch and battery which could be concealed within my house and – lo and behold – there was light! (And I had my first ever physics lesson. Sadly things have gone downhill in that department ever since).
Picture of assorted Lego bricks from Wikipedia
My Lego collection is still around somewhere in the family, having been added to by various keepers over the years. To my mind though, these later additions are pretenders to Lego’s original ideals. Gone is the need to imagine a jumbled creation of duo-coloured blocks as something tangible and mysterious – now we have vivid themed sets with instructions. Where is the creativity, where is the encouragement to imagine?
The aforementioned headline stated that Cambridge University are to appoint a “Professor of Lego” with funding from the eponymous company. My first reaction on seeing this was one of ridicule but as I read the article and thought about it, I think they may be on to something. The Lego Foundation has provided the funding to research how children play. The article suggests that children have lost the ability to create their own amusement and this is impacting on their educational development. I am amazed that it has taken an injection of £1.5million to come to this conclusion. You’ve only got to look for children playing outside in the fresh air during their school holidays and you’ll pretty soon realise that our wide open spaces are largely empty. No jumpers for goalposts these days. No tree climbing either (too dangerous) no camp-making in the woods (again, far too dangerous) and definitely no unsupervised pond-dipping (even more dangerous).
Lego has been lauded as a therapy tool for children with autism and has also been recommended as a creative thinking device for business people – everyone should have a box of random bricks on their desk. I don’t think that’s too whacky an idea – it’s even thought to reduce city stress levels.
I think I might suggest that we introduce Lego to our department if the budget can stretch that far – we could get the students to create the finest structure they can with limited resources – introduce a bit of competition, just like the real world. Oh, wait a minute; competitiveness is frowned upon these days too. We’ll need another research project – Professor of Rivalry, perhaps?
One of my 10yr old students brought me a lego hand-gun he’d made the other day. He was absolutely brimming with enthusiasm, and explained how he’d found the design online, and then constructed it without any further assistance. It actually fired soft darts at great force – goodness knows how.
I was hugely impressed, but also not sure how I felt about it. Was it a shame he hadn’t invented the design himself, or commendable that he’d researched and then successfully followed the instructions?
Perhaps Cambridge’s Professor of Lego will be able to help. Jx
Well good for him that he was so enthusiastic – just a shame his enthusiasm was for weaponry! Unusual too, for a male to follow a set of instructions, so that indeed is to be applauded. My preference would of course have been for him to have designed it himself – even if the outcome hadn’t been successful in as far as the darts firing, he would have given himself a challenge to discover HOW to make the thing work.
It was Meccano when I was growing up. We also had little tiny clay bricks that had to be cemented together like real bricks.
We also had a toy, similar in some ways to Leggo. I can’t remember the name – but I have vague memories of green bases and fold out plans for constructing buildings. It was smaller pieces than Leggo if my memory is correct.
But we had most fun playing with large pieces of panel board that Dad used to protect the dining table top. We would build all kinds of houses, forts and castles with them.
Imaginations are being stifled with our concern for safety and making ever more ‘sophisticated’ toys.
I walked through an upscale neighbourhood of large houses the other day. Two and three car garages – huge homes – and not a soul on the street or in the little back gardens. No sign of children. In a playground built for under twelves the only people playing were a group of twenty somethings – loving the swings.
Where have all the children gone – long time asking?
Great post.
Oh, I like the sound of those tiny clay bricks. I never really got on with Meccano – not that I had any of my own but I think I must have seen it at other children’s houses and decided that Lego was more my thing.
I suppose sophisticated toys are computer games – which appear to me to all share the same objective – but I concede that I know nothing about them really so ought to keep quiet.
I haven’t been to a playground since Son was small, pre Playstation era, and children were still able to play in sandpits and fall off monkey bars quite happily. While out the other day we witnessed a daring young lady execute a perfect forward roll on grass and then get yelled at by her mother for putting herself in danger of breaking her neck. With parents like that …
I’ve always been a big fan of LEGO and learning. Back in the 1980s the school I was teaching at was involved in an exhibition called the Art of LEGO, and we got two enormous tubs of bricks to build things with, and we ran a series of special project days with different themes. I got to write a piece on creativity for the exhibition catalogue which I called ‘The Art of LEtting GO’. Of course the rest of the school staff never understood what it was all about, and I became known as the Head of LEGO. Those were the days!
That sounds like good fun. I don’t think our budget would run to one enormous tub these days, let alone two. And probably our thirteen year olds would think it beneath them anyway, considering everything they do is apparently ‘boring.’ I’m glad I’m not a child now.
Head of Lego, eh? Well, I guess it’s an improvement on Head of Better … 😀
Oh, and meant to say, have you seen the LEGO movie? It’s truly AWESOME!
No, but I can imagine that it would be.
I LOVED my Lego. Constantly redesigning houses! And I also had a wonderful gardening toy set – from Woolworths I think – sections of brown ‘soil borders’ with holes into which you ‘planted’ flowers and shrubs and trees. Also came with a beautifully striped lawn, a miniature roller, spade etc. Gosh I had so many happy hours with my Lego and my flower beds on rainy days.
You sound just like me. And now I have a very vague recall of a plastic flowerbed with pre-formed holes and flowers you could create by layering tiny bits of different coloured frilly plastic together. I also remember a tree, like a plane tree with quite feathery branches that could be redesigned by pulling them off and repositioning them. I don’t remember the lawn though, or the roller – maybe I had an inferior set!
Sounds like the same! You could buy ‘extras’ so I must have bought the lawn and the roller! And yes, you created the flowers yourself. Oh, how I wish that particular toy hadn’t been disposed of.
Just found this link – page 5 for the roller!
http://www.tortoys.co.uk/acatalog/Britains_Floral_Garden-p1.html
Oh my. Thank you for this link Jude – I’ve just spent considerable time browsing that catalogue and wallowing in early horticultural nostalgia. I can’t believe it’s still available. I’d love to buy it for someone. Question is, who?
I don’t know that today’s youngsters would get such simple pleasure from it as I did. My granddaughters would probably love it for five minutes then never play with it again! But then I easily amused myself by playing with a tennis ball against the house wall! For hours!
Yes, so did I, to the annoyance of everyone!
It never ceases to dismay me how we must have multi-billion dollar studies set up to discover the answers to issues that are so patently obviously you have to be really lacking in common sense not to be completely aware of the problem, the reasons and the solutions. Or is this just me being old and cantankerous?
I never had Lego – I never had many shop bought toys except for one doll that my special aunt gave me and which my eldest daughter now cares for. But I had books, imagination and a huge area of forest and farmland to roam about in. My kids never had Lego either, though they had many shop bought toys. Oddly, they preferred empty boxes, sheets, wooden bricks and blocks and so on and constantly turned the dining room into pirate ships, houses, battlements, forts and the odd fairy castle when they were feeling like little girls………. I guess it was just a messier slightly more eclectic collection of rustic ‘Lego’. 🙂
Old and cantankerous? You and me both, then!
Imaginary play has got to be the best. My sister and I were never happier than when under the dining room table with a sheet draped over, dressing up in a mixed match of garments – old hats, high heeled shoes, bags and feathers. We also had a tree house – nothing sophisticated – just a few planks to create a platform in an old apple tree. We sailed the seven seas from there, I can tell you 😀
Great article, Jenny. Lego was for our children; we had: http://derrickjknight.com/2012/06/16/bayko-building-sets/ which I think would not survive the safety elf today
I’d never heard of these so I googled Bayko and found this article in the Grimsby Telegraph, no less.
http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/Bayko-fan/story-21236208-detail/story.html
Might be of interest …
Thank you Jenny. I’ve put it on my post with a link to your blog.
I loved lego and it sounds as if we had similar interests as children. Yup, I had dolls and never played much with them. But lego, yes! It was somehow very calming and zen, too. I agree that people should have bags of lego on their desks! What a great idea! 🙂
Well, at least it would keep them away from their Facebook accounts!
I loved Lego – and you’re right about the different types of creativity – for some it probably led to them becoming architects or engineers, but I told stories with my lego – with the little Lego people with their little yellow heads!
Haha, yes I can imagine that too! My husband reminded me that a while ago we read about some PhD research going on into the changing expressions on the faces of the Lego people over the years. How mad is that?
Oh Jenny, it amazes me that something we grew up with, so educational and so absorbing and so creative is now regarded as a therapy tool by which studies for education are led. And now all this funding is provided to look into the ways children amuse themselves, because they have lost the abilitiy to do so. It is tragic isn’t it? Your wonderful post, filled with humour as always,also yet also highlighting the serious PC absurdity of so much about our way of life today, brings back evocative memories for me and of my kids who adored their Lego sets too (most of which I have in the loft, awaiting eager grandchildren, oneday, and so I live in hope…). My only complaint about Lego is that it was my brother to whom all the sets were given and I had to ask him to let me play (even though I’m the eldest). We had terrible arguments about who used all the best pieces 😉 I remember the circut boards too…lighting, how wonderful! Funnily enough, I had my boys home for the weekend and they were reminiscing about some of their favourite toys. Guess what? Eldest Son’s was the medieval Black Monarch Castle Lego set and Nicky’s was the Monorail Lego. That had lights and a moving train. But I remember those white, red and blue Lego bricks of my childhood too. Great fun and I agree with you, best toy out there 🙂
Hi Sherri. I’m glad you remember the lighting option – I was so thrilled about this when I was a kid – it seemed so cutting-edge then!
Further to coincidences re Lego – there was a programme broadcast last weekend called … ‘The Secret World of Lego’ on Channel 4. I managed to watch a bit of it on catch up after Mum had mentioned it. Very interesting – they sure take their development of the toy seriously – it’s like working for MI5.
When Son was small he enjoyed briefly a Star Wars Lego kit but sadly this was a passing phase – he was never as interested in the tiny bricks as I had once been – I wonder if it was because once it was made, that was it – no further possibilities in his mind to use those bricks for anything else.
Oh I wonder if it’s still on catch up, that sounds so interesting, surprised I missed that! Thanks for the heads-up!
Interesting thought that Jenny. It is different isn’t it with the loose bricks which can be made into anything, time and time again. As you say, so many possibilities…
How true about kids playing in the streets. Whether it was right or wrong we were outside all the time in the 50s and 60s. Our parents thought we were sick if we wanted to stay inside. How we spend our spare time as kids must surely impact on what we become as adults.
As to Lego, Meccano, model planes and ships and the like I never had the time or patience and remain totally impractical to this day.
Haha, you must have been a real out doors kid. And having no patience for sitting and building from a kit? These days you’d probably be labelled as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 😃
I was never a Lego girl myself, Jenny, but some of my siblings were. It is disappointing that it’s hard to find the bricks these days without purchasing some sort of branded kit. A sign of the times, I suppose. The world is certainly changing, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. We live in an electronic world, so today’s children have superior skills in that realm. I do like your idea of introducing a competitive Lego-building session at school. Perhaps if you present it with a qualifier: “There are no winners or losers! Everyone gets a trophy!” ~ maybe then you’ll pique some interest (*wink*)
It’s a shame, I think, that everything has to be ‘themed.’ You can bet your life that with every new Disney film there will be a raft of merchandise to follow. You’re right about the superior skills of children when it comes to electronics. From quite an early age, Son was the only one in the family competent enough to use the video recorder effectively – and he’d never been taught as such, he just seemed to know what to do. Scary!
And everyone gets a trophy? Oh yes – we’ve just had ‘Sports Day’ at school where the kids can purchase their own medal and take part in a fun run. It really doesn’t seem like much fun to me … 😃
The WORST pain you can inflict on yourself happens when you put your full weight on one foot which, unfortunately, happens to have one of those bricks lodged dead centre beneath the arch of the foot. But, yes, legos are great aside from that 🙂
Yes, you’re absolutely right – and I bet we’ve all done that, especially as parents. Ouch! 😀
Our grands love legos. Fortunately, they also are very active outdoors with baseball, horseback riding and such. I was a tomboy myself so I spent a lot of time outdoors.
The Lego Foundations has smartly, it seems, found a perfect captive audience to test its theories on. Maybe your students could make a floating Lego device that would take them sailing over the water. Far too dangerous, I know, but glorious fun. 😉
It is great and I liked using it in my middle school classroom like “fidget” toy, and only downfall is probably mentioned in a comment is how they get caught in vacuum. 😦 fun post with ☆☆☆☆ many ideas given 🙂
Oh yes, I think as parents we’ve all vacuumed up pieces of Lego – or trodden on them with bare feet like Maurice, above, mentioned😃😃
Ouch! Little Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars plus Barbie’s high heels were the bane of my barefoot existence!
This suggestion is from son’s projects which my Dad gave son best gift for Lego boys and girls: a multiple-leveled plastic fishing tackle box! Less than $10 and it made him feel he was a serious Lego builder. I like the handle and way he could cart it around, Jenny.