One evening as a young child, I was at an event at the local Scouts hut. A stall was selling a 2nd hand box of LEGO, which had different parts, pieces, and some small sets. I quickly became drawn to the construction toy known as "LEGO". After speaking to my dad, we decided to purchase the unexpensive box of LEGO. This was the start of what would be my biggest childhood hobby of such passion and joy.
I was ever so happy to get the LEGO box home. The box of LEGOs had many different LEGO bricks and pieces, some late 80s / early 90s sets, and 1 baseplate from an unbuilt LEGO police station set.With all the freedom and creativity in which LEGO gives to children, this quickly begame my most favourite toy. The LEGO obsession had begun!
Throughout the early times, my LEGO collection was small, but I still had lots of fun. It was my loving mother who first purchase some LEGO road baseplates, the very foundation of future LEGO towns. My loving father also purchase my very first LEGO fire station which was an excellent addition for my early LEGO town.
I began saving my pocket money, my birthday money, and my Christmas money to purchase various LEGO sets from stores such as Woolworths, Moons Toymaster, and Argos. Sometimes special deals and promotions were avaliable for LEGO which really helped with my passionate LEGO hobby. I really enjoyed following the instruction booklets and constructing various LEGO sets.
My most favourite theme was LEGO Town / LEGO City, but I also had some sets from various other themes. One theme I quite liked was the LEGO Adventurers theme, with Johnny Thunder. I mostly purchased LEGO City but sometimes various other LEGO sets of different themes caught my eye.
One of the biggest issues growing up was the shortage of avaliable space for the LEGO hobby. Very often people would mistakenly tread on the LEGO town setup or LEGO pieces would be accidentally hoovered up when the parents were cleaning. I was living in a small 2 bedroom house, with a pretty big back garden. As time passed, I adapted town layouts to try to accommodate the lack of space I had avaliable.
My older brother had some interest in LEGO in the early years, but he was not as passionate about the construction toy as I was. He had built some creations, such as a house or a car, but left the construction to me. He had bought a few LEGO sets with his pocket money but he had different hobbies and interests, such as the PlayStation 1. I would find it difficult playing with others, I much preferred the building and planning side of LEGO.
I was thankful to meet people growing up who too had an interest in LEGO, but not all my friends bought LEGO or had a LEGO collection. It was great having friends with a shared hobby and passion for LEGO, it was really interesting to see the different LEGO sets, parts, and pieces that they had in their collections. Different people had aqquired some very unique, sometimes rare, parts and pieces.
Throughout the late 90s and the early 2000s, the internet began to really take off. Since I had a strong and passionate LEGO hobby, I would broswe my LEGO hobby on the computer too. I came across various fan sites and communities of people whom were passionate like myself. I came across many entertaining LEGO stop animations which people had created with their webcams and cameras. It was an exciting time to see others expressing their creativity using the toy.
The early LEGO video games were not so great, but I still experienced them. I had played Legoland (2000) which was suprisingly 16-bit. I played Lego Rock Raiders (1999), but I was not as interested in that. I even have played Lego Island 2: The Brickster's Revenge (2001). My most favourite LEGO video game though was - LEGO Racers 2 (2001), which I got lots of fun and joy from.
Gradually as I began to get older, my desire to play with LEGO began to fade. For sometime I maintained an interest of building and planning with LEGO, but I had no interest in playing with the toy. I even experienced some bullying regarding LEGO too. By this stage, I had collected a lot of LEGO. My collection was quite big.
Even today, I have many fond memories from my LEGO years. Children growing up today in these modern times have some very exciting LEGO sets and LEGO themes to choose from. I am happy that LEGO is still around and popular even today, putting smiles on children's faces.