Your LEGO Memories

If you are reading this then chances are LEGO is special to you in some way. We all have a story about LEGO and the impact that it has had on our life. If LEGO wasn’t a product that made an impact we wouldn’t be celebrating 90 years of play.

I recently asked you, the Bricking Around community, to share your LEGO memories. Here are all the incredible moments you shared with me.

Childhood Memories

Aaron

This weekend has been rainy and cold; inside, playing LEGO with my children inspired this timely early childhood memory of myself doing exactly the same when I was little. Sparking a sudden thought, it turned into a treasure hunt – rustling through stored boxes for something I remember I had put away – a little white ute that I had built all the way back when I was the same age as my son is now…! Something I had cherished and kept together for all these years, adding new pieces to it as my collection had expanded. I recall many stouches fighting off my younger brother from pinching the pieces from it for his other creations. We often built many town buildings and other vehicles, but somehow this one never was broken until I hid it away and had almost forgotten about it! Now I realise I need to protect it again from my three kids from doing the same thing!! …I may find it harder to keep them from it than I did my brother!?

Adam

My earliest childhood memory of Lego is building the Polaris I Space Lab (6972) on the dining table with my grandfather. I remember the excitement of discovering the “working” monorails and the detachable pod / satellite which could blast off into outer space. It must have been a birthday or Christmas present given how large and expensive the set was. I rebuilt it many, many times throughout my childhood and upon emerging from the Dark Ages, I sought to build it again. But, I’d lost too many of the pieces over the years, including the moon base (and at least one spaceman who was eaten by my pet dog).

Alvin P

My first lego star wars UCS set – the X-Wing. It was in Kmart for $200 for year when i was young and never afford it. One day when i was 18 i went into Kmart and saw it on clearance for $50, I thought why not. I bought it and took it home. Back then the bags weren’t numbered so it was a case of dump all the pieces in the box and get started. 17 hours later it was built only to find that there was a spare piece – a big spare piece :(. After pulling apart half the model, i put the piece in and put it back together. That was the beginning of a very expensive lifestyle. Now i have every USC set ever made except the OG Tantive IV and the Naboo Fighter – I need a bigger house :). Most of them are still in boxes because I Have no where to display them, but soon my 1 year old son will be able to start helping me unbox and build them and I get to share the experience with him.

Andrew

Have a very distant memory of unwrapping a brand new Space Lego Set at a Christmas many moons ago. Can’t remember the exact set, but it came with a baseplate that had craters. Was besotted and can still remember getting stuck straight into it and forgetting whatever else I scored.
Best thing is, my now eldery parents still have the set (albeit in pieces) for their grandchildren/my children to play with!

Andrew F

I remember in the early 80’s my family had classic space lego up on a table and Mum bought me the lego snack bar (675) at the shops. It looked very odd up there and the minute I saw it, I was hooked on the town lego. Within no time I was visiting Myer in Perth and they had a massive 12v lego train and town set up on show. For a small kid, this was just the most amazing thing to see all these lego trains buzzing around with lights and the huge layout. Within a very short time we were lucky to collect a few of the trains and town sets and finally I was able to make my own version of a little town. And the snack bar finally had somewhere to go! Such fond memories of Lego and a childhood spent building and reimagining the layout and watching the trains buzzing around. I still have my 7727 train, which I decorate in Christmas theme and bring out at Christmas time to run around the winter village.

Ben

The 10th anniversary line of Lego Star Wars is very near and dear to my heart. I fondly remember as a kid getting 8038 The Battle for Endor and just being mesmerised by the play functions and especially the Ewoks. 8017 Darth Vader’s Tie Fighter was also a very special set for me I distinctly remember travelling to my local Target or Kmart which seemed like hours outside of town just to pick one up. I don’t often get nostalgic for LEGO, but it is hard not to when the memories surrounding sets endure so much longer than the builds themselves.

Callum

My best mate and I lived several hours drive from each other and went to different primary schools in the very early 90s, so we would see each other by sleeping over for several days in a row at each others house. My family was in the bush and his was in an affluent WA suburb so the experiences were always almost opposite ends of the spectrum.
One thing which we had in common though was Lego.
He had an abundance of Pirates and Castle theme sets (including the ships and castles!) and I had plenty of Space and Technic. Whenever we would visit each other, Lego was always a go to; he wanted to play with my Space and Technic sets and I wanted to check out his Pirates/Castle sets.
I remember being thrilled getting to play with stuff I didn’t normally have access to (and I am sure he felt the same way) and a little frustrated when he wanted to play with my “”boring sets”” that I always had access to (…and I am sure he felt the same way!)… but after taking 10mins or so to get warmed up, regardless of the theme, we always managed to find a way to spend hours setting up skirmishes and stories and finding ways to rebuild things in unique ways.

Chris W

My fondest, and strongest, childhood memory of Lego happened one sunny Sunday. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and as such brand new Lego sets were out of my (and my father’s) reach. On this day though, we went to a garage sale in the neighbourhood, and came across a huge tub of bricks of all shapes and sizes. I’m told they let us have it for a very reasonable price, and when we got back home, my Dad and I spent the rest of the day and evening sorting, and building. What we ended up with was a railway with the classic blue tracks, a push along train, and a little town with simple houses (of course they were rainbow coloured!). In my adult life, I’m privileged enough to be able to buy a Lego set off the shelf now, but I’ll always look back on that lucky find and special day with Dad as kick starting my love of the brick.

Derek

Christmas day, as a teeny kid, with a massive Lego boxed set # 8860 – Technical Car Chassis in front of me. I spent every waking hour trying to build it, failing (pistons wouldn’t turn), and then rebuilding it, until it worked perfectly. Ahh, memories!

Greg C

It was 1980, and a friend had received the Beta 1 Command base for his birthday. My memory is not if that set, though, it is of the catalogue that came with it. In those days, before the internet or even computers, the only information you ever had about Lego was through the catalogues, which were tucked in with the instructions of the sets. I’d use the (limited) pictures, or what i could remember from staring at the boxes in the toy shops, to try and make other vehicles from the rather limited parts that I had. I made many, many different versions of the Galaxy Explorer. In hindsight, they were all completely wrong, but were the best i could do, using every wing, windscreen and hinge that i had.
This set had a catalogue that included some vehicles that we had never seen. They were a grey rocket with enormous boosters, and a weird grey thing on elevated wheels, with a green windscreen and a long flexible scoop at the front. At the time we were intrigued by these vehicles, as they had never appeared in any other catalogue. Were they a mistake in the catalogue? Were they vehicles that had been cancelled for some reason? Did they even exist? Was there a whole other world of Space Vehicles that we didn’t know about? There was simply no way of knowing. I remember asking the shop assistant if they had these grey vehicles with green windscreens. I think she thought i was a little mad.
For some reason, this little mystery always sat in the back of my mind, even through my dark ages, eventually fading into memory so much that i wondered whether the discovery of this mystery catalogue had ever actually happened, perhaps being some dream that i had confused with an actual event.
Years later, having discovered Brickset, I went through the Classic Space database and found them and the mystery was solved.
In those days, Lego was really expensive in Australia, so if someone went overseas, they were often sent with a list of what sets to come back with. Because the Command Base had been brought from Europe, it contained the European catalogue and sets 6861 and 6901, sets that would never appear in Australia (or certainly not Newcastle).
I suppose it reminds me that Lego was a lot simpler then. The were no leaks, no press releases, no designer videos and only a handful of sets, most of which we couldn’t afford. But that simplicity didn’t stop it being a thing of wonder, especially when a new catalogue came out.
As a PS, my parents kept all my Lego, including the instructions and the backs of the boxes which i had cut out to keep the pictures of the alternative models. I spent hours and hours playing with that stuff, and it all fitted into a couple of 4L icecream containers! Definitely a simpler time.

Gregg O

I remember my first pirate set 6265 Sabre Island and building it so many times I could build it without instructions. Blue soldiers are still my favourite! I can still build the set today – 30 years later!

Heather W

When I was in primary school I remember my Dad losing his accounting jobs. So I knew that we wouldn’t ever be able to buy Lego. But it was Christmas one year and at my school there was a competition to win Lego and my mom bought a couple of tickets. “We won”. It was a small pirate set. It was one of the best Christmases as it really helped my parents. They could finally give me Lego

Kat T

I have fond memories of a Lego pirate ship under the Christmas tree… for my brother. I don’t even remember what I got that year, but unlike all the less kind older brother things he’s done, he let me help build it and then play with it. He’s still got it, and we still share our love of Lego with each other years later through shared builds with each other and our kids, gifts of Lego, and attending Legoland and Brickvention together.

Mark T

The most significant set in my life is LL918 One Man Space Ship. As a young child in the 1970s I had collected the smaller and cheaper Classic Space sets that were around at the time but this was the ‘dream’ set that I coveted the most. For my 10th birthday, I was given a combined birthday (late October) and Christmas present. I was old enough to understand that my parents would never be able to afford the wonderful, but oh so expensive, larger sets such as 928 Galaxy Explorer andd Moonbase, so 918 One Man Space Ship was the one I really wanted. Even so, it was a very expensive set for my parents to purchase back then. I was so excited when I opened the present to see that it was this set! I had dreamed of playing with it so many times and constantly told my parents about all the adventures I had experienced in my nocturnal state. I remember trembling, I was so overwhelmed. My little red and white space men and I went on so many adventures together. The space beneath our dining table became my lunar landscape, with the red base at one end and the white base at the other. Each adventure would see the space ship take centre stage, as it was shared evenly by the opposing teams, and whoever had it never lost! I have now collected all the larger Classic Space sets as an adult after having my love of Lego rekindled by my 5-year-old daughter ten years ago. I have this one displayed with the others in my study in 2 vertical glass cabinets. It makes me smile to just look at it and remember the countless hours of joy it gave me as a child.

Marty

Being born in Denmark I naturally grew up with Lego. We moved to Australia in the early 90’s and both my brother and I continued collecting Lego. We were both obsessed with the castle theme and would beg our parents for new sets.
One Christmas my brother and I each opened our largest present and it was the Royal Knight’s Castle 6090. The excitement for 2 young boys opening those enormous sets is something we will never forget. From the flip up box teasing the contents to the awesome set of minifigs, this was heaven! We raced to be the first to build their castle.. well, we planned to but both continually got distracted during the build wanting to play with them that it became a pretty long process. I don’t recall which of us actually finished first but I do recall that I was the first to destroy my castle after only a month. I would build and rebuild my own designs repeatedly whilst my older brother thought I was crazy for ever destroying it.
We both still have our sets to this day although broken up, so once we track down a set of instructions and find all the pieces, maybe we can finally have that race!
Unfortunately I don’t think we have any photos from back then but I do have photos of the pride of my collection, the full (although a bit worn out!) set of figs from the set.

Matt L

When I was 9, Dad took me to Grace Bros (Myer – showing my age), just to have a look around in the toy department and there was a Lego building competition in progress. They let me join, I built my signature rocket ship, and won! I got a Lego Master Builders certificate and entry into the big final in Sydney- winner gets a trip to Legoland, Denmark. I had a crises of confidence, half finished a crappy castle and …lost. Probably to Ryan McNaught.

Matt O

My no#1 childhood memory was building large spaceships and outfitting them with mini figures all wearing white firefighting helmets. Given we had no StarWars themed LEGO back then, this was my imagination to creating Rebel Fleet Troopers

Matthew H

Come birthday or Christmas, there was only one thing I wanted as a child and that was Lego. As a family we didn’t have the ability to get LEGO all the time, so it was always extra special. Waking up on my 5th birthday to a large box in my room, my mind was racing. Opening it up I couldn’t believe my eyes. Lego 6542, Launch & Load Seaport, the set I showed my parents in the shop but never left with.
I couldn’t even wait to build the Lego before asking my mum for a photo. I was so happy to have gotten it.
I built this set with my father and it’s one of my best days. I still have this set today at my parents house and treasure this photo and memory.
Now I have my own children of the same age, I cherish being able to share the same experience with them.

Naomi G

Growing up the youngest of 6 kids we didn’t have a huge amount of toys but we did have a bucket of well loved Lego. In fact it wasn’t till I was a lot older that I realised Minifigures weren’t meant to be floppy and actually had faces!! The Lego bricks were so well used that they actually lost their clutch power and we used bluetac to hold them together.

Nichole H

As a child I was very clumsy and most school holidays acceidents happened. I had a string of trips to the emergency room to the point mum started taking me with her, which is how I ended up in Myer in 1983 when they had Lego competitions running. It was the last open round for the day before the daily final, so mum let me go in and I won, then we stayed around for the 15mins till the final.
I was 8 at the time, much younger than the others in the final, who where all boys aged around 10-12, I was also very small for my age so they seemed so much bigger. While we had been waiting for the final mum and I had been looking at the small selection of Lego Myer stocked at the time and I guess she was pretty sure that I would not win the final, which is how it went, but seeing me enjoy Lego and believing I guess that it was something that I could safely play with inside, she impulsively bought set 6374 Holiday Home, which I loved and did not appreciate fully at the time what it meant for mum to have done that as she was a widow with 4 children aged between 6-12, so money was very tight.
I loved the set and the few others I was lucky enough to receive for presents the next few years and spent many many hours playing with the sets, even into my early 20’s. At 23 I had two jobs and not a lot of free time, so only played with my Lego collection a few times a year but that year I moved to another city and was told I was too old to play with Lego and they had to go, as I didn’t have the space where I was moving to and mum wouldn’t keep them! Thus began my dark ages, though I had kept an eye on what was coming out every now and then till 20yrs later when I dove head first back into Lego and haven’t looked back. Mum has accepted a house full of Lego and even sits through my in person reviews I give her after completing something!

Richard D

I used to share a room with my brother. We slept in a double bunk, and under the bottom bunk were two draws filled with lego. i remember waking on a Saturday morning about 5am to the sound of lego blocks being moved around. We’d then begin the day with a few hours of lego building before everyone got up. Sweet memories!

Ryan

My most memorable moment with lego was when I was about 10, where I was lucky enough to get some Lego Space Police sets (like 6986, 6886) from a recent birthday and had saved enough money to buy the Lego Blacktron base (6987). With these sets, some MOCs (though we didn’t call them MOCs – they were just “”builds””) and my friends collections we were able to create a “”live-action”” short movie with a friend’s dad’s very expensive VHS camera (he was considered really wealthy!).
Not a great deal happen in the movie, but we had the Space police try capture the Blacktron baddies, there were lots of explosions were Lego space bases were blown up (we used fishing line interleaved within lego models and pulled the line to explode walls). We also used fishing line to move space ships around and smash into other models. It was great fun and fortunately we didn’t break the camera! It was a great moment in my life and really brought friends together through love of lego and cinematography!

Samuel C

It’s one of my youngest memories, the morning of my 6th birthday my parent gave me the awesome 6783 Sonar Transmitting Cruiser. Such a big set for a little kid but I had been wanting my own space set for ages because our friends had a heap of older space sets that I would play with. I was so excited to build this set that I refused to come out of my room to attend my own birthday party. All the old photos of the party show all my school friends having loads of fun but I’m no where to be seen! Still, it was one of the best sets I ever got though, lights and sounds, multiple sections that join into one huge ship.

Sean

My earliest childhood Lego memory is of visiting a department store in Singapore almost 40 years ago on holiday. They had a table setup with Lego where anyone could sit down and play. I can’t imagine that happening these days.

Shannon G

My first memory of Lego was creating my own city. I remember every Birthday and Christmas I would get one more set to add to the town, anything that had some trees in it always went straight to the top of the list!
I think this paved the way for my life long love of Lego!

Steven

My main Lego memory as a child was me building giant yellow matchsticks of all things. Thankfully I didn’t grow into a firebug! I think it’s because I only had yellow and red bricks 🙂

Teo

I remember getting Fort Legoredo for my 9th birthday and building it all in one sitting with my dad before he moved away for work for a year. Growing up I watched a lot of westerns with my dad and I would reenact the big scenes with the cowboy minifigs from the Western line, always centred around Fort Legoredo. I still have the set today and it’s a firm favourite not just because it’s a magnificent set but because it just feels like home.

Tristan

My birthday is near Christmas time. One year, my grandparents bought me 7900 Heavy Loader. It’s the first set I remember ever having, and for a long while, it was my favourite set. It still sits in a special place in my heart, despite its pieces now being well mixed in to my general LEGO collection.

End of the Dark Ages

Adam W

My older brother came up with the idea to buy the UCS Millennium Falcon after seeing how big it was on a YouTube LEGO drop test! Between the two of us, we saved up money from our casual jobs and with some extra Christmas cash, bought it! Our wonderful mother was kind enough to buy us a glass coffee table to keep it in and our younger brother put his Razor Crest in there too (so it doesn’t get lonely at night). The falcon is now a main centre piece of our living room and we do not plan to drop it off the top of our roof anytime soon haha!

Adrian L

I enjoyed Lego and Star Wars toys as a child, unfortunately when I moved out of home my parents ended up giving most of my toys away.
Then one day at my parents place, I stumbled upon 2 of my Space sets, 6847 Space Dozer and 6880 Surface Explorer. I showed my son, aged 5, and it was an immediate hit with him. He loved the playability with all the moving parts and I showed him that you can take it apart and make something else. The other great thing was that if you dropped it and it came apart, you could always put it back together. I was also amazed at the condition of these bricks after so many years! This started the ball rolling for my Lego adventure as an adult. When we started looking again, I was blown away by how much more detailed the modern Lego sets were and how they started having themes like my favourite, Star Wars! I couldn’t believe I had missed out on this!
One of my highlights was when I managed to purchase a retired 10188 Death Star brand new in box for my son’s 8th birthday. However at that time we were in a smaller duplex and didn’t have enough space to build it. So we made a pact to open and build it when we moved house, as we were house hunting for a bigger place at the time. We did so about a year later, and cracking that bad boy open was sweet! I loved that we built it together, section by section, and we took photos of it being constructed. We also had help from a whole bunch of minifigs as seen in the photos! 🙂
These days we are ever expanding our collection and my daughter has started enjoying Lego too. She prefers the Disney Princess ones and Speed Champions. My son has followed after me with Star Wars and also loves all the Minecraft ones. I’m enjoying searching for retired Star Wars sets that don’t have modern ones made yet. It’s great how there is so much to choose from and something for everyone.
Although we like building sets and keeping our bricks organised, we’ve always encouraged each other to build anything, like “let’s make something that we saw yesterday!” It’s awesome that some I enjoyed as a child is also enjoyed by my children and I’m sure will continue to future generations. Lego will always be a part of our family.

Belinda N

Lego came back in to my life when my son turned 5 and he got the Lego Police Station for Christmas. We spent hours together on Christmas afternoon putting it together! Unfortunately back then he didn’t appreciate a fully built to spec lego set and promptly pulled it apart the next day to build something else! He is now 15 and we still enjoy building together – although now thankfully he leaves them built 😀 we are currently saving up for Optimus Prime and the Green Lamborghini. I hope we build Lego together forever.

Ben

I luckily never had a LEGO dark ages. My interest in LEGO has certainly fluctuated over the years however I don’t think I have ever fully withdrawn from the hobby. I think a big element of that is just how many fan sites like Bricking Around exist online. These communities help keep me engaged with LEGO as in the sometimes long periods between building new sets I am able to keep up to date on what others are building and add to my ever growing wanted list.

Craig K

As a kid I used to play with lego a lot, I had all sorts!! Space rocket, underwater base with crystals and my crowning glory…..a train set!! I loved that train set.
Fast forward 10 years, I sold it all to my friend for a low price that I don’t even remember. Sad times!!
Fast forward 15 years, my 2 year old son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2018. All went well to start with but at the end of his 2 year treatment plan he relapsed.
So January 2021 he underwent a bone marrow transplant, about a month before that he got a free bag of lego from the hospital & he sat and played with it for hours!!
So everyone got him some for Christmas, we saved some and took it to hospital with us and I found it was an incredible way to pass the time for him AND me!!
We spent 9 weeks as an inpatient in Westmead and by the time we left his collection had probably doubled.
Since then we’ve just been spending time playing with lego and he loves it.
I found my love for lego again and I couldn’t be happier that he loves it too!!!
The picture attached his the first thing we built together & he still plays with it today

Craig P

It was 2011. My son was old enough to not need any help building his Lego. In fact, he had asked me to stop helping him. I was gutted, as I realised it was not just bonding with my boy that had been happening. I actually loved building Lego. Fast forward a few weeks, and I am in Target. I walk past the toy section, and I see, like a neon billboard, something that I had so desperately wanted as a child. I had tried to build it many times, and epically failed. The parts I had just did not cut it. The set? 7965, the Millennium Falcon. The icon of a boy from 1977, right there in a set I could build! I stuck one under my arm, and headed straight for the checkout. I even forgot what it was that I was supposed to be there to get, I was so excited. I still have her on display to this day. She has a little space dust on her, but I can honestly say that was the turning point in my life, as I can pinpoint the exact moment that my AFOL obsession began.

Dillon

My first ever memory was getting LEGO at my second Birthday party in my Grandmas house with my mum and new-born sister, and I absolutely loved LEGO from that day onwards. I had a few sets growing up, and would usually get something for my Birthday as a child. Unfortunately life got really tough and my family could never afford anymore LEGO once I got to 11 years old. I missed it a lot, but understood the situation we were in. I worked really hard through school, and was the first in my family to go to Uni, with the goal of getting a degree and being able to support my family. I successfully finished my Bachelor of Commerce with Distinction and wanted to get myself something special to celebrate. It was right on my graduation day I saw the Lego Star Wars Super Star Destroyer 10221 on sale right before retirement. I bought it for myself straight away, and from that day since, have been able to buy LEGO again. As I’m an avid Star Wars fan since seeing it as a kid, the Gunship would be the perfect full circle moment haha! Thanks for the opportunity team!