Introduction

Meccano is a legendary, beautiful construction toy system created in 1901 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. It spread worldwide and was for decades a shared language and culture embraced by millions of children and many adults. It is documented in great detail by many excellent websites; www.alansmeccano.org is a good starting point. This blog is a chronicle of my own Meccano experiences. I hope that some of them are helpful or encouraging to other burgeoning Meccano nuts.

I had some Meccano growing up in Spain in the 1970s. Meccano was already long past its heyday (it struggles on to this day, in a debased form, but the less said of that the better). Nonetheless it made a very deep impression. I particularly remember one display model in the now defunct Galerias Preciados in Madrid: a 2-foot cube, as I remember it, full of mechanical assemblies and contraptions chugging away to no discernible purpose other than transfixing passing 8-year-olds. But Meccano was expensive and hard to find, and I never had even a fraction of the parts needed to replicate such a marvel. I continually dreamed up gadgets to build and continually ran out of parts a quarter of the way there, and gave up by age 12 or so.

Following an apparently common trajectory, Meccano crossed my mind again 32 years later and I was delighted to discover that it was still going strong as an adult hobby. There are great websites (www.nzmeccano.com, meccanoindex.co.uk), a lively mailing list (Spanner), thriving Meccano clubs in many countries, and impressive yearly exhibitions (Skegex, Magic of Meccano). There is a worldwide community of Meccano fans full of knowledge and eagerness to share it. Not bad for a besotted father's brainwave on a train more than a century ago.

So here we are, the passion burning unabated after two years. It is very hard to describe quite why Meccano gives me such satisfaction. It is little more than bits of metal with holes, and the maker movement has gone far beyond what is possible within the confines of pure Meccano. I'll have to ponder its particular appeal and romance more deeply. But enough for now.