You may remember Meccano. Strips of green perforated steel, red steel plates, gold wheels and pulleys, axles, string and rubber bands. We were not a wealthy family, so my first set was a Set 3. You could buy sets from the entry-level Set 1 right up to the full Monty: Set 10, complete with varnished wooden box. However, even in the 1950s the marketing men were there. Buy upgrade set 3A and you get a Set 4. Next, buy set 4A ... you get the idea. I got up to Set 6 with the additional clockwork motor kit. Birthday and Christmas presents sorted.

My cousin Brian was an only child and had the full Set 10 in its wooden box. He never used it — just got it out, cleaned it and checked the inventory to make sure I hadn’t stolen anything.

I grew up with Meccano; built cranes, trains, cars, lorries and bridges, all fastened together with small brass nuts and bolts assembled using Meccano spanners and screwdrivers. By the time I reached about twelve I had, I thought, outgrown it. I've still got it upstairs in the loft. My daughters never took to it; they were the Lego generation. It's waiting for a grandchild, male or female, with a taste for construction.

Obviously, I never did grow out of Meccano. I just got bigger sets. At school in metalwork I made garden tools, a hacksaw and some racing footrests for my motorcycle. At engineering college I studied stresses and strains, girders, struts and ties, tension and compression, but most of all, fixings. End-bolted steel frames. No little brass nuts and bolts, but 16mm- and 20mm-high strength friction grip bolts. Later, buildings sprang from my drawing board, bridges, lattice girders, Universal beams and columns, RSJs, but always fixed. Bolted to each other or to the ground. Bolted tie bars, wind braces, Zed purlins for roof and wall sheets... it's all big Meccano.

Now I no longer use a drawing board or slide rule. I use AutoCad on the computer and structural analysis programs designing using finite element analysis.

Now that I have retired, I have become a bit left-behind. No wobbly bridges or Swiss Re buildings for me. But I still do Meccano. My sheds and garage are racked out using Dexion frames, a slotted steel angle system held together with nuts and bolts. The garden fences have steel wind braces bolted to the posts. Even my little box trailer has a bolted steel frame.

The little boy lives on in this man.

First-Person Stories Archive

Phil Yabutz

09.03.06 Front Page

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