When I was a child my parents bought me some meccano for Christmas. I think I would have been about 10 years old. I loved it. I would usually build cars or maybe a boat or a plane, but because the cars would actually roll along like a real car then that was what I would usually build. What I really wanted was a scale model that was an actual working thing. But because of my fathers shift work, and his poor health, he couldn’t indulge that kind of time in the youngest of his four children. And meccano did a good job of keeping me entertained and occupied.
So for several years, every birthday or Christmas some meccano would turn up and I was always pleased to get it. I would even buy it myself if Ihad any gift money. I really liked meccano.
I would also get airfix models. If you don’t know, these were plastic self assembly scale models of usually military vehicles, aircraft, boats and artillery. You’d get a set of clearly printed pictorial instructions and a list of parts and some glue and off you’d go. You had to be careful and follow the instructions. Once that glue was set there was no going back. You followed the instructions or disaster and disappointment would be yours. This was ingrained into me by my older brother who had been down this path. When I was small, we had shared a bedroom. Our ceiling was festooned with his model aircraft, carefully hung from cotton and arranged in such a way as to replicate a World War 2 dogfight between British and German forces. I remember that at least one of the planes had cotton wool stuck to it, painted to replicate smoke and flames billowing from it as it dived away to its doom. My brother was quite the keen modeller and also something of an artist.
Anyway, one year, I think for Christmas a new box of meccano turned up and I was naturally pleased to get it. It was for an age range slightly older than I had reached, something like 14 + when I was still 12. But I was an old hand by now. I was sure it was within my scope to build this stuff.
It was definitely a more advanced kit. It had specialised parts like large scale wheels and a pre made truck cab. When I looked at the instruction booklet it was definitely a step up from what I was used to. I selected the simplest construction, a tipper truck and made a start.
It was, for me,a complex build. After about two hours I had made the chassis and built the tipping mechanism. It was going to take another long session of construction before I could actually play with the thing. But the delay made for a greater expectation of performance when the build was complete.
I got stuck in again the following day. The build was coming together. The cab was on. The tipping part worked. Time to add the wheel assembly. I looked at the instructions. The wheels wouldn’t go on. I was at a dead end. This wasn’t an uncommon experience. It was easy to put bolt two components together in the wrong way or assemble a component using the wrong holes and the build wouldn’t go together. I was frustrated. I went back over the construction and began checking to find my error. I took some of the truck to pieces and checked the instructions. No error. I went through the instructions line by line. No error. I reassembled the bits to see if I had imagined my mistake. They still wouldn’t go together. I pored over the diagrams. My work matched the pictures. No mistakes. I was stumped. This was really bad. I approached my support network also known as my family. I was and still am the youngest of four children, so advice, guidance, and interference had always been plentiful. My principle advisers were my brother, the eldest, my nearest sister, third eldest and 2 and a half years older than me and my father. My brother is nine years older than me and had by this stage I think moved out of the family home. He had encouraged me in boyish hobbies ever since I can remember. He had also had meccano when he was of an age. However he wasn’t available what with him only being around when he visited.
My sister was too readily available. She would have been around 14 or 15 by this time and while we had been close when younger and would be close again later in life, this wasn’t a time when we were close. The differences between a boy of 12 and a girl/woman of 15 is huge what with biology being what it is. The size of the chasm was I would say at its broadest and was still a relatively recent thing. My sister had gone from being my principle ally to being a turncoat presumed adult. In her eyes I had gone from being the junior partner in the team of the two youngest to a child who was beneath her. She wouldn’t hesitate to goad me into fury for her own amusement is how it seemed to me.
My father was a sporadic presence in my life at this time through no fault of his own. He had always been a shift worker and to add to this he had recently been in and out of hospital with rheumatoid arthritis which had developed some debilitating complications. While he was usually the most approachable person he just wasn’t there to be approached.
A note for the internet generation. This was in a time before the internet existed. So there wasn’t the instant support network that there is today. Every generation looks at the next one and says “you don’t know how lucky you are”. This is usually followed by “in my day we didn’t have all this ( fill in latest innovation here ). You’ve got it easy. You don’t know you’re born”. This has never been more true than right now and it’s only getting worse. I hope I’m alive to hear what you’re going to say to the next generation. N.B. You’ll still have my contempt for having the audacity to be younger than me.
So anyway, I was stuck with my meccano project and had no one to turn to who could help. I didn’t want to give up on all the work I had put in so I didn’t want to take it apart and start another project. Anyway I thought if I’m not good enough to complete this simple one, how could I possibly try another, more complex one? My favourite toy had become a source of frustration. So I put it away and tried to ignore the hole that had opened up in my life.
Then one day, my brother visited. I can’t really remember why exactly. Possibly a laundry visit, but he was suddenly available and so I asked him to help me with the meccano. He, however, wasn’t really keen to help. He only had limited time and probably had to be somewhere else so he couldn’t sit down with me and help. So instead he told me something that changed my life. He said that meccano instructions often had mistakes in them. He said that these mistakes were put into the instructions on purpose. The reason they were put in was to challenge young minds to come up with their own engineering solutions and thereby make them into resourceful and capable individuals.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I was horrified. At first I literally couldn’t believe him. I couldn’t understand the logic. As the youngest member of the family I was told always to follow the rules. Do as you are told. Parental guidance. Grandparents. Older sisters, and my older brother, always follow the rules. Airfix models, follow the rules. Follow the instructions or disaster would result. I countered his remarks saying that the instructions in my other meccano (meccani?) didn’t have these deliberate errors. I should know. I built them. But he said that this was a kit for older children, more developed minds and the mistakes were there to test them. To me this was a red rag to a bull. As the youngest I had been repeatedly told by my brother and sisters, especially recently by my nearest in age sister, that I was too young. I couldn’t take part, I couldn’t go along and I’m not allowed to because I’m too young. I had literally heard it all my life. My brother hadn’t actually said those words, and I don’t think he had intended to inculcate the feeling, but the implication was there.
Then he did the worst thing possible. He left. He had to. Other things to do. So I was left alone having been devastated to cope with this betrayal.
In the days that followed I convinced myself of many things in an attempt to make sense of it all. The first thing I thought was that my brother had just plain lied to me. He didn’t want to help me because he didn’t have time, so he must have lied. I know that doesn’t actually make sense but I was 12 and emotionally illiterate.
I asked other available family members confirm or deny my brothers outrageous remarks. They weren’t able to help. They pretty much all said that Jonathan wouldn’t lie. But to me the alternative just wasn’t credible. Instructions were there to be followed otherwise what was the point? Find me another example where that was the case. ( I was 12 remember and hadn’t had a girlfriend)
I don’t think I touched meccano again. The part built tippertruck was never completed. I put it away. I didn’t take it to pieces I just left it. Over the years it disappeared, along with the rest of my meccano collection. I think my parents saw that I wasn’t interested any more, not guessing the reason and after a time gave it away to some charity shop or to some child of a friend. In time I forgot about it.
Then a few years ago a television programme brought it all back. James May did a series about the toys of his childhood. He featured Hornby trains. He featured scalextric. He featured airfix models. He featured meccano.
I had forgotten meccano. Decades had passed and thoughts of these things hadn’t crossed my mind. The frustrations had been washed away by time, girlfriends, beer, cars, jobs, mortgages, bereavements, beer, and girlfriends.
Meccano, I thought as I watched the programme, I used to have some of that. I used to love it I thought. I watched, revelling in the nostalgia of it all, as I had with the other excellent programmes in the series. And then James May repeated the words of my brother from over forty years previously. Meccano put deliberate mistakes into their instructions to encourage young minds to find their own engineering solutions. And creeping up behind me like an unwelcome proctologist, the sense of betrayal returned.
It was definitely an unusual feeling to have that specific emotion return to me after all that time. The upset wasn’t as bad. But there it was, like a kidney stone in a jar. The pain that it represents has long gone but the stone remains. The instructions were wrong. I could forgive myself.
Having wrenched this information from within, I find myself doubting the abilities of my younger traumatised self. I have therefore searched for a meccano set to enable me to build the tipper truck and see if I replicate the error. I’m not sure if this will do any good. If I find the error and I cant find a solution then what does that say about me and the 40 odd years of experience I have since gained. If I build the thing perfectly first time then what on earth was all the fuss about all those years ago? And what did my 12 year old self really throw away when he rejected meccano and all that it could teach? So I need to build it, find the error, find a solution and then put it on a shelf and also put it behind me.
I found one on eBay and clicked buy it now. A strange calm has descended.
Well now. It turns out that this as much a tale of false memory as it is childhood frustraition. I have built the offending model following the instructions and I have found an error. It has nothing to do with fitting the wheels.
There is a clear and obvious error in the construction which has produced further memories. Because I now recall (falsely or not) that I spotted this problem last time around, about 40 years ago. Because this problem is caused early in the construction the logical thing to do is to take it all to bits and start again, which I recall not doing first time around. I do remember trying a short cut method of trying to remove the piece which the instructions tell you to put in backwards, and turn it around while holding the model in a shape which will allow the piece to be put back without all the other bits going out of alignment. I recall trying this shortcut method and failing and losing the will to carry on as described earlier.
This time around, largely because my wife when I told her I was going to spend some time playing with my meccano, went quiet, in a completely “I’m ok with this, you do what you want” way, I went for the shortcut method this time as well. And not to spin out the drama it worked. I have built my meccano tipper truck.
I have not high fived myself, partially because I find such unnecessarily showy displays of congratulation utterly against my character, but mostly because Iam 40 years older and have learned a little subtlety. The shortcut method which I tried unsuccessfully before worked this time because I am not the ham fisted adolescent I was.
So that’s it. I am not fundamentally changed by this. I became the man I am now partially because of that failure as a boy. I have rediscovered the quiet pleasure in following some instructions and building a thing. But then I got that a while ago when I recently bought some self assembly furniture.
So what would I say to that boy from 40 years ago? I’d certainly offer help. But if Itried to do it for him I don’t think he’d want that. I could say to him that what he’s s trying to do is the right thing. But the subtlety needed in this case can be learned, but not taught.
What I can say is that I’ve indulged in a nostalgia bath and enjoyed it.
My Hot Air 