Cape Town Daily Photo

Lego – fun for all ages

Come on now, admit it, everyone loves playing with Lego... don't they? After chatting with several friends who have kids I've decided that guys (and perhaps a few girls) have kids only so that they can justify buying Lego. I believe that our stand-in photographer Mandy has no kids and is unashamedly a Lego-lover (which is why we have this photo today!).

An interesting thing that I discovered from the Wikipedia article on Lego is that Ole Kirk Christiansen, Lego's inventor, actually used a patented design by Hilary Harry Fisher Page called Kiddicraft. Kiddicraft was developed in the 1930s, while Lego materialised in the 1940s. Lego (due to its remarkable success) eventually succeeded in purchasing the rights to Kiddicraft in 1981.

Aren't we all lucky that Ole "leveraged" the Kiddicraft design? Were it not for this small part of history, it's possible that millions would never have experienced the joy of Lego!