The Invention of the Lego Brick
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2018
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Lego brick, one of the world's most popular toys, was invented in the small Danish town of Billund in 1958. Created by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, the plastic bricks can be combined in countless combinations and have sold in the billions. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the inventor's son, was ten at the time. He used to play in the company workshop and helped test early Lego models. Olga Smirnova spoke to Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen for Witness.
(Image: Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen with a Lego ship. Credit: Kristiansen family archive)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less searching |
| 0:25.7 | and a lot more auction. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.7 | Hello and welcome to the Witness Podcast from the BBC World Service with me August |
| 0:35.0 | Mirnova history as told by the people who were there. Today we are going |
| 0:39.8 | back to January 1958 when the LEGO break, as we know it now, was invented in the small Danish town of Belund. |
| 0:48.0 | I've been speaking to Keelkir Christiansen, the third generation owner of the LEGO group. |
| 0:54.8 | Bilund is a small town in rural Jutland in the west of Denmark, |
| 0:59.4 | where Keltkir Christianson's grandfather, O Ole, worked as a carpenter. |
| 1:05.0 | My grandfather, Ole Kiek Christiansen, he had a lot of good humour, he liked to make fun. |
| 1:12.0 | My grandfather was a skilled carpenter in the early 30s. Denmark |
| 1:19.6 | came into the crisis that actually hit most of the world. |
| 1:23.3 | So there was really very, very little to do, |
| 1:25.2 | especially here in this very rural part of Denmark. |
| 1:29.4 | So he started making household like stepladders and ironboard, but also using pieces of wood that he could |
| 1:37.8 | turn into a car or a truck or a toy for children. And that was how he made it through actually in those very difficult years, |
| 1:48.0 | bartering with the groceries, with the toys that he could take home something for the family to live on. |
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