In 1932, in a little town called Billund, a 41-year-old carpenter by the name of Ole Kirk Kristiansen was in deep trouble.
It was three years after the Wall Street Crash. The financial tidal wave of the Great Depression had torn through Denmark, wiping out Ole’s joinery business. Everyone — farmers, labourers, dairy-workers, carpenters — was out of work. Bankruptcy beckoned, and with a wife and four young sons to support, Ole needed a miracle. So he did something mad. He became a toymaker.
Using government loans, he retooled his workshop to make wooden toys. For his new company, he chose a new name: Lego, a contraction of the Danish leg godt, “play well”. Ninety-three years later, Ole’s plucky little start-up has become the world’s most valuable toy company, with an annual turnover of £8.6bn. Making toys, it seems, wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.