In the mid-80s Tomy brought out a range of toys for boys that mixed the thrill of building with dinosaurs and robots. Sounds mad but it was a thing and it was called Zoids.

Being a child at the time, I was gifted the flagship Zoid – Zoidzilla -by my eldest brother when I was probably about 10 years old. It was constructed and lived a happy dusty life through my teen years sat proudly on top of my dressers before being relocated to a bedsit in my mid twenties where it took pride of place on my display unit.

Eventually I got involved with girls, got a good job and moved out of my crumby bedsit to begin life with Mrs Gnomepants v1.0. At this stage, Zoidzilla was dismantled, bagged into component parts and boxed up for safe keeping. Tucked away in an old B&Q storage chest and moved from house to house 5 times over a period of about 23 years.

Today I fetched him out of his little box and rebuilt him.

Some bits missing to time and he’s not mobile at all now but his lights still work and his little pilot is still sat inside

He now sits proudly on my display unit next to my racist globe piggy bank and my 3D printed rocket

My next project reboot will be the Airfix spitfire I started building in 2006 shortly before my move to Barnsley