After a bit of a frantic week with some last minute control panel modifications to

Set up on Friday night was only available from 7.30pm and wasn’t helped by the lack of power to the socket on the wall that I supposed to be using, resulting in a 45 minute delay whilst an alternative cable was run into the hall. All the point motors bar one end of the double slip worked fine although there appears to some slight feed back somewhere as some motors would change when they were not supposed to (something to look into). Having transported the layout around the country, it was ironic that this show quite close to home was the one to suffer from broken wires the most, but use of a test meter these were found and by opening time on the Saturday morning all was working well enough to keep the visitors entertained.

The

Exhibiting always results in different things that the shows are remembered for and for this exhibition two things will come immediately to mind.

Firstly, it was the first time my young nephew Alexander has operated the layout. Once on his step to be able see over the backscene he could not be moved, except briefly for lunch. Originally it was just thought that he could drive the trains but by the middle of the afternoon he was virtually single handed operating the entire fiddle yard!

Secondly, the visit of the almost the entire family of the late Brian Grant, a school friend of my Dad, including to the very pleasant surprise of myself and Dad Thelma his wife. She came armed with a photograph album that included pictures of my own Dad from 1955! Brian like my Dad is immortalised on Fisherton Sarum in their school days trying to sneak into the shed, just as they did at Salisbury.

This is extract from my blog at