I will draw a discreet veil over the next 8-10 years of this modeller’s life. They are those years in which trains are customarily shelved while we get our teeth into other matters, such as exams, education, girlfriends, parties and assorted beverages.

Perhaps I should re-phrase that.

My long-serving, bruised and battered train set, which had still never seen a board to call its own, was boxed up (for those few items that still had boxes). It had put in a momentous innings over 10 years or more and was now being given an expenses-paid holiday in the roof. The Princess Victoria, Dock Shunter and all the other rag-tag motive power on my roster were set aside for the future, mostly still working after a fashion.

Gratuitous image from my Instamatic - D24 and another Peak sandwich a Bubble Car and a herd of Brutes at Cardiff Central, mid-70's

We moved again, back to Bath, and I subsequently moved to Newcastle upon Tyne for university.

My railway memories of this era are few and far between. First encounters with a few European Railways, the rise of the Inter City 125, repeatedly travelling on a proper cross-country train from Temple Meads to Newcastle Central and return (usually Mk 1’s behind a Peak), the Deltics at Newcastle, the arrival of the Tyne and Wear Metro, revisiting my old hunting grounds in Glasgow (for shipyard work), catching a distant glimpse of the iconic Class 76’s (I believe this addiction to Woodhead electrics may have been started by the Tri-ang “Electra” looming out of some early catalogue), seeing the occasional steam special… the rest of the time was spent pursuing career paths and more often dreaming up ways to impress the other sex.

I never quite loved these, but they were impressive. Indeed they still are, I travelled behind them this week, some 40 years after they were introduced. Admittedly they have been re-engined, and no longer scream, but they have put in a very good shift. Bath Spa in 1985, taken with an Olympus Trip.

I embarked upon a career, and can clearly remember being in Hull when I happened upon a model shop window. Things had changed. New and different models, new manufacturers beginning to appear. I looked in that window for a long time, then walked away, little knowing that the seed had been re-sown.

It germinated in Beattie’s, in Lewisham, several months later when I left the shop with a Lima Small Prairie No. 5574 in BR black, my first locomotive for about 10 years. It was by no means a classic, I think I envisaged simply displaying it somewhere. I had no experience of Lima at all, they had appeared during my absence.

And so started Phase 2 of modelling, with this simple, somewhat over-high, yet rugged little locomotive

Before matters could develop, however, the Prairie and I moved to Portugal for three years.