The most precious things....
Entry posted by GWMark
498 views
Having just returned from another weekend of modelling at Missenden Abbey I intended to write up my progress on my workbench thread, then, last night I looked at it and realised I have not made an entry since the last time I was at Missenden, back in the Spring. This got me thinking, my plan had been to show off the progress with the model I had taken and talk about the events of the weekend, but I soon began to think that this gap in my workbench was more indicative of something else, at was at that point that domestic duties overtook me and the updated was curtailed.
It is not true to say that I have not done any railway modelling since the spring, I have a layout thread that proves otherwise, baseboard building, track building and laying, electronics construction etc. It is true that since the summer started all I have managed is to build an RFID CBus interface and do a new point control board for the panel of Fisherton Sarum, so not a lot and not what many people would recognise as modelling.
This this made me think, is the reason I enjoy these Missenden weekends the fact that I get almost an entire weekend of nothing but time to build my models or do I get more from it?
It is certainly true that if I would try to sit down on Friday evening at home, spread all my tools around the kitchen table that I use as a workbench, and concentrate on nothing but my models until Sunday afternoon, only stopping for meals and to sleep, I would very soon find that I was either deeply unpopular or worst within the house - in reality it would never happen. Also I would feel guilty about it and stop, clear-up and generally not concentrate on the modelling tasks. So from that point of view Missenden offers me something I could not get at home. But is this the only thing that makes me go back again and again?
In the feedback session at the end of the weekend Chris Langdon came up with a quote that is rather apt, "Missenden is like a country club" - it is true that the surroundings in the Buckinghamshire countryside are rather nice - the Sunday morning coffee break on the lawn watching the red kites soar around in the crisp autumn sun was rather pleasant. There is also the fact, that as a serial attendee it is a time to renew friendships with others that you see maybe twice a year.
The other thing about Missenden, and perhaps the one that is most obvious, is that you have experts tutors on-hand to take your problems to or ask questions of. This year was no exception, but saw a slight change around and was perhaps all the better for it. I always do the same thing at Missenden, and have done for a number of years now, 4mm locomotive construction. When I first went, it was Tony Wright that was the tutor for this session, after the well known and sad events in his private life. He was followed by Tim Shackleton for the last few years, this bought a new perspective on some aspects and was an interesting change. This Autumn, the 4mm and the 7mm locomotive construction took place in one large room, this meant we had two tutors on hand instead of the usual one per subject. The 7mm group was nominally tutored by Kevin Wilson and the 4mm by Barry Norman - in reality these two where shared between the two groups. Kevin was a new name to me, and I had to say was excellent at what he did and showed a lot of patience with Daniel, my now 16 year old son, who is also a serial Missenden attendee. Barry was better known to me for his scenic work, but this weekend proved to me that there is a lot more the Barry than the scenery side of things - his skill and advice proved to be my saviour when I discovered that the cab I has attached to my Duke back in the Spring was not square.
When I reached one of those despair moments at the thought of having to dismantle the whole thing Barry stepped in with some help and advice and we managed to square it up without having to restore to major deconstruction work. The result is pleasing and allowed me to progress a little more with the Duke.
I also replaced the gearbox with one that would not intrude into the cab of the loco, this also turned out to be a little harder than expected and took the entire Friday evening and spread into the Saturday morning. Progress on the Duke may not look spectacular, but I turned a bit of a corner with it, and can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.
The other aspect of the weekend, and one that I hinted to above, was the attendance of my son Daniel. Although we share the hobby, and go to exhibitions and clubnights together it is rare that we sit down next to each other for an entire weekend and work side by side and talk without the usual teenage issues - I know he will hate me for saying that! He also progressed on a new project, a High Level 14xx chassis kit. He made of lot of use of Kevin time, so much so that he became known within the group as "Kevin's shadow' by the Sunday morning.
I think that for a still relatively novice modeller he did a pretty good job of what is a complex kit to build, I will leave that to others to decide however since I am probably slightly bias.
So what are the most precious things from the weekend that I refer to in the title of this post? Probably not the part complete model I walked away with, although that is important, but more the time away from all the pressures of "normal" life, the "quality" time spent with my son, the friendships of Missenden and the ability to call on some quite extraordinary talent and experience within the hobby.
I really enjoy my weekends at Missenden and hope they can continue for years to come - I realise of course that a time will come when these are solitary outings for me, but I want to make the most of sharing these experiences with my son while I can. A big thank you to those that organise the event, I would encourage any of you who are maybe thinking about taking part in this or similar weekends to take the plunge - I know I was unsure at the first one, but now look forward to the next one every time.
-
4
3 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now