aberdare

I was born in Somerset during the 50's while staying at my grandmothers cottage after my father returned from a posting in Berlin. We were to spend many periods there between further postings abroad and also summer holidays and it was within view of the mainline.

My father was a keen modeller and was always keen to show me the 4-6-0s which were his favourites and we spent a lot of time watching trains or talking to drivers and fireman at Castle Cary or Paddington on our travels. So the seed of modelling GWR was sown.

Once my teenage years were out of the way and life started to settle down I saw my father struggling to start a Jamieson kit of a 4-6-0 County, so I offered to build it for him and I was hooked on kit building then as well.

It was at that time I noticed there was a lot more to the GWR than the 4-6-0s, Prairies and Panniers etc that were the old mans favourites and I had been familiar with since my youth. These others started to fascinate me, so a lot of reading led me to model the turn of the century and up to 1914. I soon realised that this covered far too many variants of livery and decided to go for circa 1905. This period give or take a couple of years allows me to model Deans and Churchwards stock plus a bit of Armstrong. I find it a period of great change that allows for a wide variety of items and liveries.

I had not had a layout since 1984, apart from a brief period in 2002-04, all of which were broken up due to job change and house moves. Now that I am settled the kits will be built and a layout produced to run them on. I had to take early retirement to care for the wife (Secondary progressive MS) so I am glad that I stocked up with kits while working as I now have plenty of time but a small budget, I am now building my layout again - Hemyock & Tiverton Junction - and it will keep me busy for a good few years yet.

Linda, my wife of 40 years sadly passed away on January 5th 2019 so my time is now my own, I shall  be claiming a bright sunny south facing room as my new hobby area and once organised hope to progress projects in much the same way as I did when I first joined RMweb. Hopefully this will see the layout nearing completion much quicker than I thought.

Jim