Ian Allan

[Pacific231G]

 PECO attended the Toy Fair every year when I was editor of MRC and Sidney would tell me the same story each year, as to how he borrowed £100 off his Mum in order to buy RM. He would then remind me that the circulation was twice that of MRC (at its height I believe the circulation of RM nudged close to 100,000 a month). IA would pass his copy of RM round the building, often with the comment "Why can't we have all this advertising?"

CHRIS LEIGH

Slightly OT but going through a collection of early MRCs I've just been given I noticed in November 1944 a "Lineside Jotting" that  "Mr.S.C. Pritchard of (address given) Seaton, Devon, would like to meet others in the locality interested in small scale model railways."  That was just over a year before he filed his UK patent for the Simplex coupler and is the first reference I've come across to him though a patent search found that he had several earlier patents, unrelated to model railways, with the first in 1932 for an earthed bayonet lamp socket adaptor . 

[45669]

Like many others, my life would probably taken a completely different course if it hadn't been for Ian Allan and the ABCs.  An older cousin introduced me to the noble art of trainspotting and I got my first ABC c.1952; it's still upstairs somewhere.  Living in London meant that I could see locos from all of the four regions that served the London termini so a combined volume was essential.  I seem to remember that Father Christmas used to deliver one every year!

 

I only met Ian Allan once, and that was only briefly when he came round a Locospotters' Excursion that I was on.  So yes, we have a lot to thank him for.

 

Like others I gave up spotting as steam was being phased out and I took up gricing instead.  Something that I still do today.

[Michael Delamar]

Always liked this quote from him in 1990, 25mins30 seconds in...

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SHp5Nmj0-1c

[Ravenser]

I feel a certain temerity in commenting , as I never met him, but his contribution to railway enthusiasm in Britain was huge over several generations - there can hardly be anyone with an interest in railways who doesn't owe him something. The abcs , from the war years into the 1980s, were the foundation of trainspotting for generations. And as a publisher of railway books for many years Ian Allan dominated the field , to the extent that if you went to the railway section of a bookshop, 50%+ of the books would have been published by Ian Allan.

 

I was interested to see that the origin of abc was in fact the names of the 3 partners - because Allan Brett Cannon was , I believe, a well known London modelshop near London Bridge from the early 50s to the late 70s . I'd never guessed that he must have been the "Allan" - since the names are the same as those behind "abc". This perhaps explains Ian Allan bookshops' current interest in selling model railway items - for which , given the present dearth of city model shops , we must be grateful

[dibber25]

I feel a certain temerity in commenting , as I never met him, but his contribution to railway enthusiasm in Britain was huge over several generations - there can hardly be anyone with an interest in railways who doesn't owe him something. The abcs , from the war years into the 1980s, were the foundation of trainspotting for generations. And as a publisher of railway books for many years Ian Allan dominated the field , to the extent that if you went to the railway section of a bookshop, 50%+ of the books would have been published by Ian Allan.

 

I was interested to see that the origin of abc was in fact the names of the 3 partners - because Allan Brett Cannon was , I believe, a well known London modelshop near London Bridge from the early 50s to the late 70s . I'd never guessed that he must have been the "Allan" - since the names are the same as those behind "abc". This perhaps explains Ian Allan bookshops' current interest in selling model railway items - for which , given the present dearth of city model shops , we must be grateful

I think the model interest came mainly from Mr. Cannon - he was the only one I never met. 'Willie' Brett was sales director when I first worked for IA and I don't think he was an enthusiast - certainly not to the extent that IA was. There was undoubtedly a commercial interest in the model railway side as it was the only section of the hobby that might provide advertising revenue and that remains largely true to this day.

CHRIS LEIGH