Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[Nearholmer]

I've just checked, and that Ladybird book is younger than I thought: 1958.

 

I suppose we can allow a year for creating all the illustrations, and preparing it for print, so call it 1956.

 

It just about scrapes into my arbitrarily defined "old fashioned" period which, as discussed previously, ends in 1957 with the assumed cessation of production by Precision Models of Northampton, who made the run-of-the-mill BL trains. Hornby were still making tinplate 0 gauge after that though, the No.50 series of wagons didn't come out until 1957, so we can afford to be a bit elastic.

 

What the book isn't, though, is a representation of the pre "you've never had it so good" moment, in fact it coincides neatly with that speech, and I think we can demote Mr Ladybird slightly - he possibly didn't need to be quite so senior as we thought to be able to lavish his family with such material comforts.

 

Of course, Mr Hornby-Dublo might have had fingers in many pies. In fact, I'm beginning to think that there might be something of the motor trade about him, rather than the manufacturing engineer/manager. Its the hair, and that slightly over-enthusiastic look in his eyes. He could easily be trying to convince someone to buy the latest Jag.

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Nearholmer

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, brianusa said:

'out West'

From where we lived in Norf Lunnon, it was "up Town".

[Donw]

Born in 49 I have only the memories of a small child of the end of that era but also the things told to me at that time. I had my own ration book which included Orange Juice. By 1951 the rationing was going and things were looking brighter.  The music had a lot of US stuff you could hardly miss Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney and I did have to suffer my Dads favourite Alma Cogan but there was some good stuff. Les Paul and Mary Ford I remember How High the Moon. Nat King Cole may have sung slushy ballards but he could really sing. By the end of the decade things were changing Bill Halley was around and Presley in the US. Within a couple of years I was buying Johnny Duncan's Last Train to San Fernado then Bill's Rock Around the Clock.

 

Don

[brianusa]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

It just about scrapes into my arbitrarily defined "old fashioned" period which, as discussed previously, ends in 1957 with the assumed cessation of production by Precision Models of Northampton, who made the run-of-the-mill BL trains. Hornby were still making tinplate 0 gauge after that though, the No.50 series of wagons didn't come out until 1957, so we can afford to be a bit elastic.

 

We're obviously reaching the limit of our time machine but it coincides with the end of pop music for me.  I did buy RATC by Bill Haley, though with the end of understandable lyrics, that was it.  From then on it was show music and classics although there are some artists that are listenable, I can even play some! 

        A few years later, I returned to collecting trains which brings it all up to date and back on subject!

      Brian.

Edited November 23, 2019 by brianusa

[rockershovel]

23 hours ago, Annie said:

I've known the odd pipe smoking woman in my time.

 

With acknowledgements to the late Al Capp..

 

[rockershovel]

My parents certainly regarded the 1945-54 period with mixed feelings. Blitz damage was still extensive in London, with chronic housing shortages (the shabby, squalid subdivided houses are graphically depicted in Richard Attenborough’s “10 Rillington Place”). Rationing continued to make life difficult for the family business (on my mother’s side). 

 

My late father was fully employed for the first time in his life, he was a “£10 tourist” at one time - although Australia refused him residence because he had been divorced, and had ongoing medical problems from his war injuries. It’s difficult to find figures, but over a million British nationals emigrated to Australia in the years after WW2, over 2/3 of them before about 1962 and probably another 700,000 plus to Canada and the USA. Given the working population at the time, the signs of a lack of confidence in the country were clear to see. 

 

 

 

 

[Northroader]

A good look at how London looked straight after the war is the Ealing comedy “Hue and Cry” brought out in 1947. A kids adventure, but all happening in bombed out surroundings. I haven’t put a link in as it all down load with whatever software you’ve got. Where I was, we didn’t see anything much, the most vivid memory was around 1950, when our scout troop went camping on the Isle of Man, IoMSP boat from Liverpool to Douglas. All the way out down the Mersey, there was this sad row of something like twenty odd cargo ships that had made it across the Atlantic in convoys, but hit mines dropped by aircraft on the final stretch. They had been put off the channel and just had the upperworks  visible.

[brianusa]

"Hope and Glory" is a film that best represents my era of the forties and the war years!

      Brian.

[F-UnitMad]

23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Of course, Mr Hornby-Dublo might have had fingers in many pies

Great choice of words, Sir!!!

[Donw]

I mentioned How High the Moon in my last post now it seems to be on a permanent tape loop in the back of my brain.  I have been trying to work out what I can squeeze into a 140 inch by 108 inch room. Of course going for fine scale the tightest curves I can get away with are about 4ft. I could get a lot more in in old fashioned 0 gauge I suspect.

Don 

[brianusa]

Could someone tell me what the OPTIONS are and what HIDE does please?  They don't appear on all posts!

    Brian.

       

[rockershovel]

6 hours ago, Northroader said:

A good look at how London looked straight after the war is the Ealing comedy “Hue and Cry” brought out in 1947. A kids adventure, but all happening in bombed out surroundings. I haven’t put a link in as it all down load with whatever software you’ve got. Where I was, we didn’t see anything much, the most vivid memory was around 1950, when our scout troop went camping on the Isle of Man, IoMSP boat from Liverpool to Douglas. All the way out down the Mersey, there was this sad row of something like twenty odd cargo ships that had made it across the Atlantic in convoys, but hit mines dropped by aircraft on the final stretch. They had been put off the channel and just had the upperworks  visible.

 

Also “Passport to Pimlico”...

[rockershovel]

On 21/11/2019 at 09:47, Northroader said:

Not just kids either, Felix.

 

I notice that the isolated hillock, requiring tunnelling, is a geological feature also encountered in the New World!

[Nearholmer]

Brian - ‘hide’ hides your post, renders it invisible. Useful when posts accidentally duplicate, or when I say things I wish I hadn’t. I can’t remember what they other options are, but they should be available on all posts you may yourself.

Graham Greene novels, and films thereof are another source of post-war atmosphere, very different from the “cheerful cockney” portrayals of course. ‘The End of the Affair’ is absolutely brilliant, and the 1999 film I thought caught it superbly  - must watch again, because sometimes films give away the time they were made, rather than when they are set, too much.

 

Doesn't ‘Brief Encounter’ date from the same period?

 

And, the enforced downfall of Alan Turin took place then too. 
 

All instances of buttoned-upness and repression, which seems to have been a major part of the social fabric.

 

[Northroader]

The railway bits of Brief Encounter were done around Carnforth at the end of the LMS era. A Patriot comes charging through on an express, and a Stanier 4MT lurks around a lot. Then the good doctor goes into the refreshment room for a whisky, and the cinema audience creases up at the price.

Looking at a clip of Hue and Cry last night, there was a tantalising glimpse of a SR 0-4-4T ? shifting an ECS along. Passport to Pimlico doesn’t show the bomb damaged streets so well.

[Edwardian]

52 minutes ago, Northroader said:

The railway bits of Brief Encounter were done around Carnforth at the end of the LMS era. A Patriot comes charging through on an express, and a Stanier 4MT lurks around a lot. Then the good doctor goes into the refreshment room for a whisky, and the cinema audience creases up at the price.

Looking at a clip of Hue and Cry last night, there was a tantalising glimpse of a SR 0-4-4T ? shifting an ECS along. Passport to Pimlico doesn’t show the bomb damaged streets so well.

 

IIRC, Brief Encounter was a wartime film.  Perhaps this is why, despite the sense of a rather Surrey Suburban setting, the Carnforth station signs give the game away, naming many Northern destinations.  This also explains why a stone bridge in the Lake District only seems to a nearby picnic destination from Surrey!

[Nearholmer]

1945, so right at the start of the decade that I’m interested in for now. ‘The End of the Affair’ is set at roughly the same time,  maybe a year or two later IIRC, but was published in 1951. Turing took his own life in 1954.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

It’s just like Birlstone with a slight overlay of grit.

and Celia Johnson a nice well spoken girl, just the sort you could take home to tea with mum on a Sunday afternoon:

Edited November 24, 2019 by Northroader

[Edwardian]

5 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

In my defence, that's nearly 800 pages ago! 

 

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

It’s just like Birlstone with a slight overlay of grit.

and Celia Johnson a nice well spoken girl, just the sort you could take home to tea with mum on a Sunday afternoon:

 

Ah, be still my beating heart!

 

A love that calls to me from the depths of my tweedy heart!

 

I'll have to go for a lie down.

[Northroader]

And remember to play a bit of Rachmaninov’s Piano doodah with it..

Edited November 24, 2019 by Northroader

[Nearholmer]

There was, possibly still is, a model railway shop on Carnforth station, and when I was studying as a semi-remote student with Lancaster Uni, it was one of my Wednesday afternoon treat options to go there.

 

I always lingered, in hope of an encounter conducted in emotionally halting RP, but was c40 years to late, unfortunately.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

28 minutes ago, Northroader said:

And remember to play a bit of Rachmaninov’s Piano doodah with it..

 

Ah, yes, the famous Second Doodah

 

34 minutes ago, Northroader said:

And remember to play a bit of Rachmaninov’s Piano doodah with it..

 

Here, at the start and end of the final scene (Edwardian weeping buckets at this point)

 

 

So, here's the late great Victoria Wood to cheer us up again ....

 

 

 

 

 

[friscopete]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

All instances of buttoned-upness and repression, which seems to have been a major part of the social fabric.

 

My mother wouldnt let me wear jeans on a Sunday well into the 60's .it was " what would the neighbors think ? "

[TT-Pete]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

IIRC, Brief Encounter was a wartime film. 

 

Correct, released late 1945 but filmed 1944 onwards. With the Luftwaffe being considerably diminished and their French bases being pushed ever further back eastwards since D-day in June 1944, it was felt that air-raid blackout measures could be broken in Carnforth, particularly for night filming, as it would be safely out of range...

 

[rockershovel]

Doesn’t Alan Turing constitute a special case of Godwin’s Law by now?