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C J Freezer's own layout


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It was probably also about ‘target audience’.

 

I get the impression that ‘then’ model railways was a huge hobby for boys and youngish men, so plans that worked for that constituency were good. ‘Now’, with the usual exceptions that prove the rule, it is a hobby for, to quote James May, sad, nostalgic middle-aged blokes. To be sure, there were older railway modellers in 1955, guys who’d been into it for donkeys years, but they didn’t need CJF to draw plans for them; they puffed their pipes and wrote articles for him to print.

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Brush up your Shakespeare, as someone once said! The whole point of the "pound of flesh" bond, as established by Portia, was that no drop of blood could be spilled in redeeming it - hence Shylock's victory in court over Antonio.

Sorry, I've struggled with Shakespeare. I remember doing Macbeth at school, but perhaps that was because I was living in Scotland at the time!

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I think your getting close. CJF edited his last RM in March 1978 (was it really that long ago?) and it does NOT appear as PECO in that issue. So its something started by John Brewer. Don't have time now, but I'll do some research later.

An update here.

 

On checking some back issues, John Brewer was not listed as 'Editor' until March 1980, prior to that he was listed as 'Associate Editor'. Exactly what the difference is, I don't know - a pay rise, maybe?

 

As for PECO, I have found instances back to January 1973! So its being going on longer than I earlier posted. But I'm tired of this research for now. :O

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I think your getting close. CJF edited his last RM in March 1978 (was it really that long ago?) and it does NOT appear as PECO in that issue. So its something started by John Brewer. Don't have time now, but I'll do some research later.

 

Hi Kevin.

I'm afraid I was looking at the wrong gap in my collection of bound volumes and the change from Peco happened earlier than I'd thought (I've corrected my post #91 to reflect that). It was actually sometime between the end of 1969 and the beginning of 1973. so well within Cyril Freezer's editorship.  However,  until the middle of 1976, it was  PECO  all in caps but with ECO in a smaller font making the letters the same size as the lower case body text. From about May 1976 it simply became PECO . I don't have the 1978 volume so can't tell if they went back to Peco or PECO  before Freezer left. That does though remain about the only evidence I can find of RM emphasising the Peco name though I did find just one reference by Freezer to "ready made track such as Peco Streamline"  I have though also been through quite enough back isssues of RM for now and by now the glue should be dry on the canalside building I'm working on.

 

Going back to the OP. I've just been re-reading the tributes to Cyril Freezer by Bob Essery and Gerry Beale in the MRJ (no. 192, 2009) soon after he died. Bob Essery mentioned that, in the 1940s, Freezer had sucesfully scratchbuilt locos in the "long-forgotten EMF standards". Neither refer to any of his layouts but both pay tribute to the support he gave that helped both EM and P4 to become established as well as the LMS Society, a long way from the image of someone promoting "average" modelling of Great Western BLTs. 

I did rather wonder if one reason, apart from modesty, why Cyril Freezer wrote so little about his own layouts may have been that he was, like many of his contemporaries, still building his own track from scratch so not using his employer's kits or ready made track to do so. 

 

P.S.As "Associate Editor"  John Brewer was perhaps being worked into the post of Editor before CJF (or possibly Sydney Pritchard) finally handed over to him. I don't know under what circumstances Freezer left RM.

 

 

 

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P.S.As "Associate Editor"  John Brewer was perhaps being worked into the post of Editor before CJF (or possibly Sydney Pritchard) finally handed over to him. I don't know under what circumstances Freezer left RM.

 

 

 

I think you're right about John Brewer.

 

CJF definitely left Peco & started editing Model Railways, almost straight away. He stated in an editorial for MR, that he simply wanted a change.

 

MR for May 1978 has a long editorial by CJF, stating the above and partly because he wanted to be involved again with the Model Railway Club.

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My own take on CJF's plans were of an era where the country was coming out of an era of austerity of the 50's, money was short as was the choice of stock and very little room to permanently house a layout. It also used products readily available with points 2' radius or less and expensive. His plans for smaller layouts was a theme which most modellers could aspire to. The larger plans were just pipe dreams for all but the well off.

 

From the 70's we had an era of cheap stock, higher disposable income and availability of more space for out hobbies. In addition the quality and detail started to improve. Layout design also changed with the artistic style of design from modern modellers

 

Now everyone is far more discerning, happy to pay for quality with the older fraternity having the cash and time to realise their boyhood dreams. I am certain if CJF was around today his design style would have evolved as it did during his designing life span

 

I do wonder if we've gone full-circle:

 

Time of austerity - TICK

Money was short - TICK (perhaps not for the older fraternity, but for some of us in work)

Very little room to house a layout - TICK (new houses that are being built are a lot smaller than those of the past, and many people live in flats)

 

There have always been people who were more discerning and happy to pay for quality, with companies like Exley making high-spec models.

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Sorry, I've struggled with Shakespeare. I remember doing Macbeth at school, but perhaps that was because I was living in Scotland at the time!

I share your pain. We did The Merchant of Venice (as above) for O level (even though we were in London). I went to a performance at the Old Vic with Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright ( a very young Anna Carteret played Nerissa) but still failed the exam - I think that was more the fault of Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn) than Shakespeare.

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Macbeth (A level) was quite fun too, I remember Fleance's shirt being ripped right up his back during his murder.

"Villain", said my friend playing Fleance, "thou hast rent my shirt in twain". Very quick-witted.

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Henry V for me.  We went to Stratford (school coach trip, woo-hoo!) to see it performed at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.  It was brilliant.

 

My O-level English teacher was a comely Welsh lass with a magnificent, er, chest.  She also had a penchant for low-cut tops, bless her.  More than once it occurred that one of the boys in the class, when asked a question about the book we were reading in class, had to ask her to repeat the question, his attention having been diverted away from the page...

 

During my sixth form years I read Hamlet of my own volition (I didn't do English at A-level).

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Macbeth (A level) was quite fun too, I remember Fleance's shirt being ripped right up his back during his murder.

"Villain", said my friend playing Fleance, "thou hast rent my shirt in twain". Very quick-witted.

 

Fleance wasn't murdered.  His dad Banquo was, but Fleance escaped.

 

Banquo was most likely a fictional creation dating back to a book called Scotorum Historiae published forty years before Shakespeare was born.  As a result of the account in Scotorum Historiae and later repeated in Holinshed (one of Shakespeare's prime sources) during Shakespeare's time Banquo was believed to have been an ancestor of James VI/I.  That could explain why, in the play, Banquo doesn't take part in Duncan's murder, contrary to the accounts in both the Historiae and Holinshed.

 

Macbeth was a real historical figure, but the account of his life in Macbeth and the sources that Shakespeare drew upon is not historically accurate.  He didn't murder Duncan, who actually died in battle during an attack on Macbeth's lands in medieval Moray (not to be confused with the modern Moray local government area).  It does seem likely, though, that Macbeth attained the Lordship of Moray by murdering the previous incumbent (and he subsequently married the man's widow).  He did succeed Duncan as King of Scots.  His reign lasted 17 years and was largely peaceful; he is supposed to have made more than one pilgrimage to Rome during his reign, which you would tend not to do if the kingdom was not settled.  The invasion of Scotland led by Siward  which, in the play, put Malcolm on the throne actually took place three years before Malcolm's own forces defeated and killed Macbeth at the Battle of Lumphanan in 1057.

 

The witches in the play are likely to have been inspired by James VI/I's own writings about witchcraft and demonology, about which he seemed to have a bit of a 'thing'.

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Back in the day, at the end of "Desert Island Discs" the guest was allowed to pick two books "in addition to the Bible and Shakespeare that were already there".  Remember thinking, well Shakespeare would be good to burn in a fire!

 

Jim

It would keep the fire going for a while, too.

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Being forced to "do" Shakespere (Henry IV Pt1) and Thomas Hardy (Mayor of Casterbridge) for O level Eng Lit has resulted in a lifelong dislike of both authors!

Being forced to 'do' these things, is a guaranteed way to put you off forever. Never touched Thomas Hardy, but did a small amount of Shakespeare, with its dated language - dreadful.

We saw the film 'Blowup!', while it had a couple of interesting scenes for school age boys, the movie itself was tedious. I see that it goes for 111 minutes (it felt twice as long at the time), but it could have been done in half the time!

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I think a lot must be down to the teacher, and their way of teaching, because O Level Eng Lit didn’t succeed in putting me off either Shakespeare or Hardy, I’ve read a few and been to see a few over the years. The most difficult author we studied was definitely Conrad, who I think is probably beyond the 15yo mind, but oddly that caused me to read a fair number of his books in my twenties, and I ought to have another crack now, there being some chance that might properly understand them now.

 

Our teacher was young, engaging, happy to allow classroom banter if it was genuinely witty, as obviously sharp as a bucket of razor blades, sharply intolerant of lack of mental effort, and widely known to be dating our maths master. Which of these points counted in her favour I’m not sure, but she was definitely good at her job.

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Back in the day, at the end of "Desert Island Discs" the guest was allowed to pick two books "in addition to the Bible and Shakespeare that were already there".  Remember thinking, well Shakespeare would be good to burn in a fire!

 

Jim

I would ask for a book exchange. Agatha Christie would be far more interesting than Shakespeare. As for the other 'compulsory' volume!!!

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I think a lot must be down to the teacher, and their way of teaching, because O Level Eng Lit didn’t succeed in putting me off either Shakespeare or Hardy, I’ve read a few and been to see a few over the years. The most difficult author we studied was definitely Conrad, who I think is probably beyond the 15yo mind, but oddly that caused me to read a fair number of his books in my twenties, and I ought to have another crack now, there being some chance that might properly understand them now.

 

Our teacher was young, engaging, happy to allow classroom banter if it was genuinely witty, as obviously sharp as a bucket of razor blades, sharply intolerant of lack of mental effort, and widely known to be dating our maths master. Which of these points counted in her favour I’m not sure, but she was definitely good at her job.

Perhaps you're right. My English teacher was a bully & most of the class expected to be hauled out the front of the class and given the strap. Every day, at least one did. You could hear a pin drop in his classes.

 

Great way to educate!!!! 

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Back in the day, at the end of "Desert Island Discs" the guest was allowed to pick two books "in addition to the Bible and Shakespeare that were already there".  Remember thinking, well Shakespeare would be good to burn in a fire!

 

Jim

The reason for giving them the Bible and Shakespeare already was that a boringly high percentage of castaways would have chosen them. By having them there already they had to make a more individual choice. 

 

At my school, writing out fifty or a hundred lines of Shakespeare was a standard punishment. What a great way to foster a lifelong love of the Bard's writing NOT.  I had fifty lines of Pericles that I could trot out from memory. 

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