Kings Cross Model Shop

[storthships]

Hi All interested readers,

Through the good offices of Paul Bartlett, I have been introduced to RM Web and in particular, the Kings Cross Model Ship topic.

It has been great to be taken down that road again and be reminded of so many long forgotten names.

The one name that has not yet appeared and yet was such a good hard working member of that stalwart Kings Cross Staff is Robert Dudrenec.

I am in touch with Robert who now lives in Stratford -upon Avon.

When I (Tony Dyer) left KX in 1989, my wife and I moved up to South Lakeland to pursue what was becoming a new found interest. Namely hill walking in a lovely part of the country. I never worked full time again, but instead had a part time job working for a very successful outdoor equipment distributor. I still ran Kemilway with George Pring (who, yes was the George in George Allan Models) until his tragic death in the late 90`s. All Kemilway rights finished up with Peter Dawson of Peter K models who is still successfully trading.

I was not aware of the passing of Bert Collins. He was a great character and always good to be in his company.

I am very impressed with the amount of information imparted by Brian Kirby. His memory is brilliant and it shows in his very accurate descriptions of

anecdotes of which a whole book could be written of the comings and goings at Kings Cross.

Where are you Brian ?  I would love to hear from you and what you are doing in life today..

There were many great names that had associations with Kings Cross.  I remember a struggling modeller/turned manufacturer who graced his presence there always using his favourite word to describe the latest models -`Fabulous`. everything was fabulous. I cant remember the company he represented but he suddenly became very successful in the pop music business and he was away. Yes of course, Pete Waterman and still so much connected with railways.

So, here I am, just celebrated my 80th birthday. Sadly, my wife died in 2004 and I miss her dearly. However, I keep very busy. Play golf a couple of times a week. I still keep my hand in with railway modelling by servicing the nearly 100 locos that are owned by a very good friend of mine with probably one of the best layouts in existence that nobody has seen.

A lot of my time is now spent scanning and digitising the many thousands of slides that are in the care of the World Ship Society. They have probably the largest collection of ship photographs anywhere and is continually being added to as members pass away and their collection is bequeathed to the Society.

All in all, it keeps me out of mischief, occupies my time and I find it very rewarding.

Love to hear from anyone who knew me at Kings Cross. Good to hear about you also Adrian. Likewise, love to know where you are these days.

All good wishes.

Tony

[adrianbs]

Hi Tony,  Great to hear from you on the forum, if you want to get in touch just google abs models, the address is the same although after both my parents had

died I took it on as my house. Can hardly move for models and layouts, even the extensions have not been enough!!  Still single, being rich and famous has

alas not changed that as I had hoped.  Suspect the OLD bit  may be putting off the 29 year old gorgeous nymphomaniac blondes. 

        

 Mentioning Pete Waterman but not the original company I switched on a few grey cells and remembered I think his first foray into the model trade was as M & L

 Models in 4mm. They used to sell 2 different loco kits in one box which always annoyed me as I only ever wanted one of them..   I clearly remember one

 EXPOEM when we were packing up on the Sunday at the Great Western Hotel,  Paddington and because it was such a long way down the grand staircase

 or the silly little lift for one wheelchair plus driver that you could not watch you car unless you had a spare bod. Alas Pete ( He lets me call him Pete  now

 although I am not sure if that makes me FAMOUS ! or indeed if he has any idea who I am ) for some reason had left his BUM BAG with the entire weekends

 takings in the unlocked car. This had been taken and  he was extremely annoyed to put it mildly, he doesn't talk like that on TV !!.  He has dabbled a few times

 in the model trade either up front or behind the scenes, how on earth he finds the time I don't know, he's just a fanatic for all things railway.  I expect he earns

 that sort of money every day now.               Best wishes for the New Year  Tony  and all the rest of you      adrianbs

[adrianbs]

Hi  to Coachmann et al,  Your mention of the GS bus should get Roythebus to reply. Apart from their own brand Mopok range Tony and John also

 peddled products from other new small enterprises who could not afford W & H discount requirements.  John was "on the road" for Fuji and took

 full opportunity I presume to shift  models at the same time.   One of the ranges was GS models by Roytb and Roy had patterns made by Mike

 Sheppard who worked for KX.  He moved his casting work to me after the first or second model but also used Cotswold Models.  Cotswold  took

 advantage of some sort of grant and moved from the Cotswolds to the tiny village of Ardgay in Scotland  and became Sutherland Model Casters.

 Ardgay was only about an hours drive from John O' Groats and consequently  Ron Charlton owner of Cotswold rarely came south to model shows .

 after that. When Ron did appear he wore full Scottish gear, tartan kilt  sporran and all or perhaps not all if you believed what he said.  Mike S  had.

 moved up with them and was more or less involved as the "in house" pattern maker and MJS appears stamped on many kit patterns.  He was

 a fanatic biker but this nearly cost him his life when he collided with a deer.  His eyesight was affected and it took him a long time to recover.  Ron

 Charlton and his wife  who owned Sutherland M C looked after him as he was single and had no relatives in the area. Sutherland was I think later

 taken over by Bill Stott of  NU-CAST MODELS up in Hartlepool when Ron decided to retire. Not long after the whole lot was acquired by Brian

 Emberton/Chris Crawley Models. Bill was very much involved in the Jehovahs Witnesses or similar reilgious sect.

 

 When Brian passed away his wife Ruth started disposing of all the model business and I bought the Wagon kits which were a mixture of Nu-Cast,

 Cotswold and Ian Kirk bodies commissioned by Cotswold with W/M chassis.  Over a couple of years she sent on various lots of bits she had found

 which were connected to my purchase.  I had never cast these wagons for Nu Cast but for many years had been casting and doing pattern

 upgrades for Bill Stott.   I drove up once or twice as the cost of posting the really large orders was huge and it took a couple of days just to pack

 them properly so it was cheaper to chuck them in the estate and drive up.  Petrol was cheaper then and it was on the business anyway or paid by

 the customer.  That was as far north as I had ever been, and I have only got as far as Newcastle since, when delivering castings to Piercy Model

 Products and Dave Alexander in Newcastle !!          Regards  All   adrianbs

 

[RANGERS]

  Hi  Paul,  Hope Tony gets on the forum,  when he moved north I lost track and I knew his interest in model railways had reduced although both times

   we met were at model railway shows.   I don't know if John Senior is still with us although I fear not as he had very severe heart problems last time

   I spoke to his "boys"  who were running the business by then.         Regards  adrianbs

John was still with us a year or so back and I've not heard anything to the contrary. He still writes/ edits a series of books published by Venture Publishing, the successor to TPC, as you say now run by his son from a shop in Glossop, always worth a visit if you're that way.

[Trevellan]

Look what I found yesterday in one of my many modelling grot boxes. I remember buying several bags of these components in the mid-70s after David Jenkinson used same to build the track on the scenic section of Garsdale Road. I actually made some track too, but as these three are unopened I could put them on eBay as rare

 

[5050]

Look what I found yesterday in one of my many modelling grot boxes. I remember buying several bags of these components in the mid-70s after David Jenkinson used same to build the track on the scenic section of Garsdale Road. I actually made some track too, but as these three are unopened I could put them on eBay as rare

 

DG12109LR.jpg

I remember a couple of evenings spent in the early 70's with Nigel Daley (who later had his own range of very nice etched GWR coaches) trying to make P4 track using these chairs and copperclad sleepers.  I don't think that, even at those early times, either of us was to keen on the rivet and ply method and the Studiolith/P4 Society's marketing policy.  Needless to say though, our attempts weren't all that succesful and the rivet and ply method was eventually adopted.

 

I've got an ABS crane and match truck kit still safely tucked away in its tube for a rainy day.

[The Stationmaster]

Look what I found yesterday in one of my many modelling grot boxes. I remember buying several bags of these components in the mid-70s after David Jenkinson used same to build the track on the scenic section of Garsdale Road. I actually made some track too, but as these three are unopened I could put them on eBay as rare

 

DG12109LR.jpg

Well if you get a good price for yours as 'rarer' I'd better dig out what are left of mine I s'pose (I used the chairs on Plastruct longitudinal 'sleepers' on an underbridge and Hornby Dublo wheels passed over happily  and without bumping along).

[coachmann]

I'll bet all modellers of a certain age have got a bit of Kings X in them......

 

Edited January 20, 2014 by coachmann

[storthships]

My employment at the Kings Cross shop as manager from 1973 - 1989 produced its fair share of memorable occasions.

I am sure the person in this story will know who I am talking about but for this essay, he will of course remain nameless..

The shop was fortunate in that it had quite a few - shall we say- prestigious clients,. These clients were of course well known to management and of course these clients were on good terms with the company directors.

It is the mid 1970`s, The company was learning its way with credit cards like Access and we were instructed never to accept a cheque unless it was backed up with a cheque card. On this occasion, the gentleman in question, immaculately dressed in a very expensive tweed suit, bowler hat and umbrella,  had run up a fair size bill with his purchases and wrote a cheque from a well known prestigious Bank.

Said employee asked for his cheque card but it was made clear that this will not be necessary. Not happy with the situation, said employee came to the office with cheque in hand and stated that - quote`   Ive got this geezer downstairs who refuses to let me see his cheque card`. 

Both David Morris and I looked into the security camera, saw the gentleman in question and said to the employee, Oh, thats alright, just make sure he has everything he needs.

Said employee is not at all happy about this and demands to know why exceptions can be made and how difficult it makes his job when told explicitly that cheque cards are a must. He was told not to argue and go back down stairs and conclude the business in a nice manner. Happily he did although he persevered with the argument a long while after.

So who was this prestigious client.  He was no other than the Queens Solicitor.

 

Kings Cross was not the choicest of areas and it had its fair share of undesirables especially `winos`. One Saturday a customer reported that he had seen a man take a boxed train set out of the window and leave the shop without paying.  I hot footed through the front door only to trip over a man sitting on the step, bottle to his mouth and the outline of a rectangular box underneath his jacket around the middle of his back to his shoulders. On confronting the man, he promptly denied everything but offered no resistance when myself and another member of staff removed his jacket and recovered the said train set,.  There was no point reporting it to the police, he practically lived in the courts we found out.

Yes, they were interesting days and there are many more tales that can be related.

 

Stay well.

Tony

[Arthur]

There's been a couple of mentions of these, Adrian's BR suburban coach kits;

 

 

I bought this off Norman Wisenden, well he sold it to me as I didn't go in looking for it. One of those models which went straight onto the workbench and I was so pleased with it that I few weeks later I went back for two more. Nearly thirty years later they are still in the 'to do' pile........

 

The glue along the top of the side is giving up, I'll need to run a scalpel under it and re-fix it.

 

Mention has been made of the Kemilway 4MT mogul chassis. I know that I'm not alone on this forum in believing that, as a chassis kit, it has yet to be surpassed.

[coachmann]

 

I bought this off Norman Wisenden, well he sold it to me as I didn't go in looking for it.

A bit like a knighthood being Wisendened ha ha.....

[PGC]

This thread brings back so many memories. My brother was a student at Leeds University and when he went back after time at home, I would go to Kings Cross to see him off, then I'd spend time watching the Deltics (and whatever else would be around) come in and out of the Cross, after which I'd go in to Kings Cross Models and spend my pocket money. As I grew older and started earning, I would make visits to Kings Cross just to watch the trains, and then I'd go across to the shop and spend some of my hard earned money.

 

One of the items I bought that has an interesting story is this bus kit.

 

 

 

I don't know exactly when I bought this, but I reckon it must have been in the late 70's. I wasn't totally au fait with building kits like this at the time, but a member of my club was a good builder and offered to make the kit for me. I didn't think a lot about this, and as time went on I moved on, so did he, and I forgot about the kit.

 

Move on 30 years and I joined the club of which I'm now a member. Lo and behold, said gentleman is also a member of this club and when we realised who each other was, we chatted about our times at the first club and I suddenly remembered this kit. When I mentioned it, an eyebrow was raised, and a few weeks later, when we next met, I was presented with the box.

 

With my modelling skills being far better today than they were 30 years ago, I suppose I'd better get on and finish the kit!

 

Lastly, I totally agree about the Kemilway chassis for the Std 4 Mogul being good, I've still got one to build, along with a West Country Pacific chassis (which, being a GER modeller,  I justify as I'll build it as 30054 Sir Archibald Sinclair, the WC Pacific that came to the GER lines in the loco exchange).

 

Phil

 

 

[Ian Kirk]

Hi  to Coachmann et al,  Your mention of the GS bus should get Roythebus to reply. Apart from their own brand Mopok range Tony and John also

 peddled products from other new small enterprises who could not afford W & H discount requirements.  John was "on the road" for Fuji and took

 full opportunity I presume to shift  models at the same time.   One of the ranges was GS models by Roytb and Roy had patterns made by Mike

 Sheppard who worked for KX.  He moved his casting work to me after the first or second model but also used Cotswold Models.  Cotswold  took

 advantage of some sort of grant and moved from the Cotswolds to the tiny village of Ardgay in Scotland  and became Sutherland Model Casters.

 Ardgay was only about an hours drive from John O' Groats and consequently  Ron Charlton owner of Cotswold rarely came south to model shows .

 after that. When Ron did appear he wore full Scottish gear, tartan kilt  sporran and all or perhaps not all if you believed what he said.  Mike S  had.

 moved up with them and was more or less involved as the "in house" pattern maker and MJS appears stamped on many kit patterns.  He was

 a fanatic biker but this nearly cost him his life when he collided with a deer.  His eyesight was affected and it took him a long time to recover.  Ron

 Charlton and his wife  who owned Sutherland M C looked after him as he was single and had no relatives in the area. Sutherland was I think later

 taken over by Bill Stott of  NU-CAST MODELS up in Hartlepool when Ron decided to retire. Not long after the whole lot was acquired by Brian

 Emberton/Chris Crawley Models. Bill was very much involved in the Jehovahs Witnesses or similar reilgious sect.

 

 When Brian passed away his wife Ruth started disposing of all the model business and I bought the Wagon kits which were a mixture of Nu-Cast,

 Cotswold and Ian Kirk bodies commissioned by Cotswold with W/M chassis.  Over a couple of years she sent on various lots of bits she had found

 which were connected to my purchase.  I had never cast these wagons for Nu Cast but for many years had been casting and doing pattern

 upgrades for Bill Stott.   I drove up once or twice as the cost of posting the really large orders was huge and it took a couple of days just to pack

 them properly so it was cheaper to chuck them in the estate and drive up.  Petrol was cheaper then and it was on the business anyway or paid by

 the customer.  That was as far north as I had ever been, and I have only got as far as Newcastle since, when delivering castings to Piercy Model

 Products and Dave Alexander in Newcastle !!          Regards  All   adrianbs

 

Hi Adrian,

 

Interesting to hear that you got these plastic/metal wagon kits . Somewhere I have the moulds for a plastic Sentinel shunter kit which was mine but marketed by Nu Cast. Perhaps you should have got that as well. AS well as my usual plastic kit making I did some pattern making for white metal kits ( Gem and Nu Cast) and a bit of work for Sutherland when Mike Sheppard was out of action. Even from where I was it was a long trip North to get to Ardgay.  It was the "Highlands and Islands Development Agency" that tempted Cotswold to re locate there. Bill Stott was a Salvation Army Officer not a Jehovahs Witness. I think that he also fostered teenagers as I seem to remember him bringing different kids on different visits to us in Fife. Someone should probably write a book on the histories of all of the small model railway manufacturers.

 

best wishes,

 

 

Ian

[adrianbs]

    Hi  Ian     Am,amazed you still have the moulds for the Sentinel.  I missed out when it was first around with Bill and when I needed one I had quite a job

      tracking Autocom down and was surprised to find he had some sets of mouldings etc but no motor or wheels.  It is still in a tin awaiting one of my own

      chassis to make it go,. although I had better hurry up or it will finish up on an executors bring and buy stand.  I knew Bill was into something fairly

      religious but had forgotten which Diagram Number it was.  You are right about the fostering, he had a houseful when I stayed over one time and I could

      not work out which were his.   There is already a book on w/m model car makers as I had to divulge some of my less reputable activities for it !! 

      Fortunately some of the others had already passed on to the great motorway in the sky so they did not suffer the embarassment of some of the

      disclosures..

 

      The Brackenborough bus brings back memories, I built the GWR version shortly after it came out and now it is in my range but it was through that I got

      to know Alan B. around the same time, although he was not into O gauge then, apart from painting the odd loco for friends as far as I know.  One of the

      best modellers in the country not to mention his painting and more especially his lettering and lining.   I met Beeson a few times but although his

      models are works of art I would go for less "showy" locos built by others for myself, not that I can afford the prices very often..

     

      I built a turnout  using KX  chairs and Copper clad and although I found it much easier and quicker than I expected I could never disguise the insulating

      gap in the sleepers to my satisfaction.  When I went back to buy some more chairs later on, the tool had either broken or worn out and they were never

      produced again.  Like the Stationmaster I wanted them for my Brunel fan timber viaduct which still has no track or piers, I blame Pendon for that.

     

       The abs coach looks pretty good even today but had I had enough money I would have had injection mouldings done for the side and roof. This was

      done for the N gauge versions and was a far better job but they were small enough to mould  " in house " on a handraulic machine.  Peter Chatham of

      PC models and Maj  Models had similar ideas and Maj actually did get mouldings made. but the fixing of the printed sides was always a problem in the

      long term.  I tried to find a screen printer who would print directly onto moulded sides but none wanted to try it and Tampo printing was unknown at the

      time, at least to me anyway.  The potential was there but not the finance or the technique, today almos everything is finished that way.

            

              Keep the stories coming, we may be able to get a book out of yet !!         adrianbs

        .

[phil gollin]

.

 

There is an obvious opportunity to gather these "tales of the old days" into a new thread.

 

.

[Brian Kirby]

Well what a nice surprise,

Hi Tony (my old boss at KX) and Adrian, i don't think i've seen or heard from Tony for twenty years now, although i've seen Adrian at shows in more recent times, when buying his whitemetal detail castings.

 

Tony, we already knew about your love of hill (fell?) walking, Paul Bartlett had told us that you had mostly switched to Ships and Shipping as a hobby, i can understand your tiring of model railways for a time, perhaps we can tempt you to post some railway topics here on RMweb? I'm so sorry to hear of you losing Judy, but i'm sure your children are a great support, and you've done the right thing by staying busy. I haven't yet worked out who the mystery member of staff with the cheque cards is, surely it's not me? :-)

 

I can actually top the Queen's Solicitor story, with a customer far closer to Her Majesty, who used to arrive by motorbike. He bought several of the Eames Foden Steam Wagon kits, and payed using his Barclaycard/Visa credit card. His name started with H.R.H., his full title went the full breadth of the card and just about squeezed in. I'd better not reveal his identity straight off, otherwise MI5 or Prince Phillip's SAS unit might be after me, suffice to say the royal customer was also the patron of a loco preservation society.

 

Can you remember the mystery member of KX staff, who was demonstrating a Liliput Trans-Pennine unit to a customer, putting the vehicles back into the box, when they promptly slide through and fell out the other end on to the floor. Picking the bits up, he pushed the tray back into the box, and they slide out the other end, back on to the floor. Dave Morris (Director) looking on in horror, instructed **** ********-****** (note the hyphen) to put it away and fetch the customer a new one!

 

Adrian, can you elaborate on the story you told me, about your casting shed on the end of one of the platforms at Poole station?

 

More funny stories to follow.

 

Cheers, Brian.

[adrianbs]

  Hi  Brian et al.   I think I have a pretty good idea who the HRH might be.  Many years ago I was involved with the originator of the Wrightlines Narrow Gauge

   range.   Russell Wright was a bass player in the Bournemouth Synphony Orchestra and very much into NG.  At the time I was trying my damndest not to

   add any more personal  interests to my already wide range but I did some castings for him. Then I got more involved when he acquired various Roy Link

   kits and a certain WD 4-6-0  WW1 Baldwin tank loco pattern set from Roger Chivers.   I heavily modified about half this kit to make it easier to cast and

   more accurate and decided to make one up to check if it was OK.  Fatal mistake!   Shortly afterward 2 real locos arrived from India for preserrvation and

   a Royal Patron was to inspect one, on a low loader, outside a Hotel in London.   A few days before the event  Russell was asked to provide a Display fully

   finished model for  presentation to their patron by the society which had brought the loco back. My model was  Russell's display model and quite clearly 

   the timescale to make and paint another model was quite impossible so my model was press ganged with the promise  that the society involved would pay

   to have my model replaced .  They may have already approached a builder but he had also said the time available was insufficient.  Eventually I received

   a very nice replacement,which I still have.  It is actually rather nicer than the original !!

        

    With regards my casting shed the sequence of events was like this,  In 1970 I bought a casting machine which took me quite a long time to save up for.

    Before that I had made some Tram Patterns for Bec Models but in those days if you wanted your own kits produced you GAVE the caster ( Ks, Wills Bec

    or Gem were the main ones )  your patterns in return for a few sets of castings.  Having been "Out the back" at Tooting Bec I knew what was involved

    and decided  that to become A FAMOUS MODEL RAILWAY MANUFACTURER I would need to buy a machine for myself.  This was installed in my parents

    very large somewhat derelict garden shed which was built in WW2 as the Radio Shack for D Day preparations around Poole harbour. Originally it had a

    reinforced 7' high blast wall all round but one end was already missing when the plot was bought in about 1952  to build a new house. This gave access

    for cars etc to the wooden shed inside.  Unfortunately the blast wall  next to the new house was completely removed when that was built in 1959/60. 

         The shed was later improved at one end to make a more draught proof casting area and eventually housed 2 employees. This came to an end when

    the local vigilantes of the Residents Association informed the council about certain local people using premises for commercial puruposes and the

    inspector came round asking if I was using the shed for making Kitchen units.  Actually there was another resident doing this but I got caught in his

    place and had to arrange to move out,. initially to Geoff Barlow's back room, as above, the shop being about 50 yards from the up end of Poole station

    and we continued there for a few years until the whole of the area was redeveloped. 

 

    At that point it looked as though real problems were ahead as small workshops were almost non existent and the few available were very expensive.

    By great good fortune. I was able to kill 2 birds with one stone because BR had just realised that the precast concrete building at the other end of the

    station belonged to them but the rent was only a peppercorn one.  The buiding was 40' x 25' and occupied by the Poole and District Model Railway

    Society of which I was, of course, a leading light  ( not !)  BR increased their demands overnight from  £90 per year to £1000, totally beyond the means

    of the members. After much negotiation with BR, the Council and the PDMRS the demand was reduced to £500 and I had a small section of the

    building to move into, with various restrictions imposed by all parties.  This is still the situation although having partly retired I have no employees and

    do much less casting.   There have been a number of scares that BR were going to use this area, initially it had been earmarked as the Sub station

    for the Weymouth Electification so the club, having moved from Branksome station had a very short notice of eviction and the low rent to compensate.

    BR never built the sub-stations  which is why there is a limit on the number of trains on the Poole- Weymouth section. Recently the new signalling contrlol

    boxes have been assembled  on the adjacent land but have not needed the Clubroom and some year ago there was a plan to install a siding which 

    came to nothing.

                So that's it for the moment        Regards all  adrianbs 

[storthships]

Well what a nice surprise,

Hi Tony (my old boss at KX) and Adrian, i don't think i've seen or heard from Tony for twenty years now, although i've seen Adrian at shows in more recent times, when buying his whitemetal detail castings.

 

Tony, we already knew about your love of hill (fell?) walking, Paul Bartlett had told us that you had mostly switched to Ships and Shipping as a hobby, i can understand your tiring of model railways for a time, perhaps we can tempt you to post some railway topics here on RMweb? I'm so sorry to hear of you losing Judy, but i'm sure your children are a great support, and you've done the right thing by staying busy. I haven't yet worked out who the mystery member of staff with the cheque cards is, surely it's not me? :-)

 

I can actually top the Queen's Solicitor story, with a customer far closer to Her Majesty, who used to arrive by motorbike. He bought several of the Eames Foden Steam Wagon kits, and payed using his Barclaycard/Visa credit card. His name started with H.R.H., his full title went the full breadth of the card and just about squeezed in. I'd better not reveal his identity straight off, otherwise MI5 or Prince Phillip's SAS unit might be after me, suffice to say the royal customer was also the patron of a loco preservation society.

 

Can you remember the mystery member of KX staff, who was demonstrating a Liliput Trans-Pennine unit to a customer, putting the vehicles back into the box, when they promptly slide through and fell out the other end on to the floor. Picking the bits up, he pushed the tray back into the box, and they slide out the other end, back on to the floor. Dave Morris (Director) looking on in horror, instructed **** ********-****** (note the hyphen) to put it away and fetch the customer a new one!

 

Adrian, can you elaborate on the story you told me, about your casting shed on the end of one of the platforms at Poole station?

 

More funny stories to follow.

 

Cheers, Brian.

 

Hi again Brian,

No, you have got me there. Dont say it was son Peter, but on that note, do you remember the occasion when a regular customer brought in a very nice locomotive he had just built and painted from a kit and `entrusted` it to `the guvner`.    In typical DM fashion, on it went on to the test track, and the right hand immediately applied `full noise` to the control as was always his fashion and this beautiful loco went flying off the end of the track and onto the floor incurring severe damage. The loco was eventually restored to its pristine condition by the said heavy handed operative and sold, but the customer was not best pleased.

Brian, in my previous letter but one, I did ask of your whereabouts and what you are doing.  You didnt answer that  and I am sure its not a secret. Do tell - e-mail address or something.

Regarding the the cheque card saga, yes Brian it was you but all sorts of things happen when you are in the prime of youth.

I will sorts some more stories in due course.

Best wishes to all.

Tony

[Brian Kirby]

Hi Tony,

I did send you a RMweb private message two days ago! Look for the bright red square at the top of the page and click on it, it's easily overlooked if new to the group, with all it's distractions. For the record, i'm still based in Olloway, Norflunden, right near the famous incline.

So it was me with the chequecards was it? Let's put it down to my then youthful years, and just being over careful. My mystery royal was H.R.H. Duke Of Gloucester, who worked as an architect in Camden Town. No it wasn't Pete's DMU accident, i've emailed Paul Marshall-Potter (note the hyphen) concerning this incident. I well remember the Dave Morris loco-testing technique, i'm surprised there weren't more mishaps. You must remember customer Mr.Norman, who had bought one of your ready-made 82xxx kits from the showcase? He came back a few days later, having driven it off the end of his baseboard in his garage, and it nose-dived on to the concrete floor. Ouch! The front end was completely stoved in, but being a whitemetal body, you managed to bend it back into shape, perhaps with a few new parts, and did a very good repair job.

Did you stay in touch with customer/part-time trader Bob Newman, otherwise known as "Bulleid Bob"? I wonder if he is still alive, he must have been 60ish in the early 1980s, i lost count of the number of Light Pacifics he constructed, using your Kemilway chassis?

 

Cheers, Brian.

[Brian Kirby]

Hi again Tony,

 

I'm pretty sure that we both joined KX/MRM within days of each other back in 1973, you as full-time shop manager, and me as a youthful saturday boy. At the time, we both had to contend with the very awkward and stubborn Ken Jones, of whom Robert D will remember well, because he preceded both of us. You must remember your rather cramped triangular cubby hole office, behind the shop pegboard, this was swept away when we expanded the shop into next door and it became a corridor. I went full-time in 1976, enjoying the next ten years, until stepping down in March '86, it was time for a change.

 

You asked about my activities since then, well without wishing to bore the pants off any other RMwebbers reading this, and not wishing to "blow my own trumpet", i can give you a brief potted history. After leaving MRM i worked part-time for a friend who ran an auction carrying firm, where we would visit posh houses and stately homes (and palaces) collecting and delivering fine art and furniture. I witnessed some spectacular breakages (think Del Boy and the chandelier), another firm brought into Bond Street a huge ancient papier-mache framed mirror (worth a fortune, six people were carrying it, two people slipped, and the whole thing crashed on to the concrete floor, the glass into a thousand pieces and the papier-mache into a heap of bits. It was a bit like watching The Hindenberg go down, and now it was worthless. On another occasion, my boss managed to shove all four legs of a chair, through a priceless landscape painting (which was later repaired), but we others had to bite the insides of our cheeks not to laugh! After a while, i went officially full-time for a couple of years, although was already building models for other people in my spare time. Eventually the kit-building built up to such a level, that i could do this full-time instead, without having to go out on a freezing cold winter morning, so i retired from the antiques world.

 

KX/MRM had closed down by now, but Nigel Downend had started up his Booking Hall bookshop, but was now expanding into models, to fill the void left by KX. I had adopted the trade name of "BRI-MOD" and i got more and more work from Nigel, on top of the work i was already doing, then i started getting work from W&H (known as "Walker's" in the trade, the "H" was "Holtszappel", a bit of a mouthful, did i spell it correctly? ). Next i was asked by Charlie Skelton at Walker's to take on their loco repairs, which also involved the peculiarities of Marklin 3-Rail/Stud Contact with their mechanical polarity reversers, later replaced by electronic reversers, and the intricacies of the new micro-chip systems in the 90s. These were the glory days, i had never been so busy, i used to cycle around London with an anonymous old U.S. mailbag over my back, often stuffed with very expensive brass locos for repair ( i never fell off! ). The strangest job from Walker's was when one of their customers asked if i could touch-up the livery on a 1940s Marklin steam loco, which had part of it's swastika missing! I pondered on the ethics of such a project, and eventually declined the work, diplomatically saying it would lose value if altered.

 

On top of all this, i built layouts for people, sometimes portable, sometimes in garden sheds or attics. There was a posh job in offices in Mount Street, Mayfair (with assistance from PMP)where removable Swiss mountains were required, to access the track, so i had the "great" idea of using glass fibre, working in situ as requested. The stink was unbelievable, especially in the morning when the heating came back on, many staff went off sick, and i did fear that it might cause an explosion, but no harm was done.

 

I also got roped into doing restaurant layouts, where LGB stock runs around a 200ft circuit above people's heads, to overcome volt drop, multiple feeds were required, in addition to sections to automate extra trains. The one in the "Chillis" restaurant, Canary Wharf was later damaged by the IRA, when they let off a bomb, blowing in all the windows, sadly one man died. Security was ever so tight, even before this, the security guards were almost para-military and mostly ex-army anyway. I wonder if that layout is still running? (Any RMwebbers in Canary Wharf?)

 

I even got a job making a TV advert for Samsung's then new LCD TVs, anyone remember the ad with the 'O' gauge blue Princess Coronation running through the countryside, about ten years ago? We filmed it over a week in Park Royal, i'd built the loco and borrowed two spare chassis from another job, plus we had two LMS blue coaches, the advert showed a whole train, but the extra coaches were computer generated. I tried on several occasions to tape it off the telly, but i kept missing it, the ad was even seen in America and Australia, by friends of mine. The pay was pretty good too.

 

Things are calmer now, the kit-building frenzy has subsided with the onward march of good quality RTR, but there are still requests and various niches to turn to. I have to add, that most of what i show on RMweb is from my amateur side, and it's good to finally find time for my own stuff. Perhaps i'm an example of poacher-turned-gamekeeper? Sorry if this has turned into a bit of a ramble, but Tony did ask!

 

Cheers, Brian.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Brian Kirby

[Beechnut]

It's the sort of ramble I so enjoy reading :0)

 

Cheers

Bren

[storthships]

Thank you Brian,

It answers a lot of questions and it sounds as though life was very interesting to say the least.

To return to the Kings Cross shop, and another great character of that time. Yes, the wonderful Nick Campling.

Nick was always welcome with his wonderful collection of stories and he was also one of the few who was permitted `upstairs` as it were.

It is many years now since the passing of Cyril Freezer, editor at that time of the Railway Modeller. Nick hatched this plan and would put it to the test to see if it really would come off.    Nick brought up to the office a Private Owner wagon (not sure if it was 4mm scale or 7mm) that he had just constructed and planned to send it to Cyril for review in the magazine. It wasnt the wagon itself that was particularly interesting rather than the owners name. We chuckled when we saw it and said to him, `You will never get away with it`.

The wagon was duly sent down to Devon and if my memory serves me right, it was indeed published.  So what was so special about this name ?  It was beautifully lettered in the livery of now hard to find company called NORFOLK & GOOD.

Does anyone have an update on Nick Campling.

Regarding` Bulleid Bob` Brian, yes he must hold the record for the number of Kemilway BofB chassis that he constructed and indeed complete Bulleid pacifics made from the Airfix/Kemilway pairing. I know I was supplying Bob these chassis long after I left Kings Cross and regularly received a phone call and the Christmas card. Then it all stopped so I suppose it was time up for dear old Bob.

There will be many more stories to come yet I am sure.

Son Peter sends his best to you Brian and  of course to anyone else who remembers him.

Time for some more scanning.

Tony (Storthships)

[Wheatley]

I even got a job making a TV advert for Samsung's then new LCD TVs, anyone remember the ad with the 'O' gauge blue Princess Coronation running through the countryside, about ten years ago? We filmed it over a week in Park Royal, i'd built the loco and borrowed two spare chassis from another job, plus we had two LMS blue coaches, the advert showed a whole train, but the extra coaches were computer generated. I tried on several occasions to tape it off the telly, but i kept missing it, the ad was even seen in America and Australia, by friends of mine. The pay was pretty good too.

 

Is this the one ?

 

I'm really enjoying the stories - I regret I never knew the shop, just saw the adverts and mentions in RM, but it's fascinating learning of the connections between the various people involved. Thanks !

Edited January 26, 2014 by Wheatley

[Nimbus]

I'm really enjoying the stories - I regret I never knew the shop, just saw the adverts and mentions in RM, but it's fascinating learning of the connections between the various people involved. Thanks !

 

Yes, it does rather sound like the 2i's Coffee Bar for the model railway world!

 

The Nim.

[Brian Kirby]

Thank you so much Wheatley, that's the tv ad, but there were other versions as well, don't say it's been on YouTube all the time, I never thought to look! On other (longer?) versions, you can see the blue LMS coaches more clearly, a small mistake was made when one of the assisting production staff put the roof of the brake coach back on, back-to-front, can't remember why it was taken off? The day before the shoot, I was advised that the trains must work faultlessly, because the whole project rested on them, - no pressure there then! After a sleepless night, i took everything in triplicate, three loco chassis, three completely separate control systems, etc., in case of failure. The first morning was a bit tense, but after a while I started to really enjoy it. The heat from the studio lights was incredible, I was directly in front of one set and sweating buckets, plus getting a sun tan, so they gave me an umbrella to sit under (indoors). There were endless supplies of hot and cold drink, hot food and hot women, at the end (or wrap), some of the hot women invited me to some wild party in Shepherd's Bush, but I had several thousand pounds worth of train stuff in my holdall bag, what do I do? I decided it was too risky to lose the trains, getting drunk at a party, so I regretfully declined, although we all had a drink in a nearby pub before departing. 

 

Tony, I do clearly remember the "Norfolk" incident, poor old Squirrel. Nick Campling has either been here on RMweb, or on our BRCS-yahoo coaching stock group (plug), but I haven't spotted him for awhile. What about when you and George Pring took your Kemilway chassis to Devon/Railway Modeller for review, it was said that Mr.Pritchard looked down on Squirrel and treated him like the office boy (allegedly!)? Then there was the other occasion when you took the same product to the Model Railway Constructor again for review, and then editor Steven-Stratten complained that the chassis frames were too thin and it would never work! It was very sad how your colleague George ended up taking his own life, I was told that despite also designing the brilliant 'O' gauge Gresleys, he couldn't get regular work and was on the dole in Peterborough, such a terrible waste losing a chap with so much talent. Much of his research lives on in print, plus many of his 1960s cine films are available on DVD now.

 

Back to KX, staff came and went, Mike C. got married and went to live in Sweden, Mike W. joined the police, but may be retired by now? Tim Maddocks from Bath now works for Network Rail, he's on RMweb as "Captain Kernow". Where did all the others go? 

 

                                                                    Cheers, Brian.