Barry Rhys

Hello Charlie, what with me being a recalcitrant hippopotamus, anything with "MUD" in the title is of immediate interest. I'm just sooo jealous of the bloke with the cool hat and wellies shovelling sh*te! (In fact - surely not? - that picture on your wall in the bottom piccy could almost be a fellow hippo!)

Anyway, less of this idle chatter, actually I wanted to let you know that your embedded link 'www.ingr.co.uk/faring' is actually embedded as 'http://http//www.ingr.co.uk/faring.html%22>http://http//www.ingr.co.uk/faring.html' - and therefore doesn't function very well.... You may want to edit that!

Nonetheless I found the actual website, and there's some fascinating stuff on there, even for a standard-gauger like me. Do you intend to include any of the water in the clay pit lapping alongside the mini-digger?

I'll definitely keep looking in on this now.

Neil

Well, given that my experience is limited to a total of about six hours in the saddle (more if I'm allowed to include beach donkey rides at Weston super Mare as a toddler), a lifelong tendency to talk to any animal I meet, and five minutes on Wikipedia, I'm more than happy to hand over the role of Mikkel's expert equine advisor

 

Nick

And, given that my experience in the saddle is limited to many hours on a series of 531-framed touring bikes, and that as a toddler I was too frightened of the beach donkeys at Barry Island to even conceive of going near them (they were just so bloody big!), I'm also happy to hand over the reins (didn't you see that one Nick?) of equine advisor to 57xx.

Mikkel, I'm also a regular reader of your blog, I think the atmosphere you manage to portray in your photos is fantastic. I had previously found the gwr.org site and read all of the modelling articles several times - especially the RTR- and kitbashing projects for the Triang clerestories and Ratio 4-wheelers. But until your mention above, I had never realised you were its compiler, so thanks for all the inspiration.

One thing I notice about your gwr.org site (and this blog obviously!) is the high standard of photography. I have read many RTR-bashing articles in 60's and 70's Railway Modellers, MRConstructors etc (a long series of articles by Terry Gough on making Southern Coaches from Triang clerestories and Graham Farish suburbans is a good example) that could potentially inspire today's modellers to have a go at crossbreeding their favourite locos and coaches instead of incessantly crying out for the ready-served version, but the articles were frequently let down (my opinion only) by uninspiring photos. This is not a criticism of the modellers, but more a comment on how much the illustration of an article can affect the project's appeal. So seeing a picture like this: http://www.gwr.org.uk/ego/c22large2.jpg illustrating your article on the C22 conversion really makes me want to try it myself, even though I'm not even a GWR modeller! I would definitely recommend any modeller to look at the projects on that site, irrespective of their era/regional/scale interests (and as it's costing you dosh to keep the site archived, your generosity is appreciated).

Anyway, having set your standards sufficiently high that the level of discussion of detail has reached the shape of the horse's legs and whether a label on Agnes Wilkinson's luggage would read Ms or Miss, might I suggest that, for an Edwardian lady (even a suffragette), maybe the shape of Ms Wilkinson's legs is a little too visible? I have a feeling that the length and style of her dress, and particular the rather rakish style of the hat, is more reminiscent of the 40's and 50's than the Edwardian period - though I'm not a fashion expert by any means. What do you think Mikkel? Actually, the longer I look, the more I think the lady looks amazingly like Margaret Thatcher - the nose, the hair, straight back, everything!!

I'm just going to go back now and gaze at those first and fifth photos taken beneath the platform awning. Just stunning!

Look forward to the next additions.

Neil