Doncaster Green

Definitely my kind of social function. Also, from my experience of talking with club members, I agree with your comments about the support they gave the Polish community. As a slight aside, their wartime leader, General Sikorsky, was buried in the Polish War Cemetery in the town I grew up in after his controversial death in a plane crash, although I understand his body was repatriated to Poland in the 90's. I believe a memorial to him is still there though. John

When I lived in Plymouth in the 70's there were a couple of thriving Polish social clubs that, I believe, were started by Polish servicemen who had escaped here during WW2 and served in the RAF, the Navy and Free Polish Army. They had joined the local darts leagues and matches against them were always good for plenty of laughs, some good food and a lot of late night drinking! John

Which it did with a vengeance sooner rather than later if the 5 yr old one my brother bought in the 70’s was anything to go by. The weight of filler replacing rust would have sunk it like a stone in seconds! John

Merry Christmas to you and Kim, Jerry and, hopefully, by the time Larkrail comes around meeting and chatting will be back on the menu. Regards John

I remember a gift shop in Sorrento where the proprietor addressed everybody in English until it came to Mrs DG and me - 'Gute Morgen' said he (???!!!???). Gross Gott, was it something I said?

There was no logic, only tradition! One went to Oxford or Cambridge to study Classics and become a politician or senior Diplomat. If a more practical and/or useful career was wanted there was always Manchester, Nottingham, et al. The school was older than Methuselah, the earliest buildings known to have housed it are dated 1558 and local historians believe it grew out of a choir school founded in the early 13th century and, if my memory is correct, it had only been part of the state system since the 1944 Education Act. Most of us pupils were firmly of the opinion that most of the staff had actually been present at the opening of the buildings in 1558! In fact, the Headmaster during my time there was the first Head not to be an ordained Minister of the Church of England - and he was a Doctor of Divinity! When I attended (1960's) the most famous old boys were Sir Donald Wolfit, the Actooor, and Gonville Bromhead of Rourkes Drift. Things went downhill from there with William 'Dusty' Hare (RU afficiandos of a certain age will be aware of him) and Norman Pace of Hale and Pace. John

Possibly so, but with such a beautifully English view of the world.

You may claim if you wish, but I would have thought the natural melodiousness of the Welsh voice would make the utterances less believable! You have to be a really grumpy Home Counties Englishman to carry it off properly.

I am of the firm opinion that all English males over the age of 60 are Victor Meldrew, myself included! John

Exactly what I was told by a Dutchman who thought the official language should be changed to English! When I was at school the language you learnt was chosen for you. If they believed you had an Oxbridge chance you took Latin. For possible Civil Servants (senior of course) it was French (the diplomatic language). And for the rest of us artisan plebs it was German. Luckily I was absolute c**p at a subject that had the same timetable as French so I was allowed to do two languages. It helped that my mother was very nearly fluent in French, having worked alongside the French in the Allied Control Commission in Vienna in 1945/46. In French I can just about get by in a day to day conversation. My German was a lot better, having spent four years there, but is rusty now. I have no other languages apart from two versions of English, 'Establishment' English after 30 years in the Civil Service and English as wot it is spoke like. John

All this talk of containers of shame (various sizes are available) reminds me that, during Lockdown 1, I decided to inventory all the railway related 'stuff' in my specific container (the back bedroom) and wished I hadn't. Not only was there a lot more than I remembered (would admit to (?)), but the age of some of it was astounding. I discovered price labels from W&H Models, Cove Models and Beatties and we all know how long ago they joined the great model shop in the sky! That this inventory was made I count as a positive outcome of the lockdown and it set me thinking as to what other positives there may have been or was everything else a negative? This time last year we had just had the release of 'Pandemic Christmas - Delta Rising' (bombed at the box office as all cinemas were shut but has been on TV incessantly) and we now await the imminent release of 'Pandemic Christmas 2 - The Wrath of Omicron'. Is the screenplay already written for 'Pandemic Christmas 3 - Omega Unleashed' or will we be resuming our uphill toil in search of the promised green, sunny uplands of Unicorn Land? So, from my point of view, what have been some of the negatives of the last two years? The last exhibition I attended was Warley 2019. The last face to face conversation with like minded (modeller) people was a small gathering in Jan 2020. Mrs DG has to attend for dialysis treatment 3 times a week and since Feb 2020 I have been her taxi service to ease the pressure social distancing placed on hospital transport - this has added 6000+ miles per year to the car! What of the positives? Some modelling has been done although not as much as I would have liked. For the second year in succession I have not been required to queue from Junction 15 to Junction 17 of the M5 in order to undertake Christmas shopping, Similarly, for the second year in succession, I have not been required to attend the annual exhibition of rustic wooden buildings called the Bath Shed Show, sorry, Christmas Market. I have not been required to visit Ikea for two years! In the immortal words - How was it for You? John

You mean the one you bought years ago, put with all the others and completely forgot about. Like what I do! John

HH - you have omitted to mention that, due to the current health emergency, the Herald Angels may only sing if they are in the open air, properly socially distanced and situated downwind of any congregation. John

Scarborough Spa Express? John

Many years ago I was the proud(?) owner of a MK1 Mini Countryman (the proper BL one with the wood). On leaving work one day I inadvertently picked up my desk keys instead of my car keys - you guessed it, they worked! More worrying was the fact that my desk key would open more than half the desks in the office, or was the worry that more than half the occupants of the office could open my car? John

Definitely a big, brass one! John

When I arrived at said institution it was N Staffs College of Technology - it changed to Poly while I was there. That definitely dates me! Quite go-ahead for the time; we had access to an ICL1900 series to learn about 'data processing'. And I most certainly remember The Place in Hanley (and Gordon Banks, Tony Waddington, Dennis Smith and Mike Pejic propping up the end of one of the bars) and its associated Placemate(?) in Newcastle under Lyme. Close relations with Keele Uni at the time and, IIRC, the rag weeks were joint efforts. I know in one such week I saw Jon Heismanns Coloseum, Caravan and Pentangle at Keele and Ginger Baker's Airforce, the Edgar Broughton Band and Pink Floyd at various venues around the 5 towns. As is said: Happy Days John

Just a quick update. There has been some progress on the Silver Jubilee stock; mainly the twin first as shown below. The intention is to model it as running towards the end of it's life in the late 50's/early 60's (it is listed as withdrawn in 1962); a sort of Silver Jubilee silver jubilee! It's riding on temporary bogies for now to make sure all is level, so forgive the stepboards that shouldn't be there! So far all has gone together OK. I made a couple of errors on the underframe artwork but nothing that I couldn't work around. The battery boxes and brake gear come from 2mm Shop etches. The dynamos (when fitted) will be Etched Pixels. The roof is a bit of a lash up. It is a BR Mk1 plastic moulding from the 2mm Shop, split down the middle to add 30 thou to the width and trimmed to length. It still needs a little bit of fettling to bed it down properly, but, I believe, it is not far off the look of the prototype, although maybe a little shallow. The vents for the pressure ventilation system are still to be fitted. I am not 100% happy with the solebar fairings, so may do a little bit more work on them. They were most definitely still in place in 1962, as shown in a picture in Harris(the blue reprint). When I get to it, painting is going to be interesting. When in BR Maroon, the bodies were not lined but the stainless steel strips were left bright! Regards for now John

Will You mean this tram? Taken August 1990 John

By Jove! Is it really nearly 6 months since I posted anything on here? Where have those months gone? They say procrastination is the thief of time - I must have been procrastinating Big Time. But then I'm good at that! Anyway, things have been happening although none of them have progressed to a point that would justify a post: A Dia105/125 BT/third twin has almost reached the paint shop queue (a queue that never seems to reduce), A couple of full thirds, my earliest attempts, have been revisited to correct errors and improve them generally, and I have almost completed a Dia 282 'Shorty' BG, using a 51ft underframe, the sides from a Dia 129 NG Full Brake, a pair of Fox bogies and the ends and roof (much butchered) from a NGS Gresley BG kit, to match a picture on Robert Carroll's Flikr album of one in Maroon being either attached or detached from a train at York by an O3 shunter. Progress on the Silver Jubilee set has been minimal. As I said previously, it is my intention to build it as the units were running towards the end of their life in the late '50s/early '60s. This requires full underframes as the side skirts were removed post WW2. The twin first and the outer units of the dining triplet and triple third had an overall length of 56ft 2in mounted on 55ft 4in articulated underframes (the difference being the overhang of the bow end) while the centre units of the triples were 45ft 11in. Chris Higgs indicated he had artwork for the 55ft 4in underframes that could scaled for 1:148 to match the Worsley etches, leaving me to concoct a plan for some cut and shut work to produce the 45ft 11in underframes. And there things stood for some time until I started doing some preparation work on the sides of the twin first, the intention being to put a body box together in order to work out the best way to build the roof. It was at this point that I found that the Worsley sides are a scale 10 ins too long - they scale to 56ft 2in in N rather than 55ft 4in, i.e. they are 115.7mm as opposed to 114mm. This is not a problem if you are building the fully skirted pre-war set as the floor, skirts and sides all match and all it means is the set is slightly too long but nobody can tell without a ruler. What it meant for me, though, building the post war versions, was that Chris' underframe artwork would be short compared to the sides. So, spurred on by the advice provided by a thread last year plus notes from Bob Jones and Hollywood Foundry, I joined the etching club and designed my own underframes to match the Worsley sides. (Note for Chris if he reads this - I do still want the 55ft artic underframes, I have other projects in mind). I received to results of my artwork this week: The service was superb; 2 weeks from initial enquiry to product delivery. The quality is superb. I've made a couple of errors on the artwork but nothing that stops them being used. I will admit to flagrantly copying other peoples' ideas! These frames will be used with brake gear/battery box etches from the 2mm Shop, bits from Etched Pixels and bogies from Chris. Now all I have to do is build them! First in line, the twin first. Onwards and upwards! I will keep you posted. Regards for now John

Hi Steve Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the lower left a GNR Dia99 Twin First? Regards John

Sounds familiar, Mike. The Vogue was rear wheel drive and I lost the back end as the bend tightened. Spun through best part of 720 degrees without hitting anything, although I think the heart didn’t slow down for about a week! John

You weren’t the first, and, most certainly, not the last. I, too, had some moments along there, one near the Muston Gap pub when I still don’t know how I didn’t write off Father’s Singer Vogue. when my parents lived in Long Bennington my brother and I used to enjoy a half pint (!) at the Muston Gap, a pub where last orders was called as the last bus from Grantham to Nottingham called outside. I remember one night when there was an accident at Allington and the bus was at least an hour late! John

All of the talk earlier of airbases in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire led to me recalling the plethora of establishments within a 10 mile radius of the town I grew up in just a few miles further north up the A1. Many of them were closed and non-operational but still remarkably extant even into the late '60s: Winthorpe, now the Newark and Notts Showground and home to Newark Air Museum. I believe it has also hosted model railway exhibitions from time to time, Balderton, now buried under housing and the A1, Bottesford, now returned to agriculture but with runways still discernible and a couple of hangers still extant and in good repair as storage facilities. I believe this was a Lancaster OCU when operational, Fulbeck, where I did my early driving training (until my father deemed I was safe enough for the public road); maneuvering round the peri track and speed (or as much speed as was possible in a 1600 Super Minx!) down the main runway. If I remember rightly a motorbike fanatic from Nottingham used to use Fulbeck for his record attempts with some weird and wonderful rebuilds of Nortons and Vincents. I seem to recall that one such rebuild featured Vincent frame parts and a 4 cylinder car engine (BMC A Series? Hillman Imp rings a bell but that may be too late) Some were still open: RAF Swinderby, in the 50's and 60's a flying training station using, IIRC, Vampires. Later became a basic recruit training station, which is how it was when I was incarcerated as a civilian accountant at RAF Brampton. Now gradually being obliterated by development and the plough, I wonder if the people living in the houses where the parade ground was ever hear the ghostly sound of boots bashing the square! RAF Newton, its early life I'm not sure of but by my time at Brampton it was HQ Air Cadets and home to dog training. Now, again gradually disappearing under development and the plough. One has survived as an operational airfield, but only just: RAF Syerston, by all accounts flew Manchesters, Wellingtons, Lancasters and Mosquitoes during the conflict. I can vaguely remember (I was only 8 at the time) the aftermath of the Battle of Britain Airday there in 1958 when a prototype Vulcan crashed on the airfield during a low level pass. For many years it was Care and Maintenance but I understand it is now HQ Central Gliding School. And Brampton itself, now a housing estate. I was present at the Great Fire of 1985 (I didn't start it, honest, but I know of several who would have - I'll mention no names!) and during the rebuilding, now all gone. Same as both the MoD establishments in Bath I worked at; both now housing estates, one of them with starting prices of £600K +. Regards John

And then offered to sell it back to you when you needed a system to keep time! In my years of paid employment I found the best way to get your ideas accepted was to persuade management they had thought of it themselves. John