James Harrison

In another of his essays he writes about a dislike of using the same word twice in short succession, which possibly explains it.

Somebody asked, not so very long ago, where my signature came from. Well. ~~~ Father Christmas - A. A. Milne Outside in the street the rain fell pitilessly, but inside the Children's Shop all was warmth and brightness. Happy young people of all ages pressed along, and I had no sooner opened the door than I was received into the eager stream of shoppers and hurried away to Fairyland. A slight block at one corner pitched me into an old, white-bearded gentleman who was standing next to me. Instantly my hat was in my hand. "I beg your pardon," I said with a bow. "I was--Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were real." I straightened him up, looked at his price, and wondered whether I should buy him. "What do you mean by real?" he said. I started violently and took my hat off again. "I am very stupid this morning," I began. "The fact is I mistook you for a toy. A foolish error." "I AM a toy." "In that case," I said in some annoyance, "I can't stay here arguing with you. Good-morning." And I took my hat off for the third time. "Don't go. Stop and buy me. You'll never get what you want if you don't take me with you. I've been in this place for years, and I know exactly where everything is. Besides, as I shall have to give away all your presents for you, it's only fair that--" An attendant came up and looked at me inquiringly. "How much is this THING?" I said, and jerked a thumb at it. "The Father Christmas?" "Yes. I think I'll have it. I'll take it with me--you needn't wrap it up." I handed over some money and we pushed on together. "You heard what I called you?" I said to him. "A thing. So don't go putting yourself forward." He gazed up innocently from under my arm. "What shall we get first?" he asked. "I want the engine-room. The locomotive in the home. The boy's own railroad track." "That's downstairs. But did you really think of an engine? I mean, isn't it rather large and heavy? Why not get a--" I smacked his head, and we went downstairs. It was a delightful room. I was introduced to practically the whole of the Great Western Railway's rolling stock.* "Engine, three carriages and a guard's van. That's right. Then I shall want some rails, of course.... SHUT up, will you?" I said angrily, when the attendant was out of hearing. "It's the extra weight," he sighed. "The reindeer don't like it. And these modern chimneys--you've no idea what a squeeze it is. However--" "Those are very jolly," I said when I had examined the rails. "I shall want about a mile of them. Threepence ha'penny a foot? Then I shan't want nearly a mile." I got about thirty feet, and then turned to switches and signals and lamps and things. I bought a lot of those. You never know what emergency might not arise on the nursery floor, and if anything happened for want of a switch or two I should never forgive myself. Just as we were going away I caught sight of the jolliest little clockwork torpedo boat. I stopped irresolute. "Don't be silly," said the voice under my arm. "You'll never be asked to the house again if you give that." "Why not?" "Wait till the children have fallen into the bath once or twice with all their clothes on, and then ask the mother why not." "I see," I said stiffly, and we went upstairs. "The next thing we want is bricks." "Bricks," said Father Christmas uneasily. "Bricks. Yes, there's bricks. Have you ever thought of one of those nice little woolly rabbits--" "Where do we get bricks?" "Bricks. You know, I don't think mothers are as fond as all that of BRICKS." "I got the mother's present yesterday, thanks very much. This is for one of the children." They showed me bricks and they showed me pictures of what the bricks would build. Palaces, simply palaces. Gone was the Balbus-wall of our youth; gone was the fort with its arrow-holes for the archers. Nothing now but temples and Moorish palaces. "Jove, I should love that," I said." I mean HE would love that. Do you want much land for a house of that size? I know of a site on the nursery floor, but--well, of course, we could always have an iron building outside in the passage for the billiard table." We paid and moved off again. "What are you mumbling about now?" I asked. "I said you'll only make the boy discontented with his present home if you teach him to build nothing but castles and ruined abbeys and things. And you WILL run to bulk. Half of those bricks would have made a very nice present for anybody." "Yes, and when royalty comes on a visit, where would you put them? They'd have to pig it in the box-room. If we're going to have a palace, let's have a good one." "Very well. What do your children hang up? Stockings or pillow-cases?" We went downstairs again. "Having provided for the engineer and the architect," I said, "we now have to consider the gentleman in the dairy business. I want a milk-cart."** "You want a milk-cart! You want a milk-cart! You want a - Why not have a brewer's dray? Why not have something really heavy? The reindeer wouldn't mind. They've been out every day this week, but they'd love it. What about a nice skating-rink? What about - " I put him head downwards in my pocket and approached an official. "Do you keep milk-carts?" I said diffidently. He screwed up his face and thought. "I could get you one," he said. "I don't want you to build one specially for me. If they aren't made, I expect it's because mothers don't like them. It was just an idea of mine." "Oh yes, they're made. I can show a picture of one in our catalogue." He showed it to me. It was about the size of a perambulator, and contained every kind of can. I simply had to let Father Christmas see. "Look at that!" I exclaimed in delight. "Good lord!" he said, and dived into the pocket again. I held him there tightly and finished my business with the official. Father Christmas has never spoken since. Sometimes I wonder if he ever spoke at all, for one imagines strange things in the Children's Shop. He stands now on my writing-table, and observes me with the friendly smile which has been so fixed a feature of his since I brought him home.

Meanwhile... the next little project is a clerestory lavatory brake third. I did a couple of silhouette files for some clerestory stock a few years ago (and actually built I think four carriages) so this should finish that particular rake off.

I'm rather pleased with it (and so I should be after two months working on it!) Next thoughts for the goods yard (I can't start building it properly yet due to issues with one of the railway room walls and needing to have a good clear-out in there) are a weighbridge (based off a paper kit Railway Modeller put out 20 years ago) and a goods shed (scratchbuilt, current thinking is to base that on either the LDEC building at Attercliffe or the wagon workshops at Leicester).

Finished....

And with the clerestory roof fitted (though, at the time the photos were taken, not yet slated up).

I've achieved something with the slates fairly close to what I had in mind; I started with a base of a mid-grey sort of a colour and then put a very dilute wash of a dark grey over that. Repeat once or twice and it gave the appearance I wanted. Then onto the slats in the clerestory roof. If building the kit straight off the page, the idea is that the formers for the clerestory have little slots cut into them, and then you drive the slats into those. In practice what I found was that in trying to cut these slots, the formers get badly beaten up. Even had I been able to cut the slots without damaging the formers, I then have my doubts that they wouldn't have become deformed when pushing the slats in. Broadly, I don't think that the ventilation system lends itself to replication in cardboard and paper. I wracked for my brain for a way around this, and the solution I came up with was to build a simpler version in plastic sheet. Firstly fit a 'cheek' of styrene sheet either side of each former. Then place the slats between the formers, rather than one long length that drives right through them. Then a little sliver of plastic as a spacer, then another slat on top of below. I've built mine with the slats being horizontal rather than angled- once painted and viewed from the usual viewing distance and angle this won't be noticeable- a further refinement could be to work it up so that the slats are angled.

There's been a bit more progress- mostly with slating the roof. Slow going, this. The good news is that the brickwork is pretty much done apart from painting up the cornicing, the slates just need a lot more work to get the colour and patina just so, and then I can move on with the clerestory (no idea quite how I'm going to do that right now) and finishing it off. To think this was going to be a 'week project' when I started back in October.

As you can see the walls are up at last. Now I'm working around the joints with Green Putty and fixing the roof rafters in.

Just a little bit more done... the front and both side walls have their window openings, lintels and sills. I decided to leave the rear wall a plain expanse of brickwork. I was hoping this weekend to fit the glazing however my idea to use a paintpen for the bars hit a snag thanks to lockdown. In any case, each wall has about 5 layers of card to it of which I've currently only fitted three or four, so before it can be properly erected plenty more paperstock needs to be cut.

Also of course he's involved with the preservation/ conservation/ restoration of a goodly number of GCR carriages. It'll be ready when it is ready I am sure.

Is there a publication date for that book yet? I know it's been in preparation for some years.

Thanks- I'd best crack on with the rest of the model! Very nice- I do like how you've also managed to get the street to disappear off-scene without making it obvious too.

With work on the 1:1 project winding down for Winter, things start to ramp up on the 1:76 side of things. I've added the lintels to the stable block facade. These should be brick however I've decided to model them in stone to continue the style of the goods yard offices.

One of the GC tunnels through Nottingham was so shallow that it broke through the basements of the buildings above it, so there is precedent for very shallow tunnels, but for that situation I would expect other factors to be at play (ie, the sheer expense of buying all the property required for an open-air right of way through the middle of a large city). It's the sort of thing that can be made to work but the complexities of it (not least of which is preventing the buildings above collapsing into the excavation) makes it not a favoured solution.

You could always model it as a dimly-hinted form behind masses of scaffold (note this would have been timber prior to the 1920s). I don't think I ever saw Lincoln Cathedral fully unmasked, as it were, even once during my three years studying there.

I think that squares the circle. I've got the loco depot back in (albeit much reduced) and although I'm generally not a fan (for reasons I can't understand) of peninsula-type baseboards, by using one I can pull the goods yard away from the long wall and use that space for the staging instead. In fact if I run the mainline almost right up to the wall and use train-length cassettes I can reduce that to just enough for one line of track, which then gives me around 500mm of space along that wall for myself to get in and out. Also that cassette could sit on a bookcase or a bookshelf- if on the bookcase then that also provides storage space for the stock other than on the layout itself. I've also got of course some nice big corners and areas where I can develop the townscape. I feel quite happy with this iteration, there's room for maybe three or four operators or spectators, although the boards come out into the room somewhat I can imagine some form of storage below for my magazines and books, and even a pull-out workbench.

I think I've sussed it. Mirror-imaging the goods yard, removing a few sidings and adding a bit more curve on the entry road buys me some room. Then if I posit a series of contours similar to Weekday Cross in Nottingham I can imagine this with the goods yard at a slightly lower level than the main lines (say 30- 40mm lower) which are running on brick arches and then plunge into a tunnel. The almost dart-straight track could be disguised by introducing warehouses in the vee between the yard and mainlines (I don't mean my goods shed, as then I'd be presented with an awkward incline on the road to get out of the goods yard- think more a railside industry with a rail-served undercroft) and then the mainline goes into the tunnel, makes a 90-degree turn and into the staging. Which I see more as loading cassettes than anything else- the way I see it, the trains actually get made up on the layout and the staging is there just to store them when off-scene.

Reality bit, hard, today as I made another gargantuan but futile effort to clear the spare room. My list of wants is in excess of the available space. At first, I did think that by putting the goods yard on the long wall and running the locomotive depot off the goods yard lead, and putting the station on a diagonal into the room in front of the fireplace, would answer. But try as I might I just couldn't get a neat result. The problem is the curves. 2' radius lets me get everything in but presents too regimented a look. Easing the curves eats up the space and makes the whole layout longer and deeper. Also that room is needed for things other than just RLS (it's also home to my railway books, collection of model dreadnoughts, workshop and is currently the 'here' in the phrase dump it here.) So the loco depot bit the dust. This new design takes up two walls of the room- including the wasted one with the fireplace- whilst leaving a fair bit of room for things other than the layout. The intention remains to start work on the goors depot and hopefully by the time that is finished Peco will have pulled their finger out and got the b/h slips and medium points out, which will let me work around to the station. Still in abeyance of course is how to lead the mainlines off-stage (I have in mind running into a tunnel similar to Weekday Cross, but then how to articulate the necessary rise in the ground with the goods yard right in front of it...)- a high level back road into the coal yard might answer and then place the mainlines into a brick-lined cutting.

That's the kit I'm using as a basis. I think it was your post on it on the CA thread that made me aware of it in the first place (belated thanks!) Now how closely it will resemble the kit I'm not sure- I'm not planning a major kitbash but who knows?- however as I've already mentioned it is a nice size to complement the YMRV station building kit I've adapted to offices (on reflection I think the schoolhouse kit would have been better....) and the arched elevations are a good match to the appearance of the wagon repair shops at Leicester, which is about the right size for my planned goods warehouse and which I'm thinking of using as a basis. I've mentioned Attercliffe as a proposed goods shed previously and to be truthful I'm thinking of an amalgam of the two.

Not holding my breath!

I found an offcut or two of plastic brick sheet that would suit for at least one or two of the outer walls of the stable block, so this afternoon I made a start in earnest. Cutting tiny shapes through 2mm-thick card is slow going, especially when you also need to cut curves. However I think I'll be able to get quite a good result.

Whilst waiting on plastic sheet I remembered I had an 'Immingham', painted and half lind out and waiting to be finished off, languishing in a box on a shelf. So yesterday I finally got around to doing the boiler bands and the insignia/ monograms/ coat of arms.... Number plates were fitted this morning, so now I can add another completed loco to my roster. That makes three black 4-6-0s I've finished in the new house.

For those taking notes, the "finescale buildings" stable block kit is a nice match in terms of block massing and overall size for the "your model railway village" station building (that kit that I converted into goods depot offices last year [or was it the year before...]). Today I've been gluing the various sheets down onto card. I wasn't expecting to then have to iron the card (after the glue had dried) to take the bowing out though... Now to wait for the plastic sheet to arrive.

Stravinksy's Rite of Spring for you then.