Mike Bellamy

Full text copied below . . . . . . . . .

Christine Hatton: "My 26 years of full time work here have been an absolute blast. I will have fond memories of Hattons, the people I've worked alongside and the community we have served. I am now looking forward to a happy retirement including plenty of travel, golf and tennis - as well as some part time voluntary work.

I would like to thank all of our customers and everyone associated with Hattons over the last 77 years."

Richard Davies: "I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has worked & shopped with Hattons over the 25 years I've had the privilege to work here. Since 1999 the internet has transformed the world and invigorated our wonderful hobby. Hattons have sold over £225 million of model railways to over 425,000 different people in more than 150 countries - it's been an incredible journey and experience.

After Hattons I'll be:

Doing some consultancy work in the UK model railway industry.

Consultancy work with companies outside of model railways - feel free to enquire by connecting on LinkedIn. I'm particularly interested in working with firms in Chester & North Wales on an ongoing basis, but more than happy to use Zoom to speak to anyone around the world

Potentially visiting model railway clubs around the world and telling the story of Hattons - feel free to invite me!

Spending time with family in Flint, North Wales

Contactable at davieshq@gmail.com 

I would like to say thank you to Christine Hatton for asking me to help run Hattons, after her brother Keith died in 2008. Keith was an such incredible & unique person, that it was understandable many assumed his passing would lead to our closing - we surprised many by achieving a huge amount between 2008 & 2023. I wish Christine, and all the dedicated colleagues of Hattons, all the very best for the future. I am very sorry my best wasn't good enough to maintain Hattons success."

Connect with Richard on Linkedin →

Contact Richard via Email →

Hattons Staff move on to new pastures...

We are pleased to announce that several of our staff members are continuing to work in the model railway industry. You may be familiar with Dave, Jack, Christov & Tom:

Dave - Commercial Projects Manager

Dave has been with Hattons for many years working in practically all areas of the business! Dave is moving on to Rapido Trains UK to assist with their forthcoming projects.

Jack - Chief Content Officer

You may recognise Jack from our popular Platform 1 livestreams and at exhibitions. He started in 2017, managing our marketing campaigns and content. He is moving on to work with Rails of Sheffield.

Christov & Tom - Helpdesk Assistants

If you've ever called or emailed us, you have likely spoken to Christov or Tom - who were two of our extremely knowledgeable helpdesk remote workers. Both have now moved to The Model Centre.

Seeking staff for your organisation? We are more than happy to circulate any opportunities you may have to our highly capable former members of staff.

7 hours ago, it's-er said:

I don’t think this question has been answered. And does anyone know what has happened at DJH?  DJH has been on the go for a long time. Is it a case that the current owners/proprietors, whoever they may be, are retiring?  Or is there no longer a decent business to be made in it? Or whatever?

 

DJH is (was ?) a lot more than just model railways (such as 'Knobs and Knockers' and all sorts of tourist souvenirs) - see link below listing six companies in the group - if we assume Squires have bought the loco side of the business, what about everything else ?

https://www.djhgroup.co.uk/our-brands

.

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

 I have a friend who lives in Norfolk. As odd bits of land come up for sale adjoining his house he has bought them. Each plot seems to come with a few rickety sheds. Some don’t need much of a push to dispose of but one plot has brick stables. My friend who is older than I am, is going retile its roof himself this year and restore the stables. I am fairly certain he won’t be getting a horse though. 

We all have a friend in Norfolk - it's Ben (and his master @TheQ )  - in fact that sounds very much like his estate near Sea Palling (if memory is correct). We hear a lot about several sheds needing repair and new discoveries in the undergrowth which always seems to grow faster than he can clear it.

.

13 hours ago, Les1952 said:

Traders include...

 

Rocket Railways, Coalville,

 

Les - are you sure about this one as comments in another topic indicate that the business has closed - see link below

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/184049-rocket-railways-leicestershire/#comment-5425161

.

10 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Why is it when the police turn up, usually at some trivial minor incident they always seem to multiplies of four. Yet when there's 'unrest' in the centre they always say they have insufficient numbers to arrest the little scrotes- other terms of endearment are available.

Last summer, a couple of members were in the model railway clubroom one evening (not a normal club night), when a couple of teenagers started messing about outside and banging on the doors before trying to climb an adjacent wall to get on the roof. They were genuinely frightened, locked the doors, and rang the police on 999 and let a couple of other members know what was going on. When I got there about ten minutes later, there was one police car in the middle of the car park, unoccupied but with blue lights still flashing. Just then another car pulled in, with four officers and one suspect - turns out the second car driver had seen his colleagues chasing this youth and joined in. Later a third car arrived followed by a van, although that was sent away again as they had enough officers on the scene. One car set off with suspect one to the station, and after a neighbour showed them a photo of suspect two, wearing a hoodie with a distinctive logo, they soon found him and he was off to town as well. The first officers to arrive took statements from our members and said that as the two suspects were under 18 they would be given a talking to and be taken home to their parents. Not a bad response though, four vehicles and eight officers all on scene within twenty minutes.

58 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Amazon.co.uk does list it - it's together with the immortal words that accompanies any decent product*: <Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock>.

How strange - they must had had a delivery in the past hour as both of the links I quoted yesterday showed 'In Stock' when I looked just now . . . . . 

.

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I was looking to see if I could buy a Woodpeckers 1281 Precision Woodworking Square on Amazon for somewhat less than the exorbitant prices charged by Swiss importers (Woodpeckers is an American company that makes very high quality tools which have  a unique and durable bright red finish. They last a lifetime and are priced to match). My Amazon search did not throw up the item I was looking for . . . . . 

Accurate to one thousandth of an inch and with a lifetime guarantee.  Available on Amazon UK sold by Wood Workers Workshop for £156

However also available from their own website for £138 - perhaps less if you can buy free of VAT - and they do offer International delivery

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Woodpeckers-Precision-Woodworking-Tools-1281R/dp/B004BFYLZK/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

https://woodworkersworkshop.co.uk/woodpeckers-woodworking-square-300mm-model-1281/

.

As Richard has mentioned above, David is still very much about and regularly attends local exhibitions as a demonstrator. There is some information in the topic linked below although he closed the Dovedale Models website several years ago and so he now has a different email address which I will send to you by PM as I don't have his permission to make this publicly available. 

I don't know if the DVDs are still available, but if not, he also has a series of six books published by Crowood Press (although I don't think the Isle of Man TT Racing books are by the same David Wright !!)

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/blogs/entry/9193-dovedale-models/

https://www.crowood.com/search?type=product&q=David Wright*

.

11 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

This approach worked very well, thanks for the recommendation. Here are the panels for my tank, made by Chris:

There are some corner pieces as well.

Now available on his website too:  https://www.chris-draw.com/water-tanks.html

Happy to help and pleased that Chris has produced exactly what you wanted - we all now look forward to seeing the completed model!

.

On 09/02/2024 at 21:56, slow8dirty said:

Blimey, the SWAG members day's growing beyond recognition🤡🤪

 . . . . . and there were other meetings before SWAG with the first in 2007 at Mickleover (Derby) - at that time there were only a few hundred members - now almost 45,000 !!

.

11 hours ago, rob D2 said:

I find intermittent fasting good too. Eat for 8 hrs , fast for 16 …not every day though 

Without starting a political debate - carry on like that Rob and you could end up as Prime Minister - his fasting day is said to be on Mondays.

.

Jay - sorry to read about the unwanted visitor at the studio last week . . . . . . . . . . . 

Mike.

23 hours ago, ISW said:

Have you considered selling it all at a local (or national) swap-meet? Set up your own table and sell as much as you can. You might need to set up a card payment method though (like SumUp). From what a couple of sellers have told me, they got much better prices this way. You can find all the swap meets at https://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/events/local.html

Our local model railway club organise three swapmeets each year and charge £15 for a 6ft table and have between 15-20 traders there. They all spend the time before the public come in circulating around the tables buying from each other anything they think is cheap and then adding stuff to their pile of sales items. Of course the ordinary punters start to queue early in the hope of getting some bargains but don't realise the other traders have been there before them.

At one sale, one of our club members was in your situation with a table full of OO stock - by the time the public were admitted, he had an empty table as everything had gone to two dealers - he was happy with the prices he got which were at a 'bulk buy' discount off his individual prices but the advantage was that he had nothing left to dispose of.

.

I understand the proprietor has been ill for around 18 months (?) and the shop had been kept open by a group of friends helping out as best they could.

.

40 minutes ago, papagolfjuliet said:

I don't see why these places cannot be allowed to speak for themselves. It's worked for decades; why the sudden need to talk down to visitors?

The Museum of Childhood has been at Sudbury for 'decades' as it was opened in 1974 by Derbyshire County Council - and as many of the visitors are children, they need things they can relate to - the captions on some of the paintings are humorous and tell the story about the person and their part in the history of Sudbury. Having been there recently with a seven year old grandson, he thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it and we stayed all day - unlike the other local attractions at Kedleston Hall and Calke Abbey where he couldn't wait to get out again. At Belton House his favourite part was the adventure playground and of course the train ride - but at least he was out enjoying himself and engaging with others - not sat at home in front of the TV or playing games on his tablet.

.

What an amazing day and a great success, partially due to the great variety of layouts we had on display - although organised by the small local group of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association, we actually had OO9, O9, O-14, O-16.5, O standard, On2, On3, 16mm and even one I hadn't thought about before which was O-24.5 as the etched trams from the Kinver Light Railway were running on 3ft 6in gauge track !!

Adrian has posted a lot of photos in the Elsbridge topic - this was Neil Blair's layout and following his sudden passing last year, it is now in the care of our local area group and was exhibited in his memory as he had also been our event organiser. See the link below.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/97585-elsbridge-tramway-company-elsbridge-town-neilhbs-layout/?do=findComment&comment=5412988

Many thanks to all those who came to see us and in particular helped to reduce Neil's book mountain that our group had inherited - funds raised will go towards our new group layout, a project he was keen to get started once he had finished Elsbridge. It is fitting to note that one of the three helpers in the kitchen was Neil's' mum Leigh, and his husband Dan had intended to be there as well but he has a rather important accountancy exam on Monday and had some essential revision to complete.

We are already talking about our plans for next year's show . . . . . . 

.

Thanks Ade. Another set of great photos which show the variety of layouts we had on display - although organised by the small local group of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association, we actually had OO9, O9, O-14, O-16.5, O standard, On2, On3, 16mm and even one I hadn't thought about before which was O-24.5 as the etched trams from the Kinver Light Railway were running on 3ft 6in gauge track !!

Many thanks to all those who came to see us and in particular helped to reduce Neil's book mountain that our group had inherited - funds raised will go towards our new group layout, a project he was keen to get started once he had finished Elsbridge. It is fitting to note that one of the three helpers in the kitchen was Neil's' mum Leigh, and his husband Dan had intended to be there as well but he has a rather important accountancy exam on Monday and had some essential revision to complete.

We are already talking about our plans for next year's show . . . . . . 

.

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

catering (one of the perceived issues with the latter being the need for people with appropriate food safety training to oversee it, but based on my own experience elsewhere this aspect might have been slightly overstated). 

 No need for any Food Hygiene certificates if it is only occasional catering - see the links and quote below - although these quote EU directives, they are still current on the Food Standards Agency website.

https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/providing-food-at-community-and-charity-events

https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/hall-provision.pdf

Quote

Operations such as the occasional handling, preparation, storage and serving of food by private persons at events such as church, school or village fairs are not covered by the scope of the Regulation. This is made clear in recital 9 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004. The second sentence states that: ‘Community rules should only apply to undertakings, the concept of which implies a certain continuity of activities and a certain degree of organisation.’ The term ‘undertaking’ is integrated in the definition of a ‘food business’ (in accordance with Article 3(2) of the General Food Law (Regulation (EC) No 178/2002), a ‘food business’ must be an ‘undertaking’). Somebody who handles, prepares, stores or serves food occasionally and on a small scale (e.g. a church, school or village fair and other situations such as organised charities comprising individual volunteers where the food is prepared occasionally) cannot be considered as an ‘undertaking

.

44 minutes ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

It’s -14 Celsius this morning, but who cares when I have this to look at whilst eating my breakfast.

In your former home town, that's a bit different to the view out of my bedroom window across the Harrowby Road allotments and up Hall's Hill. However I'm sure we had temperatures like that back in the 1960s as I had ice on the inside of the window even though my Dad was a plumber and heating engineer !

.

19 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

I get books from World of Books online - including railway titles. They are linked with charity shops and help them move books to where they can be sold to the best advantage. 

Mrs B was looking for a specific specialist cookery book and found it at World of Books for (I think) £18 and was amazed that it had a British Heart Foundation price on for £2.50. She was so cross at the substantial mark-up and said she would rather give a donation to BHF than add to the profits of WoB. She complained, returned the book and got a full refund.

.

14 hours ago, fezza said:

. . .  today's small Mickleover swapmeet where I was able to acquire several quite specialist things I'd been looking for.

Thank you for your support - if you bought a bacon cob, even more thanks as I cooked about 80 in three hours !!  See you in September (7th), although we are considering the possibility of another event in June. If this also goes ahead, look out for Railway Modeller and UK Model Shops adverts.

9 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Our own club show always tried to feature Continental layouts well but we lost our big venue 

When we expanded the Derby Show to use both halls at the Assembly Rooms, we alternated using the smaller hall with Continental organised by the SNCF Society, and then the year after would be American organised by the NMRA. It was interesting to see the peaks and troughs in the attendance graph as for a while Continental was more popular and then it changed so that the American years had the higher attendance (or was it the other way around - I can't remember). When we went to the smaller Moorways Sports Centre and then to Derby Roundhouse, we continued to invite a selection of both American and Continental layouts - after all good modelling is good modelling regardless of scale, gauge and location. Sadly all three venues have now closed.

.

Horses are being used in forestry clearance in Wales - from the BBC earlier this week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czv55v1qy24o

.

4 hours ago, cctransuk said:

Oh dear - that would seem to be indicative of another valued supplier in the process of withdrawing from the market.

I disagree - that isn't what they say on the front page of their website copied below. It's a bit like Tesco saying they are going to stop selling baked beans (or anything else) - it doesn't automatically mean they are closing the business.

Quote

We are concentrating our range on locomotive/tender kits (the original LMS kits and the ex-Martin Finney kits), EasiChas and finescale wagon and coach underframes, wagon bodies and couplings. We are no longer selling etched windows, track details, coupling/connecting rods and axle/buffer gauges.

 

Stocks of accessories will not be replaced once they have been exhausted and these will now only be available at shows and not via mail order. Also, we are closing our PO Box with immediate effect and will therefore only be able to accept orders via email.

 

Our plans for 2024 include the re-launch of the Austerity/J94 0-6-0ST kit which has been unavailable for many years. It will produce all of the main variants including the 50550, Lambton colliery, Giesl ejector and the early and later LNER J94s.

 

Following on will be the EasiChas for the Bachmann LMS Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0, a full kit for the Great Eastern J17 0-6-0, a finescale chassis for the Bachmann GCR O4 ROD 2-8-0 and last, but not least, the LMS Coronation Pacific.

 

Why not be more positive and suggest some answers to James, who asked who would be an alternative supplier for the accessories previously available from Brassmasters.

.