Mike Bellamy

April 1982 - one of the first Derby Model Railway Exhibitions at the Assembly Rooms in the centre of Derby - except in those days our show was in the 'Darwin Suite' as the 'Great Hall' was used by the City Council to show archive films by John Huntley each afternoon. We were delivering our club layout to the loading bay at the back on the Friday afternoon when a large motorhome arrived with Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats, asking if they had come to the right place. We directed them to the other end of the building. Later after school finished a group of girls arrived and took our photos, convinced we were the road crew and our large wooden stock boxes were part of the band's gear. After another year of successful shows, we were getting hundreds more visitors than the film shows so we swapped halls for a couple of years and then took over the whole building. .

The Baptistery Window in the Cathedral Church of St Michael, Coventry, designed by John Piper with 198 windows - 26m high and 17m wide. We were there two weeks ago and according to the guide book, it's the UK's favourite 20th Century building. By coincidence we were in your part of the country today, viewing a second hand caravan purchase at a storage site at Sibbertoft. .

It looks like the sort of model produced by A1 Models of Doncaster, now sold on Ebay. His OO9 kits are available from Dundas but I'm not aware of a 7mm stockist. Suggest you contact him via his Ebay shop and see if he recognises this as one of his kits. Looks like he is now producing 3D printed items as well. https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/a1models-doncaster https://dundasmodels.co.uk/webstore/index.php/hikashop-menu-for-module-108/category/500-a1-models-loco-kits .

Interesting bridge but I just wonder why they didn't put the roadway through the middle which is wider and without the height restriction ? .

We were surprised that our Tesco phones had no signal (using the O2 network) when we were in the middle of Keswick last year - but at the top of "Catbells" overlooking Derwentwater there was a full signal . . . but no car parks on top of a mountain !! .

He traded it in with another member who at that time was a second hand trader, regularly going to swapmeets. Vic changed scale / gauge regularly and enjoyed building layouts, but he would often come back a few weeks later and swap to a different scale / gauge - of course the 'trader' always won by letting him have stock worth less than what he was trading in 😀 .

Several years ago, a member exhibited a layout at our village hall show with a "For Sale" sign on it. The layout sold on Saturday and was taken away at the end of the day - and so he brought another on the Sunday ! Most of his layouts were Swiss / Austrian, completely flat, oval of track, couple of points, station building and a few chalet style buildings - the thing we always remembered about his layouts was the use of a very bright green grass mat. Several of our members didn't notice the difference and the description in the guide fitted both layouts! .

I expect that those struggling had card readers that are linked to a mobile phone and they had chosen a network with a poor signal in that area. I used to help a friend with his trade stand at shows BC (Before Covid) and he had a sim card from one company in his phone and another in a mobile wifi unit so he had two chances of getting a good signal. The 'Ally Pally Signal' would have been their own wifi network - £78 for the password to connect ? .

In my case it started off as walking, then it got faster and finally they increased the angle so I was running up hill. At the end I almost collapsed onto a chair gasping for breath but still all wired up to the machine while 3 or 4 technicians looked at the computer screen. When I asked if there was something wrong, they told me I wasn't recovering as quickly as they expected - what the ****did they expect - the last time I ran like that was 60 years ago at school - and still came in last . . . . . .

Am I right in thinking that these will be approx 28" wheels ?? If so there are some Kadee wheels on Ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274183855706 .

I seem to recall way back when it was first published they did say something about concentrating on RTR OO and then in the 3rd or 4th issue featured a 7mm Narrow Gauge layout as I commented on that in a RMweb topic at the time. I suppose the connection was that it ran on 16.5mm track and some locos were on OO chassis but it did seem to go against what everyone was expecting at the time. .

. . . . . . . and Oscar and Rupert - I know how much they enjoy meeting visitors 🤣 .

You never will find a copy as it wasn't published. On the Gauge O Guild Facebook page, Malcolm Mitchell reported Tony's passing a couple of days ago and was asked about this book by someone who posted a photo of the 'front cover'. Malcom's reply is posted below Sorry to disappoint you - but after your visit to Missenden, is there anything left to learn . . . . . . .

The Railway Modeller supplement (LMS Locos) was enclosed with my printed subscription copy and so it wasn't a 'supermarket special' - but i appreciate your frustration that things like this are missed from those who have gone digital. .

Our local club organise regular swapmeets with 15/20 traders all selling model railway related stuff. One time it was pouring with rain and we took pity on the queue outside and let them in 15 mins early. Those who arrived at the advertised time were then complaining that they had missed the bargains. What they didn't appreciate was that the traders had all been there for at least two hours, one to set up and the second hour to wander around looking at what their competitors were selling and then either grabbing a bargain or going back to their stand to alter the prices. One time a club member took a table as he was having a compete change of what he was modelling - a nice neat table set out with nearly new Hornby and Bachmann stock all at competitive prices. One trader made an offer for the lot and cleared the table before the event started . . ! .

I did not find the original name you quoted on the Companies House Register . . . . . . but HOBBY SHOP 22 Ltd was incorporated on 13th January 2023 with Adam David Cann named as the sole director. This information is on the public record available online. .

Sorry to hear of the continuation of Paw Pain - by coincidence the last topic I was looking at before this one was all about the courses at Missenden. Have you seen the link to the photos - I have just been back to try and identify you but all the modellers look human (some more than others) and no sign of anything big white and fluffy . . . . Click for Link to Missenden Photos .

Although it was before we moved to this area, I'm led to believe that that road signs said "Welcome to Derbyshire, a Nuclear Free Zone" until it was pointed out to the Council that one of the Rolls Royce factories in Derby produced the nuclear reactors that went into every nuclear powered submarine. The signs were then replaced by ones saying "Derbyshire supports Nuclear Free Zones". .

Copied from the Accurascale topic posted earlier today by one of the directors. Seems they have the confidence that was lacking from Rapido. Let the speculation commence . . . . . . ! ! .

So what about Ixion who produced the first real RTR 7mm loco - a small company with two partners in Australia and Chris Klein here in the UK who started with an N Gauge Manor, followed by an Australian On30 steam railcar and then the Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0. At that time they produced 1,500 (500 in three different colours and then did a re-run of another 500 in a different shade of green. Then came the GWR Fowler diesel which was a unique engine as I believe that was the first to be built and the slightly later LMS version was different as the starter motor was on the other side. They were adventurous and that created the market. Due to changes in his partners' other interests, Chris then joined with Chris Basten to create Minerva and that company continues to develop and bring out new products despite the sudden unexpected death of Chris Klein. .

. . . . and our local team lost 4-1. However they're not my team as I don't follow anyone in particular and have never been to a match. I guess they'll be changing places a few more times in the table and then perhaps meeting in the play-off final - and after that who knows . . . .

We were like that in the University Admin office as we were dealing with overseas partnerships where their working day started earlier than ours and so it suited most people to come in early - and these were offset by those who couldn't get up in the morning and came in later. Worked well for many years until the manager left after maternity leave and a new manager with no experience of academic life took over. She loved spreadsheets and we all had to input our start and finish time, plus the time taken for lunch to ensure that the hours added up correctly. In one case, one of the hardest workers was taken to task because her official hours were five minutes short. She then altered her leaving time to 5.01pm each day to make it balance - even though she was often there much later. One of the partnerships at that time was with a college in Israel - not only did you have the time difference to cope with but also they worked Sunday and not Friday which gave us four days a week of normal contact. When visiting we travelled on Saturday and went to the office on Sunday. On our return, we then claimed back four days of time off as weekend work was time and a half for Saturday and double time for Sunday as well as time off for early start and/or late return to home. .

Sounds like a trip to Aldi or Lidl . . . . . . . . That layer of slabs you found the other day would make a great shed base . . . . . .

Derby has just had an "Olympic Size" pool built on the site of the old pool and sports centre where we held the Derby Exhibition. Locals tell me that when the first pool was built, there was a lot of talk about the visitors it would attract to watch competitions but then the Council found that it was rather difficult to get swimming clubs to come and compete - an Olympic pool is 50 m long - smaller competitions are held in 25m pools - so why did we end up with one that was 33m and NBG (no Bl**dy Good)! In an interview in the local paper the Chairman of one of the local clubs said that in his opinion, the new facility was the best in the country - as well as the competition pool, it also includes slides, teaching pool, leisure pool, wave machine etc - at a cost of £42m !! https://www.everyoneactive.com/centre/moorways-sports-village-and-water-park/ .

Some may recall a series of four programmes by Guy Martin last year where he was racing different vehicles such as three wheelers in Italy and Volvos in Sweden. A friend of my son built the Land Rover that he raced and from what I have been told (before the broadcast) most of that was filmed specifically for the TV - sometimes several times until the producers got the shots they wanted. Although not exactly scripted, they knew beforehand a general idea of who was going to say what. The part where Guy bought the vehicle and paid for the modifications was all fiction as the builder had kept the Land Rover and after the time trials etc, it was kept hidden in his workshop just a couple of miles away from where I live until the programme was first broadcast - then the next day he had photos on Facebook of him sitting in the vehicle outside the village pub. So another example of 'Made for TV Entertainment' . . . . . . .