Nigel Bunker

I live in High Wycombe and have a choice of goint to Twyford (Berks), about a 50 minute round trip excluding shopping time or Aston Clinton (Bucks), about 80 minutes round trip. I prefer a shop simply for the ability to browse and the serendipitous chance of finding something I hadn't even considered. I use mail order for things like transfers and nameplates and all those fiddly bits shops don't stock any more, and I use the box shifters for RTR to make my budget stretch farther, like the new Hornby Hall I picked up for £49.00 from the big box shifter in the NW. But I do miss the now extinct specialist shops wher you could go in and buy a dozen handrail knobs, some 26swg wire. a Westinghouse pump and a set of Romford wheels and axles for a Castle (no need to know the size, the man behind the counter knew it off by heart) only to be asked if I wanted the wheels for the bogies and tender as well and did I want the pins to connect the valve gear to the wheels. Someone will now say they have a shop like that in their neck of the woods and I shall be deeply envious. Oh well, perhaps when I pass on there will be a proper model shop in heaven?

Boeing's lawyers are very sharp, hence why the new Airfix F-4 Phantom kits carry a sticker saying they were licensed by Boeing because Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas and the rights to their products (and probably get a cut on every kit sold). Likewise for the North American P-51 Mustang. Perhaps one day one of the locomotive manufactureres will do the same and both Hornby's and Hattons Class 66s will be required to carry a sticker marked "Licensed by Electro-Motive Diesel"

My apologies for resurrecting this thread but it bought back memories for me. I worked as a 'Saturday Boy' in EAMES at Reading from 1970-1972 working Saturdays and School Holidays and I have fond memories of my time there. They were great people – Ted Morris was in charge and worked with John Gauld. David Morris had a workshop on the top floor as did Les (sorry, I forget his surname). Les spent Mondays to Fridays repairing and servicing model locomotives and also converting 3 rail Hornby to 2 rail. I learned most of my model engineering from him including how to solder white metal kits. EAMES/KX was a real family business – Ted’s wife came in on Wednesday afternoons and did the mail order packing and also his daughter came in sometimes, though she was married and had young children so I do not remember any regular times. The shop downstairs was run by Alan Munro, the shop manager who travelled in daily by train from Crowthorne and was a real model railway enthusiast. He had worked previously for the late lamente British eagle airline. The customers never saw how big the shop really was. It went back forever with a couple of the rooms being used for stock held by EAMES (wholesale & Export) Ltd and anything taken from those rooms had to be signed out so the Purchase Tax could be paid on them. I was given all sorts of jobs – cutting great rolls of Nickel silver wire into 6 ft lengths and rolling them into small coils ( my heart used to sink when I saw another roll had been delivered), packing sets of valve gear, packing Jamieson kits and EAMES white metal lorry kit, spraying Kings Cross Engine Nameplates and if I was really lucky getting to serve behind the counter. There was very little EAMES did not sell, ready to run down to individual components. Happy days.