Andrew Mitchell

Yes, I can recall this article well, I read the Modeller avidly from 1986 for about a decade and this was one of the back issues I picked up. I seem to recall there was a "1" on the issue month on that page, and there was a picture of the long-suffering wife, and how the builder had caused their kitchen to collapse when they cut a joist to extend the "layout"! Vaugely recall the Monty Wells article but never realised it was an April Fool. The other article I suspected to be an April Fool (but not sure if it was even in an April issue) was a Junior Modeller entitled something like "No. 8 unfinished". Unusually for a JM article rather than being a layout it was a live steam built, the loco had a large metal 8 fixed to it. It was written in a rather strange "public school" style, such as "it is my own fabrication", thanking "Brownlow and Sir for loan of the Stuart lubricator etc, and the photo of the loco had a cut out of the author wearing a very traditional school uniform, including short trousers.