As we head to Christmas and I see the occasional adverts for toys to be given to children I warmly recall the ones I has as a kid which were frankly far less sophisticated than the ones today. Even simple things like model trains have changed in a direction I would never have dreamed of.
I hadn't delved into the world of models for a while until I saw Jools Holland on the cover of the latest issue of the Railway Modeller. Must get a copy! Jools joins Rod Stewart and Pete Waterman (who has the largest privately owned model railway in the UK (situated in a barn) as known celebrity modellers. So was Hughie Green, but that really shows my age.
I had a 6x4 feet double track layout with a station some sidings an an engine shed with very basic scenery. Most of the trains were Tri-ang Hornby but I did have some Czech and German models that I picked up on holiday. They ran on the same track but confusingly were to a slightly different scale British "00" was 4mm to the foot on 16.5mm wide track whilst Continental & American models were 3.5mm to the foot running on the same track. The latter was the proper scale not that we cared!
Most of my friends only ran British trains so Tri-ang-Hornby was the company for most children of my age. These started with a basic train set and then grew as birthdays Christmases and pocket money helped expand the layout.
Modern Hornby engines include digital fittings which would allow the modeller to add sound and multiple operation on the same track. Amazing.
Hornby Trains can be found here: www.hornby.com
Another "boys toy" was of course Scalextric and allowed children to race cars of various types around some track in the front room . All sorts of extras were available but I never had one of these. Maybe one day...
Scalextric remains a big hobby today having also gone digital but here's a short video of an adaptation of models to play The Italian Job in miniature!
Great fun!
Scalextric can be found here: www.scalextric.com
Then of course there were the Airfix kits. Most us modelled aircraft (mainly from World War 2) but also had those little !:72 soldiers and tanks that were roughly the size of our train sets (1:76)..stop me if I'm being a bit nerdish. I just remember all these things and do sort of keep in touch and do actually have some kit built tanks plus die cast one's that come ready made!
The finished product depended very much on patience and skill, especially with the painting which is where being colour blind my problems lay.
Airfix are still very much around and are owned by Hornby. Go to: www.airfix.com
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