Riding home on today I was stopped at the lights by the pub, waiting to cross Ferntree Gully road. A low-loader semi-trailer went roaring past, for some reason I had a sudden memory of the Airfix model Scammell tank transporter from my teenage years. I can’t even remember now if I had that model or if I just saw it in the catalogues … the catalogues I would collect whenever possible and pore through
I had dozens of Airfix models, mostly aircraft, on book shelves and hanging from my ceiling. I could never take enough time to assemble them carefully enough – I’d always hurry too much, end up with glue-prints from fingers or thumbs, and badly assembled parts. One birthday in particular I received a B17 bomber, a large model, and rushed through it far too quickly and made a real mess of it – I can remember my dad being annoyed, and him then going and buying a Lancaster bomber and forcing me to make it slowly and carefully with him. Unsurprisingly, the completed Lancaster looked far better than my B17