My life’s works - where are they now?
In terms of actual scratchbuilt models, I have little to show for a lifetime of model making. True, ‘Black Dog Halt’ (in shortened form) is in the museum at Chippenham, and I still have one or two of my earliest buildings. The Old Mill from Thorpe, Surrey, has been restored and is on my current ‘OO’ layout. I have both Three Cocks Junction and Heyford station buildings (‘OO’) which are early efforts, but both need major repairs. I have lost, over the years, Bratton Fleming, which I built for Model Railway Constructor and Savernake Low Level, which was part of Model Rail’s original Total Test Facility, or TTF for short. I’ve no idea if either of them still exist. I believe ‘Elton’, which featured in Model Rail some years ago, still survives in Elton village, where it was once on display. I’ve been pretty careless in lending out items, particularly photographs, and not recording details of when and where they went. I’ve only ever scratchbuilt two locomotives, and I can’t now find my Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore 2‑4‑2T Torridge. Did I, perhaps, lend it to someone and forget? Or did it get lost in my house move? Its loss echoes that of the prototype, for the real Torridge was requisitioned during the First World War and allegedly lost when the ship it was aboard (absurdly reported to be named SS Gotterdammerung) was sunk off Padstow. However, I once researched this at the Public Record Office and the record of ship losses at that time shows no ship which fits the description or location of loss. Torridge simply disappeared. Subsequent claims that divers have found the wreck usually prove to be a ship with railway equipment aboard but not the Hunslet locomotive. I’ll bet, by the time this appears in print, I’ll have found it in the back of a cupboard (the model that is!) I can but hope.