The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Monifieth man finishes ecclesiastical creation
Bob Heron started St George’s Chapel miniature in the 1970s
A 94-year-old Monifieth man’s labour of love has finally been completed after more than 40 years.
Bob Heron, of Beechgrove, first began his cardboard reconstruction of St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in the 1970s.
The model requires a painstaking attention to detail, with thousands of tiny folds and scores needed to complete the model.
But he forgot about the project until March when he was given a similar model of the Globe Theatre to complete.
After rattling that off in March he remembered about his St George’s project which he dusted off and set about finishing.
Finally, last month he completed the project.
Great-grandfather Bob said: “I started in the 1970s but was raising my family so ended up putting it away.
“Then I got given a Globe Theatre model in March and after I finished that I remembered about it.
“I had already started folding some of the card but there was still a lot to do.”
He joked completing the intricate project had taken its toll.
“I feel about 90,” he said.
Bob was born in Dura Den in Fife and moved to Dundee in the 1920s when his father came to Dundee to find work in a jute mill.
This, inadvertently, led to Mr Heron’s interest in modelling and, eventually, his career as an engineer.
He said: My father worked in a mill and gave me a sharp knife that was used for cutting the jute and I started cutting wood. I also got a few bad cuts myself.”
Bob attended the Grey Lodge Settlement, where his interest in art and engineering was encouraged.
He attended Dundee art college and went on to complete his apprenticeship at Sturrock and Murray at Dundee Dock.
During the Second World War he served on board HMS Fleetwood as an engine room artificer, responsible for maintaining all aspects of the ship’s engines and boilers.