Lifelong collector in tears over theft of model railway items
A MODEL railway enthusiast said he is ‘devastated’ after items from his collection were stolen from Comberton last week.
Mark Housden and his wife Ann said police believed it was a ‘targeted’ burglary.
Mr Housden’s collection was stored in an outbuilding, which he had decorated to look like a railway station waiting room. It included model railway paraphernalia as well as signs, clocks, lamps and ephemera from railways and ships, which he had been collecting since the age of 14.
The 65-year-old fell to the floor crying when he opened the door to the outbuilding last Saturday morning to find it “looked like a bomb had hit the place”.
Mrs Housden, 67, said the burglary must have happened in the four or five days since she had last been to the outbuilding, but the family had been unaware it had happened.
“All the boxes had been emptied, there was smashed wood,” Mr Housden said.
He was with his grandchildren who wanted to play with the trains when he discovered that his collection had been burgled.
“[The burglars] have picked their way through hundreds and hundreds of items to take away what they’ve taken,” Mrs Housden said, adding that a police officer suggested the attack was ‘targeted’.
“It’s the care that they’ve gone through – actually going through everything must have taken hours.”
The couple said it was hard to put a monetary value on the stolen items but they were important to Mr Housden, who had planned to write several books in his retirement.
Mr Housden said: “They’re not particularly valuable as such, but they were valuable to me.
“Nobody has been physically hurt, but I’m hurting.”
He said he was waking up at night remembering more items that had been stolen.
A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Constabulary confirmed the burglary had been reported to the force.
They added: “An investigation ongoing.” is