Repairing the throwaway culture of today’s society

Welcome to the March edition of EIM, an important month for much of the model engineering community as Easter falls in it this year and several tracks awaken from their winter slumbers. Mind you as I write these words it’s the end of January and the weather is vile outside, again, so I’ve been staying warm and watching an episode of The Repair Shop on TV. Many readers will be familiar with this particular programme as it is rather satisfying, the basic premise being that people bring their broken or generally derelict family heirlooms to a barn full of highly skilled craftspeople who then bring said items back to life – an incredible range of items from pictures, vases and cuddly toys to model engines, watches, bicycles, you name it.

This programme started off as afternoon viewing fare but so quickly shone above the typical oh-so bland daytime output that it was given a prime-time spot, 8pm on a Wednesday night on BBC1, plus various repeats in the afternoons. Exposed to evening viewers it has proven to be one of the most popular programmes on the box – hopefully this popularity indicates that people are just beginning to realise that making and mending things is so much better than the “throw it away and buy another” society of recent times.

There’s no doubting Martin Johnson likes making things – he has spent some 13 years dedicated to his 7-inch Fowler lorry project, learning a whole lot of new techniques along the way. He concludes his description of the build in this issue, and he should be rightly proud of what our cover shows is a superb miniature, which should give him many years of pleasure.

Innovation in making things is good too, and fulfilling that brief this month is Julian Harrison. He wanted a riding car to run behind his 5-inch gauge locos, but one that could be used on both raised and ground-level track, and which did not take up loads of space in his workshop when not in use. Julian begins to tell us how he achieved his aims in this issue, describing just the kind of clever design we like to see in our pages. Enjoy your EIM.

The April issue of Engineering in Miniature publishes on 21st March.