Doctor’s orders

Kevin Wilson recounts the story of the late Dr Paul Glover’s layout ‘Aberayon and Chilton’.

Kevin Wilson guides us round ‘Aberayon and Chilton’.

“It’s a great shame that my old friend and colleague Dr Paul Glover won’t see his 7mm:1ft scale loft layout ‘Aberayon and Chilton’ featured in Model Rail, as he passed away in October 2017. It was one of his wishes that a good photographic record should be made, and this was arranged a little while ago. Luckily for us, he had set aside some time in advance to write some words and captions in preparation for such an event.” Kevin Wilson’s ‘Bucks Hill’ starred in our 2016 Art of Modelling publication. His friendship with Paul began with a chance meeting at an exhibition. Kevin built ‘Aberayon’ and Paul bought it from him, with the intention of linking it to the ‘O’ gauge layout already under construction in his loft. Paul and Kevin remained close throughout the layout’s rebuild and, as Kevin recalls, Paul was always keen to get things looking perfect. “Paul thrived on facts and research. He had an insatiable appetite for knowledge and an encyclopaedic memory, especially for those things boys needed to know about planes, cars, ships and, of course, trains. “He worked his way up through the management levels of the National Coal Board, reaching director general of staff, he also took on the role of becoming the national chairman of the Coal Trade Benevolent Association in 1976. In 2008, after his retirement from the board of trustees, he became CTBA president, and always spoke most warmly of his time working for NCB chairman Lord Ezra for 15 years, and eventually writing his biography. “His desire to maintain records yielded some surprises. I casually asked him what his first car was – not only did he have the receipt but he could tell me what he spent on petrol that year!” This desire to record everything transferred itself to the layout. All the movements were recorded on a card system and run to a timetable that took about a month to formulate. “Unlike many of his generation, he embraced modern technology. He converted the layout and locomotives to DCC with sound, enjoying the

authentic wheezing sound from his pair of EX-LNWR ‘Super Ds’, complete with their characteristic uneven exhaust beats. It reminded him of his youth, when he lived in Coalville and would lie in bed listening to the distant shunting.” What follows is Paul’s description of his layout before his passing. Sadly, the layout has now been dismantled and the information that he wrote is all that is available.