IT’S TIDDLES BROUGH!
Recreated in miniature, a town’s heyday
MOST model makers are inspired by world famous landmarks or stunning settings.
But not Steve Waller. He has spent nine years recreating the original heartland of Middlesbrough.
Using mostly balsa wood and resin, the 61-year-old has built a miniature version of the back-to-back streets of his industrial home town in intricate detail.
Mr Waller based the layout on the 1830 blueprint used by planners who designed the St Hilda’s area, developed in response to the growth in coal and iron.
But the 8ft by 8ft model includes memories from several eras up to the late 1950s, when the area began being redeveloped. The retired upholsterer has
‘It is my obsession, a labour of love’
spent up to 15 hours a day since mid-2012 carving and painting homes, roads, buildings, people, cars and barrows – a total of 27,000 hours – and he hasn’t finished yet.
Some 300 terraced houses and 50 municipal buildings, including the original town hall, have been lovingly recreated. It involved Mr Waller painstakingly sculpting one million tiny individual roof slates and cobbles.
‘I have to admit, the model has become a monster – it’s my obsession and it’s a labour of love and hate,’ he said. ‘It started out small but once I started I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop until I’d recreated the whole township of St Hilda’s.
‘I’m no Van Gogh but I do understand now how he went a bit crazy and cut part of his ear off. There have been moments when I’ve genuinely considered smashing the whole thing up and throwing it out of the window.
‘There are days when the clock seems to be flying by, everything works beautifully and I’m lost in this little world that I’ve created. There are also days when nothing goes right. I’ll be trying to create a tiny window from minuscule pieces of wood and one bit will ping from my tweezers and get lost on the floor.’
He estimates it will take another year to finish the model, which he hopes will then go on display in a municipal building.
Mr Waller, who is single, was a full-time carer for his mother Elizabeth until her death in 2019 aged 92. He began the model by chance when, laid up with a cricket injury, he studied the plan of the area while researching his great uncle, who died at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
‘It has taken over my bedroom, which means that I sleep in the kitchen on a camp bed,’ he said. ‘I do realise that people will find that hard to understand, but the compulsion to see this thing through is very powerful.’