Bournville Heritage Day

For something like eighteen years, our family lived in Bournville, running one and later, two newsagents on MaryVale Road.

They were very mixed years for me, more bad than good, but I'm still friends with some people from those days and there were some good times. A lot of those involved my garden railway!

And crewing on Pat Ireland's The Lady Disdain

But there was also a lot of feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, feeling very alone, and having a complete nervous collapse.

I always have mixed feelings about going back, but Mum still has friends there, and I guess I have unfinished business with the place. So we trotted off to this year's Bournville Heritage Day. 

We had a number of reasons to go. I wanted to view the frescoes by Mary Sargant Florence that decorated my old primary school's hall, and to go inside two landmark buildings that were inaccessible when I was young. Mum wanted to visit our old parish church. Keith, the vicar, was a wonderful, much-missed man, and we spent many happy Friday nights playing Badminton and Table Tennis in the youth club. We both wanted to meet up with Libby, one of our ex-papergirls, whom we hadn't seen for 45 or more years.

George Cadbury: A Great Man. 

Donald Healey was a friend of my father. His wife thought I was a rather beautiful toddler. I feel the same about his cars

Detail on the old bus. I believe JOJ533 holds the record for being the longest serving Birmingham bus.

I used to go to school on this!

Walking across the display of vintage and classic cars on The Green, Mum mentioned how much she would love to see an A40 Sports, the car my father had when they met. It isn't often wishes come true.

Garden railways are still alive and well in Bournville, even in the church!

The sort of detail that passes you by as a child.

My old schools. Needless to say, both built by the Cadburys.

Although these were the main reason I wanted to revisit my school, it really isn't practical to take photographs of them.

    

The Quaker Meeting House. I'd never been in before, and it was only a few years ago I learned that George Cadbury's ashes were interred here.

I don't remember the bus seats looking so classy

Selly Manor. The first time I'd been inside since I was about 10

The Carillion was playing a selection of light music.

The Serbian church. My other big reason to visit..

A Touch of the Hiltons

 Look, I know most of the wheels aren't on the rails...

I just plonked it there. 

What you can't see is that, sat at my desk, the module and loco are glimpsed from the side of my eye, at the very limit of my peripheral vision.

I can't see the shadow detail the photo shows, and sat here, the wall behind it has a luminous glow that is 3D.

It wasn't the purpose of the Kato module; it was just an experiment in creating a windblown riverbank. 

But it is making me think. It is taking me back to Saturday mornings at Victor's, with my ex-CPO, as a new world of modelling opened up in front of me

An Instant Railway

Well, sort of. I think I've mentioned that Issy had half a plastic pallet and some artificial grass left over from building a poodle washing station. These were sequestered away with the intention to build a quick layout for the grandchilren

There were two problems, though. The resulting baseboard was too narrow to fit in a circuit of Faller track, and there was nowhere in the garden where it could be safely set up away from those poodles.

Then, over eighteen months after we moved here, and as we began to tackle the seriously overgrown borders, I realised there was a ready-built raised bed running alongside one of the garden walls.. In the long term, this will become a proper 16mm line of some sort. It just happens to be the same width as the half-pallet, and there is a suitable access point that is wide enough to get it in and out of place.

That left the issue of track, solved by using Loco Remote's printed Jubilee track.

As always, the service from Chris was excellent, and I even had an old station building to hand that was already ageing in the garden (In other words, I'd forgotten it was there)

It is there if you look very closely!

So, an instant railway!


Well, not quite. The track isn't intended as a play item, so I need some form of trackbed it can be attached to. I thought I had something stashed in the garage, but I think that made a trip to the recycling depot. And I need to build the PS Models stock that I bought two years ago....

A 40th BIrthday

 Not mine, that was a long time ago, celebrated in Bristol, and like most of my birthdays was a bit of a disaster.

No, this weekend was the 40th birthday of the Rudyard Lake Steam Railway, and I never really need an excuse to visit it.. Especially as it was a chance to see many locos from the line's past. As always, it was a fun day. Sadly, I lost a lot of valuable time because Issy insisted that the poodles, and my mother came to, and that she needed a bacon bap before we did anything else. The Station Cafe does do quite a good one. 

The result was I only got ninety minutes to take photos, and to chase trains.