I suppose I must have been six or seven, in the early 1950s - certainly
it was before my brother was born. I had gotten from somewhere a cutout
model of the Queen Elizabeth liner - It was way beyond my skill level,
but my father helped (read 'built') it. It was hugely slow process as
the glue he used was a white paste . Australian list members will all
groan when I say it was 'Clag' - about the only glue one could buy
then. But the bug bit, and from then on I kept an eye out for any kind
of cutout model. One never saw any of the German material in hobby
shops then, and as for former Iron Curtain countries' products - forget
it. I suppose I was lucky if I came across a model a year, mostly always
punchouts, but some from scratch. Kellogg, the cereal manufacturer,
offered in about 1957 a series of aircraft models - you had to write
away for them. By about the early 1970s' I'd discovered Geoff Deason's
seminal work Paper Model Engineering and later Modelling Ships in Card
- and between them, they encouraged scratch building of a few models.
By the 1980's I'd managed to locate a British shop that carried paper
models (briefly) but I was still pretty much at the whim of book shops,
and invariably, in the children's section, plus whatever scratch built I
still worked on.
I didn't even know another paper modeller until, while on a diplomatic
posting to Canada, I met Bob Bell, in Edmonton. He was a keen modeller
and his house was full of completed models. He had models I'd never
even heard of. His house was a paper model museum that he was open at
times to the public. It was the depth of winter and I think the museum
was closed. I phoned and explained who I was and Bob graciously invited
me and my wife over. As Bob and I spoke it became clear that he, like
me, had never met another serious paper modeller even though hundreds,
thousands, of people had gone though his museum at that stage. We
looked at each other with almost a sense of wonderment - here, before
each of us, was someone who UNDERSTOOD our passion for our hobby.
Just I guess it was about 1996 when I stumbled across what was then the
first card model e-mail list. It had a limit, imposed, I understand by
the soft ware, of 50, and the list organiser I seem to recall doubted
if the list would fill quickly. The rest, as they say, is history. I
have no idea how many paper model lists are out there now - I'm a member
of a few - but this one I think is the bench mark against which all
others should be measured. The internet and its file sharing capacity
has certainly revitalized our hobby. All of us, I'm sure have either in
printed form on hard disks more models than we can ever build. Winston
Churchill, who took up painting at a late stage in his life, so enjoyed
it hat he said when he died and got to heaven, he planned to spend the
first few million years painting. I think that sentiment applies to me,
too, except mine will be paper modelling. I wonder if there's
modeller's group established there yet?
Bob Pounds
Canberra
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