The story of one house in Lausanne Road over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*
Now it will seem daft but for the last few years I have wasted time looking for the model shop near the station on Rye Lane.
It was one of those powerful childhood memories which wouldn’t go away and that I suspect is because I am part of the Airfix generation.
From when I was about seven for almost a decade I would buy and make up the plastic kits of planes, ships and figures, and as our train set got ever bigger there were all the Airfix railway accessories, from houses, to signal boxes, and of course the station.
And depending on the amount of money I had it might be anything from the simplest of kits to the impressive ones which came in a box and might take days to make.
Looking back I suppose I was part of that last age group who spent hours making things and who on another day might also be collecting train numbers, “fag cards” or hunting out stamp collections.
It was what you did in the 1950s.
Nor was it just the simple act of construction, for afterwards came the painting and finally the application of the transfers to the wings and side of the plane or the heraldic design to the sails of the old ships.
It was a painstaking exercise and one that could then be extended by hanging the aircraft from the ceiling or making an elaborate display which combined planes tanks and military figures.
And if I am honest I have never lost that fascination for model making which began all over again when my sons were at an age when I could go into a model shop and not feel a bit of a nerd.
Of course 1940 Spitfires and Hurricanes were later replaced by War Hammer but the essentials were the same.
They were made of plastic, needed assembling and then had to be painted which meant that during the 1980s and into the 1990s I found myself thinking again about the model shop by the station.
But its exact location was lost until by chance I shared my search with someone who lived on Blenheim Grove and the rest as say they became an exchange of memories and of models bought and made.
All of which was a bit reassuring because there is nothing worse than a childhood memory which cannot be verified. It gnaws away making you begin to doubt a whole set of memories.
So that is one that has been solved and that has let the memories flood back.
On a Saturday afternoon the shop which would be crowded and you had to negotiate the glass cases in the middle of the shop while staring up at the selves and cabinets which ran up to the ceiling all full of made up models.
And of course there was nothing like seeing the finished thing to entice you to part with your money.
Over the years I must have made half a dozen Luftwaffe Stuka, Me 109s, along with Spitfires, Hurricanes and a whole host of planes from both world wars and from each of the competing countries.
But as I sit back more than a little pleased at finding that old model shop it is tinged with the discovery that the one here in Manchester that I spent many hours visiting with each of the lads has closed.
So as one set memories resurfaces another batch is lost.
Pictures; Small Airfix models, 1957 by Pantoine (talk | contribs) 2006, Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, and Airfix model of an unpainted Soviet T-34/85 tank in 1/72 scale, 2008, Wolcott (talk) from Airfix, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfix, and Modelzone Deansgate Manchester, 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road
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| Airfix, 1959 |
It was one of those powerful childhood memories which wouldn’t go away and that I suspect is because I am part of the Airfix generation.
From when I was about seven for almost a decade I would buy and make up the plastic kits of planes, ships and figures, and as our train set got ever bigger there were all the Airfix railway accessories, from houses, to signal boxes, and of course the station.
And depending on the amount of money I had it might be anything from the simplest of kits to the impressive ones which came in a box and might take days to make.
Looking back I suppose I was part of that last age group who spent hours making things and who on another day might also be collecting train numbers, “fag cards” or hunting out stamp collections.
It was what you did in the 1950s.
 |
| Soviet Tank |
It was a painstaking exercise and one that could then be extended by hanging the aircraft from the ceiling or making an elaborate display which combined planes tanks and military figures.
And if I am honest I have never lost that fascination for model making which began all over again when my sons were at an age when I could go into a model shop and not feel a bit of a nerd.
Of course 1940 Spitfires and Hurricanes were later replaced by War Hammer but the essentials were the same.
They were made of plastic, needed assembling and then had to be painted which meant that during the 1980s and into the 1990s I found myself thinking again about the model shop by the station.
But its exact location was lost until by chance I shared my search with someone who lived on Blenheim Grove and the rest as say they became an exchange of memories and of models bought and made.
All of which was a bit reassuring because there is nothing worse than a childhood memory which cannot be verified. It gnaws away making you begin to doubt a whole set of memories.
So that is one that has been solved and that has let the memories flood back.
On a Saturday afternoon the shop which would be crowded and you had to negotiate the glass cases in the middle of the shop while staring up at the selves and cabinets which ran up to the ceiling all full of made up models.
 |
| Model Zone Manchester, 2015 |
Over the years I must have made half a dozen Luftwaffe Stuka, Me 109s, along with Spitfires, Hurricanes and a whole host of planes from both world wars and from each of the competing countries.
But as I sit back more than a little pleased at finding that old model shop it is tinged with the discovery that the one here in Manchester that I spent many hours visiting with each of the lads has closed.
So as one set memories resurfaces another batch is lost.
Pictures; Small Airfix models, 1957 by Pantoine (talk | contribs) 2006, Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, and Airfix model of an unpainted Soviet T-34/85 tank in 1/72 scale, 2008, Wolcott (talk) from Airfix, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfix, and Modelzone Deansgate Manchester, 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road
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