Recording a passion

This past weekend was the Christchurch Model Train show. This year, about the 30^th event, I did not return home empty handed. I had bought a train set – a Marklin starter set comprising a small tank loco, two wagons, some track and remote controller.

                                         Roy's  new train set

 In my youth I had been a railway modelling guru. Those days I could afford little more than a Marklin catalogue. It was great bedtime reading. I settled for a less expensive brand funded by school holiday raspberry picking. It was an eight mile bicycle ride to the Yaldhurst raspberry farm. I was keen. Those days I had a friend of the same age and same railway interest. He was Neil Andrews.

Neil Andrews shows how it is done at the Train Show

 One stage we combined our model trains in a layout in his back garden shed. It was great for a while. Then one day, the last day of the 1959 May school holidays, Neil suggested we borrow (without asking) a camera from our respective absent families. I knew where my brother kept his Agfa Clack.

We set off cycling to the Linwood locomotive depot, having first called in at the local chemist to buy a roll of film. Teenage boys typically called into the chemist to buy French Letters. Our purchases did start with ``f’’. Unknown to me, buying that first roll of 120 film was the beginning of a lifelong passion – photography. The film was subsequently returned to the chemist shop for processing.

The eight 6 x 9 cm glossy prints I collected a couple of days later weren’t art pieces by any means. But they were encouraging. I soon began to think. Well model railways were an expression for my big interest in railways. Would photography do that better?  Well, yes, I concluded. The photography fledgling interest took off at a great pace. I got a summer holiday job in a camera store. The cash earned purchased my first 35 mm camera, a Kodak Retinette. Initially the camera was taken to the railway and became necessary kit for train journeys. Other subjects interested. I enjoyed the outdoors and I could photograph my occasional girlfriend. I acquired more cameras and experimented with larger formats. I worked in photo studios and eventually started my own photography business. It was mostly weddings and portraits. Looking back, the amount of toil I did- not just the photography but also the developing and printing. I should have made lots of money. Sadly I was not a gifted business person. Later I started writing, initially as an opportunity to sell photographs for magazines and books. It snowballed until I got my first scribe’s employment –on the Christchurch Press. So that was my life for most of my life. And so enjoyable.

Recently in a moment of weakness I volunteered to join the committee of the Christchurch Big Model Railway Show. I was the only non-railway modeller involved. The great thing about it was meeting up with my friend of many years ago, Neil Andrews. While I had taken on new interests, Neil had stuck to railway modelling. We reminisced about our efforts to follow our railway interest. This mostly involved cycling throughout Canterbury province in search of railway items of interest. Much of our recall had an element of truth. Maybe there was a tad of exaggeration and a lie or three. Most impressive were Neil’s stories following his model train interest throughout America and Europe. He had, for instance, been to all the great model train exhibitions and events in Germany. Amongst it all I mentioned one year I would buy some model train stuff to once again get involved. Another prompt was been elected Patron of the Christchurch Model Railway Club. This was owing to my long time railway interest. So here I am with my first ever Marklin bits and pieces. One of the train show’s long-time trade exhibitors had been Toottoot.co.nz importers of Marklin. Where it will all go from here is anyone’s guess. For a start, the models look great gathering dust on top of the bookcase.

                                              One of Roy's successful photographs of the 1970s

                               Kids love the model train show. Many kids are in their 70s.

                                        Railway modelling at its best. Scene at Lyttelton in 1963