After a long and difficult time
for us all since they were able to have the 14th members open day
back in January 2020, Geoff Bowyer and the South West 009 Society (SWOONS) team
faced a big challenge in deciding to go ahead with their 15th open day and,
with several late withdrawals, it was a brave decision to go ahead. However, around
100 of us were very pleased that they did, as it was a
really excellent little day out, with the chance to rekindle
friendships after 2 long years in some cases, see top quality modelling
"in the flesh", enjoy one of Maria and Matt Gicquel’s famous pasties
and strain the budget at the Society sales table. Well worth making the
journey and renewing like-minded friendships, with some visitors travelling
over 200 miles noted. It only remains for me to say how much I enjoyed the
event and for those who were unable to join in the fun at the Merryfield Hall
in the small
Mick's Roving Reporter Photo Collections
Welcome!
All photos in this Blogspot and those accessed in Google Images via the links in each report are my Copyright and may be saved for personal use only. They may not be republished elsewhere without the written permission of the Copyright holder.
Hello and welcome to my twice reinstated and updated photo reports of visits to narrow gauge model railway layouts and events! Following the sudden and untimely cessation of Fotopic in March 2011 and with it the loss of my photo galleries, I started this blog in order to try to keep my "Roving Reports" available to those who enjoy viewing them. I have linked this blogsite to the old galleries which I originally rebuilt and posted in albums in Picasaweb Once all the old reports had been rebuilt, I have continued to add completely new ones to cover my visits to events from April 2011 onwards.
Meanwhile......Because of the way this Blogspot works, the most recent postings appear first and the oldest ones last. Each report contains a link to the Google Images photo album plus captions for that report. The link will take you to the front page of the Google Images Album for this report. Left click on the first photo and it will open into a manually operated slideshow. A panel should open alongside the image on the right showing the number of the photo and the caption text. If it does not appear, click on the small white disk top right of the photo panel and it will open. On albums created before August 2016 which were created originally in Picasaweb, these are now in the Google Image Archive and the caption panel has to be opened manually for each image. I apologise for this, blame Google!
Once back in the blog, any report can be accessed sequentially from the blog by scrolling downwards and if required, click on the "older posts" link at the bottom of the list, or simply go to the Blog Archive on the right of the window and select any report by simply clicking on the title.
Tuesday, 25 January 2022
22 January 2022, Ilton, SWOONS 15th Members Open Day
Wednesday, 15 December 2021
04 December 2021. Wessex NG Modellers Open Day - in memory of Brian Guilmant, Colehill
On the 4th of December a very special event took
place at the Colehill Memorial Hall, near Wimborne in
In addition to his well known work for the 009 Society having held nearly every committee position over more than 40 consecutive years, but best known for the many years he spent as Sales Officer, growing it from a single table for Society members to buy and sell pre-loved 009 items, to the largest stock of 009 and related items gathered together that exists, with a vibrant and successful worldwide trade, Brian was also a stalwart member of the Wessex NG Modellers and had held the group Christmas gathering and quiz at his home for many years.
In 2012 he expanded this diary event to include an 009
Society “members morning” before the
2020 was a virtual write-off for all of us for most of the year, so it was not possible to run a December 2020 Colehill gathering, but with restrictions beginning to be lifted it was decided by some of the Wessex NG Modellers that a 2021 event would be put on, and be held in memory of Brian, so that some of those who were unable to attend his funeral, may have an opportunity to pay their respects. That this initial idea proved to be a success is endorsed by visitors who came from as far as 220 miles away and voluntary contributions to the cancer charity that was being supported amounted to nearly £470, a fantastic and generous gesture by the 25 or so Wessex members who were either exhibiting or “doing show duties” and the 100 or so visitors who attended. Considering that “social distancing” had to be adhered to and consequently the number of layouts on show had to be restricted in order to provide space, this was a very impressive turnout for a small hall at the best of times, let alone with all the restrictions in force. Full marks to John Thorne and Iain Morrison and the organising team, the volunteer ladies who worked so hard in the kitchen all day, and the team of assistants who made this day such a success.
It was a splendid day all round, excellent refreshments, good company and the informal and friendly atmosphere throughout that Brian always tried to generate for this little event. A fitting memorial indeed and an event that I personally hope we are able to do again.
Friday, 12 November 2021
07 August 2021, Pewsey, 18th Wiltshire 009 Group Open Day - Catching Up Late Report 15 of 15
“The Day After Tomorrow” – or more accurately, 19 months since, for me, the last opportunity to attend a model railway event, since January 2020 at the SWOONS open day in Ilton, so when The Wiltshire 009 Society Group announced that they were going ahead with their 2021 biennial open day in Pewsey, but tentatively dipping their toes into the post-lockdown era with a low-profile meet up, I along with others who have been starved of like-minded fellowship for such a long time, decided that even if I have moved house during the lockdown and now live over 100 miles from Pewsey, the lure of Marshall’s Bakery extra sticky Lardy Cake and a day out amongst Andy Cundick’s happy band of modellers was too much to resist! I was very glad that I made the effort as it was a very well organised little event, smaller than usual admittedly, but this made it more enjoyable in its own way as there were no problems maintaining sensible social distancing and enjoying the day catching up with friends and acquaintances in a safe and common-sense atmosphere. Big appreciation all round to the Wiltshire Group and I hope that this event has pioneered the way ahead and a return to some sort of normality once we get into 2022!
This now completes my mammoth “catch up” job in finally managing to get round to compiling and uploading 4 years worth of reports on the blog of my visits to NG modelling events since mid 2017, when home circumstances caused me to fall behind and then eventually to get so far behind that I wondered if it was worth doing it any more.
So, many thanks and much appreciation to all those who have provided encouragement and got me going again. There are signs that some degree of normality is starting to resume and if we all manage to get through this winter, keep the social distancing sensible, keep away from packed night clubs and football stadiums, refrain from glueing ourselves to roads and act with some common sense, then maybe 2022 will enable us all to resume enjoying mutual fellowship at our sort of events now they are slowly starting to gather momentum again. Best wishes to all and I hope to meet up with many friends and like minded ng model enthusiasts again somewhere soon!
Thursday, 4 November 2021
11 January 2020, Ilton, SWOONS 14th Members Open Day. Catching Up Late Report 14 of 15
Well we all managed to get to the start of 2020 and were
looking forward to another year of excellent and regular events with a narrow
gauge flavour large and small throughout the land! Maybe this was an early
forecast of what was to come however as the annual South West 009 Society group
(SWOONS) starter for the year in Ilton, Somerset, very nearly didn’t happen due
to a number of late withdrawals leaving Geoff Bowyer and his hard working team
with a lot of effort and work to find sufficient replacements to make running
the event viable. They ended up with eight layouts, from group members and 4
invited from as far afield as
Monday, 1 November 2021
07 December 2019, Colehill near Wimborne, Wessex NG Modellers Open Day. Catching Up Late Report 13 of 15
The 8th annual gathering of the like-minded in Colehill, near Wimborne in Dorset was very much what the regular attenders had come to expect, with around 100 or so enthusiasts travelling from near and far to enjoy another informal and friendly day and a chance to do some Christmas shopping at the 009 Society sales stand, which was laden with goodies as ever. We didn’t know it at the time, but this gathering was the last time we would all be able to get together for this little event for 2 years, due to the Covid restrictions of 2020 and most of 2021 and the last one that we would be in the company of Brian Guilmant who had organised these Colehill gatherings, just 200 yards away from his home, but sadly passed away after a very long battle against cancer on the 24th of July 2020.
Wednesday, 27 October 2021
19 October 2019, M5-M50 Narrow Gauge Modellers Exhibition, Corse & Staunton village hall. Catching Up Report 12 of 15
A rare treat for me that the very next weekend from my visit
to the Christchurch MRX, I found that I had a free Saturday and the M5-M50 NG
Modellers event was taking place. As the last one of these Group events that I
had got to this year was the SWOONS, way back in January, I decided to take the
opportunity to make the journey up from home in Dorset to the venue, north of
Sunday, 24 October 2021
12 October 2019, Tarrant Valley Railway and other NG Layouts at the Christchurch MRC exhibition. Catching Up Report 11 of 15
As 2019 continued, my free time became very restricted, so
after the visit to
29 June 2019, Narrow Gauge Layouts at the Exeter MRX - Catching Up. Late Report 10 of 15
2019 was rather bare for me in terms of being able to attend events so when I found that on the last Saturday in June I had a rare free day and the Exeter MRX was on, I decided to get over to Devonshire, 2 hours drive from home for me, and catch up with the SWOONS (South West 009 Society group), who take over the entrance area of the large hall and run a narrow gauge exhibition within the exhibition! I don’t often go to major model railway shows but I’ve managed to visit this one 3 times and it is indeed a very good mainstream show, held in the indoor cattle market. If you are in this part of the world in June then I thoroughly recommend a visit to the Matford Centre, you won’t regret it!
A splendid event, well organised and good facilities; overall it was a great way to spend a summer Saturday and re-connect with narrow gauge modelling friends from the SWOONS Group.
Friday, 22 October 2021
30 March 2019, The Narrow Gauge Show & 009 Society AGM, Rainford, Merseyside - Catching Up. Late Report 9 of 15
2019 heralded the 5th 009 Society AGM & NG show organised by Stan Williams and his team, and the 4th one in biennial sequence, so all regular attenders had by now got used to what to expect for the event! Just the one venue this year in the regular Parish Hall, where everyone attending managed to be crammed in amongst layouts, traders, refreshments and of course the famous Rainford Cakes! The AGM meeting itself was more than a bit of a squash, but that thankfully resulted in it being completed fairly promptly so we could all get back to the important business of admiring the layouts and enjoying mutual interest fellowship. Another excellent day out in Merseyside and for myself, well worth the 500 mile round trip and 18 hour day! Due to the limited time available because of the AGM, I did find myself having to hurry along quite a lot, so I had to make a decision to keep the time in front of layouts down, take some photos and move on; if it was a layout that has been featured regularly before, then I did not linger, so if your own layout is a well known one, but has only received scant coverage, then I apologise, this is the reason, nothing to do with favouritism or anything! I hope you all enjoy the photo album.
Monday, 18 October 2021
12 January 2019, Ilton, Somerset. SWOONS Members Open Day – Catching Up. Late Report 8 of 15
Having not been able to get to the SWOONS do in 2018, first one I’d missed for many a year, I was determined to make it for the 13th South West 009 Soc Group open day at Ilton, somewhere west of Yeovil on the Somerset Levels this time, and I’m very pleased that I did because it was another memorable day out amongst friends and the fellow-afflicted NG modelling enthusiasts who had travelled from near and far to take part in the fellowship of the Tardis that is the Merryfield Village Hall and to have first dibs of the year at the wonderful 009 Soc Sales Tables! It’s only a small place, but Geoff Bowyer and his fellow SWOONS members know how to fill it with examples of quality modelling and still find room for a hundred or so to come and enjoy the delights! As ever, Matt and Maria Gicquel travelled from their Devon Railway Centre to lock themselves in the kitchen and provide cakes and of course, hot Oggies, all day. Much appreciation!
Friday, 15 October 2021
01 December 2018, Colehill near Wimborne, Wessex NG Modellers Open Day - Catching Up, Late Report 7 of 15
This little gathering in the first week of December has become a regular end of year get together with a chance to make some last minute Christmas purchases from the well stocked 009 Soc sales tables, see some great narrow gauge modelling and enjoy like minded fellowship in a totally informal and friendly atmosphere. This was the 7th occasion and, like the previous ones, attracted visitors from near and as far away as the West Midlands as well as those enthusiasts who brought layouts along, notably Jim and Lyn Owers from the Isle of Wight and Bob Vaughan from Watford, just to share the day with modelling friends and colleagues. For a change I managed to overlook taking any photos of the 009 Society sales stand, but I can assure all that it was there! Overall, a splendid pre-Christmas get together was enjoyed!
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
27 October 2018 - Expo Narrow Gauge, Swanley, Catching Up, Late Report 6 of 15
End of October, getting cold and wet, clocks going back to wintertime and it is once again time for ExpoNG! Having not being able to get there for the first time in many years in 2017, I was determined to make it to Swanley this year and I’m glad I did as, not only was it a very good event, but sadly, it was also my last one as I couldn’t get to the next year’s event in 2019 and as it turned out, that was the final ExpoNG for the foreseeable future for a number of reasons, including the, at the time, unforeseen Covid pandemic and lockdowns. ExpoNG might return in the future but many don’t think it will be in the same format as we had all become used to at the White Oak Leisure Centre.
This 2018 event featured two anniversaries – the 35th ExpoNG and the 50th anniversary of the Greenwich & District NG Railway Society, who are the organisers of the show. Fitting then that the Dave Brewer Challenge this year was to be a difficult one, in producing a working layout in a space of only 50cm x 35cm. Eight skilled modellers rose to the challenge and their excellent results are covered in Part 3 of this report.
I would have normally made a report of a large event such as this into 2 Parts, but to make it easier for me to put it together, and hopefully for you to view the photos and captions, I have put it into 3 Parts of approximately 50 photos each. When you have finished viewing one of the parts, click on the main “back arrow” top left of your screen to get back to the blog page and then click on the link to get to the next Part you want to view, or to scroll down to another report. I hope that is clear enough, I’ve no doubt that I will be told quick enough if it isn’t!
PART 1
Friday, 1 October 2021
14 October 2018, Museum of Transport at the Christchurch MRC Exhibition, Catching Up, Late Report 5 of 15
After NG South in April, I was unable to attend any further
events until later in the year when I learned that Robin Ogden would be
bringing his 4mm scale
I have struggled to find the best way to present this report as much of this splendid layout describes itself very adequately through the images, so I decided that photo captions would be left out unless it seemed necessary to add supplementary information in some cases and that I would as far as possible restrict the words without rambling off into general comments!
Robin made a comprehensive description of the layout in the exhibition programme and I can’t improve on that, so here is the introduction to The Museum of Transport, extracted from Robin Ogden’s own words:
Situated in a coastal town somewhere in
Railway exhibits are housed in a purpose-built gallery where may be found historic and unusual locomotives, carriages, signals and other artefacts associated with a century and a half of railways in the British Isles. A self-service cafeteria is open in the railway gallery. The building is glass fronted with the roof removed for maximum visibility.
In the first dock is moored a freelance passenger steamer, St Olaf and a retired coastal lightship based on the Spurn Light. In the second dock are a steam paddle-tug, a Clyde Puffer and a smaller vessel, whilst at the other end of the layout a dry dock is home to a model of the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company’s former passenger and mail ship, RMS Scillonian.
The front part of the layout offers an area available for varied displays: bus rallies, military vehicle displays, classic vehicle rallies etc as well as home to a scale model RAF Lancaster bomber. A visiting brass band plays a selection of melodies and there is a hot air balloon for visitors to be elevated to 200 (scale) feet to enjoy overall views of the museum.
High time to visit the photo report:
Thursday, 30 September 2021
07 April 2018, Narrow Gauge South, Barton Peverill College, Eastleigh - Catching Up, Late Report 4 of 15
For the 14th biennial NGS, Exhibition Manager Tim
Couling and assistants from the Wessex NG Modellers moved from the long term location
of Sparsholt College near Winchester to Barton Peverill College in Eastleigh,
which offered better access for visitors and a return to the popular large hall
style of venue, which had not been available at Sparsholt for a few years. A
huge effort by all involved in the organisation resulted in a fantastic show, with
no less than 33 layouts and 27 trade, publicity and society stands, covering
all scales from
PART 1
Click HERE to view the Photos for Part 1
PART 2
Half way through the layouts now! As I reported for both the 2014 and 2016 NG South events, it was quite a challenge for me to fit in an hour or more for the 009 Society AGM and to find sufficient time to get round everything and record everything. I had to shorten my time in front of some of the layouts, but have tried to confine the quick “click and move on” visits to those that we have all seen previously in these reports as far as possible. One layout in this section has been given an extended coverage, which is only fair as it was awarded the “best in show”!
Sunday, 26 September 2021
17 February 2018 Rainford, Merseyside, The Narrow Gauge Show (NG Stan) - Catching Up, Late Report 3 of 15
For the first time, I was unable to start the year off with a visit to Ilton for the SWOONS event in January and with the demise of the sadly missed NG Southwest, it looked as if a barren first part of 2018 was on the agenda. However Stan Williams came to the rescue as far as I was concerned by organising a show at the familiar venue of All Saints parish hall in Rainford, Merseyside, which I think was titled “The Narrow Gauge Show”, but will hereinafter always be known as NG Stan! Very appropriately the show included no less than 6 amongst the 10 layouts present that were either owned by or built by Stan and/or Roger Christian over the years, and poignantly, although I certainly didn’t know it at the time, was that Roger would sadly succumb to long term illness later in the year so from my own perspective at least, it was a timely opportunity to make the long journey from Dorset to Rainford to attend. RIP Roger, you were a true ambassador to the hobby and are very much missed by all who knew you.
Wednesday, 22 September 2021
02 December 2017, Colehill near Wimborne, Wessex NG Modellers Open Day - Catching Up, Late Report 2 of 15
For the 6th annual day
out in
Tuesday, 21 September 2021
5 August 2017, Wiltshire Group 009 Society 16th Biennial Members Day and MOMING 17, Pewsey - Catching Up. Late Report 1 of 15
A Saturday in early August and the year is an odd numbered one, so once again it is time for the biennial Wiltshire Group gathering in
Pewsey, this time being the 16th occasion. Some 200 or so
like-minded enthusiasts found their way to a village hall in rural Wiltshire
from all over the country, including 2 traders who had travelled from over 400
miles away in
Monday, 20 September 2021
20 September 2021, It's Been A While! Time to Start Catching Up!
It has certainly been a while, in fact rather more than that: approx 52 months since the last roving report was posted back in May 2017!
Several reasons for this: family health matters took over my life for a a long time and as a direct result, after posting the Beds & Bucks report from May 2017, the next event that I managed to get to was Pewsey in August of that year. However my rather antiquated and cumbersome photo processing "system" is extremely time intensive and before getting photos, suitably edited, cropped and in a lot of cases due to bad lighting on both layouts and in the halls themselves, quite a lot of tweaking using a very old image software called Paint Shop Pro, the original versions that were made by Jasc Software, not the current Corel produced one of the same name which is far more advanced, but also far less user friendly and simple!
And then there are the captions! A lot of people don't bother with captions, they just upload their photos and leave it to the viewer to try to work out what layouts and owners etc they are looking at. I like to give at least some clues to what the photos are of, which those who have given feedback previously have always commented favourably about. This all takes time and effort as well, and........ well they never got done, the next event I managed to get to after that also got into the queue and on it went.
A constraint of continuing the blog as it is, is that Google in its wisdom won't let you "insert" blog posts between others, they have to appear sequentially. So, as I have always been running what amounts to a continuing diary, then I didn't want to make postings out of date sequences. The result of this is that the backlog got longer and longer and life matters got heavier and heavier. 4 years later I found myself in a position of being 4 years older, but also 2 major illnesses in the family, one ongoing and one over 2 months in hospital and a 2 year recovery marathon, plus a house move in the middle of the pandemic, and in all that time, admittedly slowed by the covid pandemic stuff, I found that I had actually managed to get the camera out and attend 15 shows, 13 of them in the first 2½ years outstanding - 2017-19, just 1 in 2020 and so far 1 in 2021 with the likelihood that things may start to get rolling again next year, so certainly time to take stock and look at the viability of trying to catch up on lost postings and carrying on into the future. BUT I discovered that in those 15 events I took over 2500 images - many of them not very good images as well, so there has been some intensive work and much time spent in recent weeks going through them and getting them resized down to the standard online 800 x 600 format, ready for sifting down to a reasonable number and then starting the big task of captions!
With most attenders at events seeming to have very smart phones that take wonderful photos just by pointing at the subject, then there may not be much of a need for "roving reports" such as mine any more, only time and feedback will tell on that one.
Anyway, in case it takes a long time (I think it will) to catch up, and I hope it is catch up, not keep up as more events start to reappear in the diary hopefully, I'm starting the ball rolling here with a little taster so that each of the 15 events visited by me since 2017 get a mention, and then the outstanding reports from these can be built as time allows hopefully in the near future and not in another 4 years time!
Here's a brief taster then of the 15 so far "missing" roving reports:
5 August 2017 Pewsey - Wiltshire Group 009 Soc 16th biennial members day and MOMING 17
14 Layouts plus 7 MOMING layoutsBerger Hall - Bill Corser 09
Unfortunately I was unable to get to ExpoNG in 2017
Sunday, 28 May 2017
14 May 2017, Beds & Bucks NG Modellers Members Open Day, Barton Le Clay
Monday, 22 May 2017
01 April 2017, The Narrow Gauge Show and 009 Society AGM, Rainford, Merseyside
Wednesday, 17 May 2017
18 February 2017 - Narrow Gauge South West, Shepton Mallet
Thursday, 16 February 2017
14 January 2017 - SWOONS Members Open Day, Ilton, Somerset
31 December 2016 - Garry’s Railcars – 2016 bonus album!
03 December 2016 - Dorset Narrow Gauge open day, Colehill, near Wimborne
29 October 2016 - Expo Narrow Gauge, Swanley
Click Here to View the Photo Album for this Report