Hornby Magazine LIVE 2011

Oh, the pressures of being a best selling author ! Or at least that's what I thought half way up the country on a motorway full of spray. Not to worry though, as I pulled up at the venue the sun came out and apart from a few showers, one when I was transporting cardboard buildings from the car, the weather improved greatly. Hmph.

Anyway, the plan was simple - bring a boot load of projects from my Parker's Guide column in Hornby Magazine along, deposit them on a table, sit behind this and chat to the public. Simple.

And that's pretty much how it worked out. I set up Melbridge Parva and then decorated the area with other goodies from my projects box. A small worktable gave me an area to build models in and a few chairs for potential visitors who wanted to chat went out front.

Both days started a little slowly because I was at the back of the Ian Allan stand. You had to walk around a little bit of the show to find me, but find me people did. Once they arrived, I didn't stop talking until the late afternoon both days. On Sunday morning I drew a line across a bit of plastic and didn't get around to cutting it for another two hours !

It was very interesting to see what was interesting people. The highlight was the little builders yard I built from Skaledale ready to use buildings. Around 2/3rds of those I spoke to wanted to have a look at it. One man had even been so inspired he'd produced a rather excellent variant with some mine buildings bought in a sale. Three of these, one with a roller shutter door fitted in the end, made a very nice part of a goods yard. I'd have been happy to do something similar myself !

A repeated comment was "It's not as big as I thought it would be from the photos" but everyone loved the chance to see the real model. On a pure ego level, it was fantastic to hear this - writing for magazines can be an odd experience, there often isn't any feedback to anything you produce. Therefore the chance to have a chat and find out that some things are well received is great.

This is especially interesting because on-line, all the chat had been about the Class 33 detailing. This loco was on the stand and several people wanted to have a look - I'm not precious about these projects and encourage visitors to handle them if they are genuinely interested - but less than the buildings. Maybe a loco is a very specific subject but modifying resins brickwork is more the sort of thing that everyone fancies a crack at ?

Whatever, I spent two very pleasant days chatting to loads of very nice people. If you are visiting this blog for the first time after picking up a flyer - welcome - please dig around the archive on the right hand side for loads of content. Please get in touch too. I'm always happy to try and answer your questions, at the end of the day, I simply want to help people enjoy their hobby.