Digging through a folder of old paperwork and stuff last night, I found this gem. A programme from the St Paul's Church Birmingham Steam Festival held on May 10th 1987.
The show took place in central Brum back in the days when the Birmingham Science Museum was in it's old location of Newhall Street. All the engines in the museum were steamed and various steam vehicles were roaming around the streets outside the building. As part of the event, the nearby St Paul's church organised a model railway exhibition.
The show is particularly special to me as it was the first show we were invited to with a layout. Previous appearances all related to the model railway club my father and I belonged to where the fact the model was OK, we were members and would turn up for free mattered more.
Our model was The Cawood, Wistow & Selby light railway. As a first exhibition layout, it wasn't too bad. Once the horrible, dayglo Jarvis flock powder was replaced with nice Woodland Scenics green stuff and a couple of the fields planted up with plumbers hemp corn, it wasn't bad at all. Bits of it still exist in the shed because we can't bear to throw them away. As I recall, the day started with a nightmare drive involving getting lost in the city centre. The layout worked sort of OK but the highlight was Mr Z gauge packing his models away at the end of the event. Each item went back into its own individual box. As he never tired of telling people during the day, he had the largest collection in the country, which meant he was still boxing stock and getting annoyed with his families attempts to help, long after we had packed an departed.
No more invitations were forthcoming from the weekend and eventually we took the lessons learned from this layout and built Melbridge Dock. Which, since it's still on the circuit, we must have done OK with.
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