Monarch loading

Back in the days we were building Melbridge Dock, if you wanted road vehicles (and we did) then your options were very limited. Most people plundered old Matchbox toys for something about the right size, or shelled out for whitemetal kits of varying quality. The more adventurous would modify Airfix vehicles from the recovery or emergency sets.

Coopercraft's AEC Monarch made a huge impact when it arrived. A plastic kit of a civilian lorry. The sort of thing seen in large numbers in railway yards. Not expensive and reasonably easy to put together. Layouts quickly sprouted Monarchs everywhere and even in the era of readily available diecasts, there are still plenty to be seen.

With my limited funds, I quickly decided the William Berry's would have a fleet of the things - or at least 2 since that was the space available. Painted in green and cream, I've always thought they looked nice and suitably vintage to my untutored eye.

The photo above has been doctored using some filters on my Asus tablet computer. It's a bit of fun but makes a change from all the perfectly reproduced colour shots we can so easily take nowadays. While messing around though, I found the "Drawing" filter to be surprisingly effective:

 

I wish I could draw that well.