The cover of the January 1964 Meccano shows a delightful scene with one of the ex-County Donegal Railways railcars standing at Port Erin on the Isle of Man. The picture caused me to snap the mag up from eBay when I saw it for a couple of quid.Inside, the editorial made me laugh. Under the title "A new look for your magazine", the editor writes of changes taking place from the next issue including this:
Out in mid-February, the March issue will contain the regular articles on hobbies, road and track, railways, shipping, aircraft, space travel, which you have always enjoyed. In addition there will be news from all the model manufacturers month by month and also features about your favorite pop artists and TV personalities. Young me today are more interested than ever before in matters of style and taste, so we will present regular articles about clothes for the modern man.
Yes, fashion advice from Meccano magazine.
Can you imagine it?
The best dressed engineer is wearing his boiler suit in cerise this year with fine shoulder detailing and a peplum frill to disguise the waist.
More to the point, can you imagine the editors any of the model magazines published today thinking to themselves, "I know, what we need is a fashion column. That'll boost sales."
Neither can I, any more than I can imagine GQ deciding that it's readers need to read a technical treatise on the centrifugal clutch or axial piston pump. Or even those railcars.
Takes me back to when I used to sit in our school library reading through backnumbers of Meccano Magazine. Suspect I was the only person there who touched them!
ReplyDeleteThere are tons of them online now too if you fancy wallowing in nostalgia for a few hours.
I remember this issue, but the next one must have been something of a disappointment. A big mistake by the publishers, I suspect (isn't hindsight wonderful!)but I do wonder if GQ today published something on high quality Railway Modelling, it might actually find an interested audience.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the fashion advice was in that Meccano mag...I could do with some...
Nevermind fashion advice, as the past editor of a hobby journal, I fought the urge each year before convention time to write a column titled, "Basic Hygiene."
ReplyDeleteSeriously.
Carry on.
Rucksack reviews?
ReplyDelete