Man and Boy

[ian_rutland]

Next year will make it 60 years of building Airfix kits for me.  I started, with my Dad, building Airfix kits in 1956.  We lived in a flat above a day nursery on Castlenau, Barnes, London.  ( About half a mile south of the famous Hammersmith Bridge. )    The first kit we built was HMS Victory, complete with a Sea Base and little brackets to fasten it onto the wall.  Over the years I ammassed quite a collection and I find myself on a nostalgia trip of looking out for as many of the old kits as I can remember.  

Currently, I'm enjoying a bit of a rennaisance and am picking up all the new tooled kits, as well.  The largest section of the stash is Airfix and the whole attic has a taken on the red sheen of the new boxes.  I would guess that I've had all the Airfix kits by now, though I was never overly keen on the odd ones like giant scorpions.  The kids took an interest and then grew out of them again.  One stash in a family is quite large enough.

I feel just as excited seeing the new tools and some re-releases as I used to all those years ago, when we bought them in 'Woolies' so long ago.  Great to see Airfix going from strength to strength.

Many years back, after the crash of the Bristol Bulldog Biplane at an air show, I wrote in to Airfix at Haldane Place asking if they would consider making a kit of it.  I don't know if it was my idea that produced the kit a little while later, but it would be nice to know that I had some hand in its production.  It is certainly a beautifull kit, even now.