We all discover at some point that adult life is complicated, and then it keeps getting more complicated, forever. Model aeroplanes hinted at the complexity of adult life even before I first heard Big Yellow Taxi. And if only I’d realised at the time, they had been showing me how much simpler my life was. But unfortunately this lesson only becomes clear in hindsight, once we run smack into the complications.
Life was simpler
When I was about 7 years old, life was much simpler in general. There were only about six computers in the whole world and it took years to get a telephone. BBC2 had only just arrived, and people were still relentlessly going on about The War. Unlike today. Hiding under the stairs during the Blitz, Dunkirk, doodle bugs etc. The emotional resonance of model Spitfires, Mosquitos, Messerschmitts and Stukas was unavoidable. Newsagents were full of war comics, like ‘Whirlwind Warriors‘ – the complex development cycle of a military aircraft encapsulated in stereotyped cartoon strips.
On a personal level, I was very fortunate. I didn’t have to go to work, pocket money and dangerous presents from relatives arrived regularly, food appeared on the table and my parents arranged holidays on cold drizzly beaches. No difficult decisions were required on my part.
My first encounter with Airfix was just as effortless – a model I didn’t even need to build myself. A Lockheed Starfighter materialised over the course of an afternoon, in its finished form. From there, it was but a few steps to Woolworths and their dazzling display of kits, like the MiG-15.
But then a downside of this simpler, decision-free life emerged. My first ever box set – a selection of six very random Airfix kits bought by my mum from the tallyman. Something like: Hawker P.1127, Fiat G.91, DH.88 Comet, Supermarine S6b, DH Tiger Moth and the now sought-after SRN-1 hovercraft. It’s all a long time ago but I do remember that none of the kits would have been my first (or second) choice. An early lesson about unwanted gifts – stuff other people buy for you may not be what you want.
This carried on with the very unwelcome balsa Seamew and beyond – for my 11th birthday I got an Airfix Fieseler Storch. And another Fieseler Storch from someone else. Which was approximately two more Störche than I ever wanted.
A related lesson also carried forward into adult life; even when you tell people stuff, no matter how clearly, they don’t really listen to you. Especially if it’s about what you want, no matter how old or grown up you are.
A simple but flawed process
The process of making a model aeroplane was also simpler. Take pocket money to Woolworths. Find inspiration in the Airfix novelties on display. Pick out an affordable model which had some sort of appeal – if Woolworths failed to inspire, there were two toy shops within walking distance of home. Make sure I had some glue. Polystyrene cement – generic was no good, as I found out when trying to build an Airfix TBM-3 Avenger with some sort of crap 1960s white glue. Stick all the bits together. Maybe (just maybe) paint it – sometimes the plastic would be the right colour and that was a slippery slope. The end.
This all took about an hour or so. A flawed process I was later reminded of by Noel Edmonds (not in person, I hasten to add). But I carried on, sticking and painting, fairly rapidly.
As time went on I was more inclined to paint them but was often led astray by cheap sets of gloss primary colours in little glass bottles. Airfix paints were more expensive and a bit crap, but they were at least some sort of approximation to camouflage colours. My first attempt at a Stuka ended up gloss yellow with red-brown splodges. However I do remember painting an SM.79 in something like the right colours (according to Signor Airfix).
Primary sources
Somehow, I still have my primary school ‘news book’. This was a sort of journal to practice my appalling handwriting and reveal embarassing family stuff. Like my sister having a day off work with a hangover. Aged 10 I seemed to watch a lot of TV, and got told off at least once for reducing the evening’s events to a list of programme titles. Not like today, in the age of streaming… As well as cartoons and Gerry Anderson, I watched programmes whose appeal to a ten year old is totally beyond me. Like Meet the Wife – unfortunately there’s nothing to suggest what I might have got out of this programme. Perhaps I thought Freddie Frinton was funny, or couldn’t be arsed to get out of my chair.
But getting back to the point, there are a few mentions of Airfix kits to help sort out the chronology. The newly released SPAD, an Albatros (as a Dogfight Double with a Camel, so actually on a stick like the stormy petrel) and a B-25 for my birthday.
About a year after that we moved to the disputed border region of Herts and Essex. First I discovered Frog kits, and then found a book which explained that my simple hobby was actually rather complicated. How to Go Plastic Modelling by Chris Ellis – a story for another day.