Life is simpler and easier when you’re a child, in the sense that grownups make a lot of your choices for you. You are free from the burden of responsibility and decision making. But of course there’s a downside: you may not like the decisions someone else makes on your behalf. Like when some relative thought that a Veron Tru-Flite Seamew kit was a great gift.
According to family legend, my sister really did once say to a grown-up, “That’s just what I didn’t want” about some present or other. I was more diplomatic, or perhaps baffled by this box of wooden bits – nothing like any kit I’d ever seen before.
I learned a lot about motivation from the world of model aeroplanes – you know, why people do stuff. But I still don’t understand the motive behind giving this to a small child. Some sort of slightly unkind adult joke, or maybe a character building challenge? Something to do with family traditions around woodwork (which never actually included balsa wood)? An opportunity for me to upskill? Airfix kits maybe looked too easy and didn’t need so many toxic chemicals, or razor sharp blades. (Not at that stage, anyway.) Perhaps if I ever finished this I would have grown out of model aeroplanes, been put off for life, or both. So no more models gathering dust.
And why pick this unloved 1950s obscurity as a gift, rather than a genuinely “world famous and popular aircraft”, like a Hurricane? (cue Neil Young earworm). So a relative chose it either randomly or with some degree of malice. On the grounds of not speaking ill of the dead, let’s go with the former.
However, I did learn something about my own motivation. I was not even slightly motivated to make this complicated and difficult kit of a forgotten, ugly aircraft.
A camel among racehorses
“The World’s Worst Aircraft” describes the Short Seamew as “a camel anong racehorses” which is probably an insult to camels. Especially in terms of overall looks – this is a seriously unattractive aircraft in quite a big field. Also in terms of capability and performance – camels are reliable and stable as far as I know. In the old days, there were even camel rides for small children at the zoo.
Design compromises meant that the Seamew had “vicious” handling qualities and there was a fatal crash at an airshow. Then the military requirement faded away and it was eventually cancelled in the 1957 Defence Review. So by the late 60s it had almost vanished without trace. But someone at Veron admired the Seamew enough to consider it a “world famous and popular” aircraft.
As I got more into the serious side of model making, there seemed to be an awful lot of these ‘forgotten aircraft’. And it generally didn’t take much effort to work out why they had been forgotten. But if you wanted a niche interest, there were lots of forgotten aircraft, with challenging model kits to build them from. In the 21st century, obscurity doesn’t seem to be such a limiting factor as we approach peak stuff. Every aircraft will have its 15 minutes of fame, immortalised in plastic.
A baffling diappointment
I remember the Veron Seamew as a surprise followed by disappointment and confusion, like so much at that age. The kit can form the basis for a model but looking at the instructions now, this really wasn’t a project for a beginner. Not even an adult beginner. After reading the words “essence of simplicity”, disappointment and inadequacy must have set in around line three of the first paragraph. Once again, instructions written by an expert who’d forgotten what it’s like to actually need instructions. Preferably helpful and informative instructions. And how you feel when you don’t get them.
You needed to acquire sharp implements and other essentials, plus a skill set I was nowhere near acquiring, ever. The picture of the aircraft on the box wasn’t exactly inspiring, either.
So this project meant investing scarce resources i.e. pocket money, plus a lot of time learning stuff about balsa wood and tissue. If all went well, the reward was a model of a seriously ugly, obscure aircraft, almost to scale. Along with impressive scars from the balsa knife. Although in its defence, the finished model really will fly if built correctly.
Open the box…
Eventually a Veron Tru-Flite Seamew turned up on eBay, and it still looks seriously difficult. To finish it, someone would need a burning ambition to build a rubber-powered flying model of this “special” aircraft. The project needs a lot of time and space, and has ample opportunities for catastrophic failure. Right up to the end.
Basically you get the main structural parts, plus a load of stringers, which you cut out of a sheet of printed balsa wood. Then you shrink tissue paper over the frame by spraying it with water and then covering it with cellulose dope. They call it “dope” for a reason, which becomes very obvious when you take the lid off – no one would sell this stuff to an urban 10 year old these days. So you need a very well ventilated space, with a big area to pin out the plans.
You can paint your finished model but the instructions say not to, because the weight of the paint affects the flying characteristics. That in itself tells you how much skill and precision you need to build a model which actually flies. Then there’s some complicated stuff about waxed tissue paper (?) and a baseboard, at which point I admitted defeat. So the instructions are still beyond my understanding, despite years of wrangling IKEA flat pack furniture and Haynes manuals.
There are people who are good at building this kind of model, and I genuinely admire their abilities and patience. The gentleman who designed it obviously had a lot of skill and knew his market. The finished model can definitely fly – here’s some video of a very well finished Veron Seamew, with added details. But at best, the model looks no more attractive than the original aircraft.
Even at primary school age I knew that the finished result would be a disappointment, no matter how well I managed to finish it. And I knew that the way I was most likely to finish it was “not very well”.
Unwanted gifts and guilt
Every so often I would open the box, puzzle over the instructions, sigh, and close the box again. I felt guilty that someone had thoughtfully given me this kit and I basically hated the sight of it. Much like one of my dad’s old Army pals, who bought me these horrible butter sweets I didn’t like, every fucking year. I’d eat a few from a sense of duty, then leave them until they all stuck together and I could get away with chucking them out. I eventually worked out plan B: take them to school, other kids would eat them and might even like them. A win-win – no more horrible sweets and 30 seconds of popularity, before we all got back to punching and swearing at each other.
In later life I would have got over any guilt about the Seamew and accepted defeat as the only realistic option. Perhaps quietly donated it to a jumble sale, or sold it to someone who enjoyed a challenge. Ideally someone I didn’t like very much, who wouldn’t realise my real motive. But that wasn’t an option at the time; neither was telling my parents I resented this profoundly depressing gift.
However, somehow the Seamew kit disappeared – probably lost in a house move, along with my dad’s WW2 souvenirs that my mum didn’t care for.
Emotions around unwanted gifts are of course worse in adult life, because they get woven into relationships – and then you are into the really serious stuff. Fear, rather than guilt.