Local Model Shop Memories

[Stuart]

I wasn't born until '77 so...

I'm seeking your memories of your local model shop. I'm not going to quote you, name you, or expect your story has to relate to 1973.

Daft comments aside, my model shop memories don't really start until the 1980s so I'm not sure if they'll be much use. I grew up in a one bus village in the Cotswolds, and the only place I could go to buy kits was the local Hardware shop, alas I can't remember the name, that had a small selection of Humbrol Enamels, cheap brushes, tube glue and a range of Matchbox kits. Occasionally a trip into Banbury, Oxford or Witney might yield an Airfix kit from Dentons toyshop or similar. I don't think I actually saw the inside of a proper LMS until ten years ago.

[Eric Mc]

My local newsagent that also sold plastic kits was "Keogh's" of Sutton which was about one mile from my home in Baldoyle, North Dublin. It was great to rummage through their AIrfix selection (always kept behind the ice cream fridge).

The picture is from the mid 1950s. By the time I started toddling along to Keoghs the trams had gone (retired 1957) but the shop remained in place until about ten years ago. They'd given up on models long before that though.

[CementNotGlue]

Ipswich had a very good model shop in St Nicholas St the '70s, stacked from floor to ceiling with kits. Above the counter were a few aircraft suspended by one thread with each one dangling down. The spitfire in luftwaffe markings I still remember, Around one of my birthdays the propiator (never seemed a happy man) told my dad it was at his discretion whether he sold any from the window display. There are no longer any dedicated model shops, we have to go to Bury St Edmunds or Lowestoft or Norwich and each of these we have just the one shop.

[AlanW]

Oliver Carley, Broadway, Peterborough in the 1960s. Worth getting dragged round the shops by Mum for a couple of hours to ogle through the window.



Photo courtesy of Peterborough Images Archive