About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

B is for Barrow

The South-west and Central England is covered in these, but they are to be found elsewhere as well, I won't write much about them as A) It would be silly to pretend I am some sort of expert on the subject when I'm not!...and B) If you click on them the original cards should be readable enough.

These were photographed through the windows of the currently closed Newbury Museum and I don't know the name/s of the modeller or the author of the information cards, if someone does; let me know and they can be credited here.

What I loved about them was the 'old-school' feel of the dioramas and the fact that I could see in my minds-eye - lots of unpainted Airfix Ancient Britons having a scrap over ownership of the barrows or the land they stand on!

They seem to be made of plaster and painted with matt emulsions, and are arranged as three tiles to fit together in the chronological order of the development of barrow construction/architecture.

Wayland's Smithy - which is mentioned in the card text - is one Mim and I walked too one day, it's also not far from an Ancient Hill Fort and the Uffington White Horse, so all three can be done in a few hours, well worth the effort.

The other thing that caught my eye when passing was that the landscaping has been enhanced with two mint Britains shrubs (albeit with some green emulsion spattered on their lower reaches!), along with two similar Britains trees (Scots Pine, Larch or Birch?) and a full set of Merit Fir Trees, nicely dating these models to the mid-1960's at the latest - if that was all the modeller could find in his local hobby store?!

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