Nostalgia, a disease that hits the old folk.

 As I'm getting on a bit and have a house, shed and garage full of a lifetime clutter my wife recently suggested I might like to have a clear out. "After all," she said "it will be no use to you after you've gone, and the children are unlikely to want any of it". She is right, of course, and we are mostly all in the same boat. What is to happen to our collections when we have shuffled off to wherever we belive we are going? To this end I am taking a good look at what there is, and making lists with appropriate reccomendations (charity shop, auction, local club, whatever) of disposal. 

As it happens, on top of the wardrobe in our bedroom, among the boxes of family tree ephemera and memerabilia (including my dad's little diary of his trips across the Atlantic and back aboard a corvette during WW2) is a large box of old fashioned negatives from the late 1950s onwards. Most of which are torlly unimportant, but were obviously thought worth keeping at the time. A cursory glance through these threw up the negatives for the following picture. 

This photo was taken by me in the early 1960s, with my dad's camera and guidance, on our kitchen table. It was taken for sending in to the old Airfix magazine when they ran a monthly reader's photo competition. I didn't even get a consideration, not surprising when you look at the photo. Mind you, the negative has suffered over the years. Here is the story behind it.

Back in the War of 1812 the British navy had a number of actions against the American ships, one of which was that between H.M.S.Shannon and the U.S.S.Chesepeake in June 1813.

Airfix had issued their waterline model of H.M.S.Shannon some time ago and using the picture as inspiration I took two of these models, did some small conversion by removing sails, thinning yards, and different paint jobs to make both participants. A quick painting on hardboard of a blue ground and white streaks gave a background, while some kitchen tin foil gave a sea. Dad's pipe produced a slight smoke, aided by teased out cotton wool. This was the result.

Bearing in mind, I'd only be about 14/15 at the time I was quite proud of the result. Especially as it was my first real conversion attempt. I'd love to have a go now, but the Airfix model is going for silly money on the internet.