Ribbons

 

Last week, a friend and fellow modeller who lives in the next village and I had one of our occasional evenings down the pub. After catching up on our projects and generally putting the world to rights, half way through the second pint, Simon revealed that the carrier bag he’d brought with him a copy of ‘Ribbons’ and offered me the chance to borrow it.

James Hilton’s ‘Paxton Road’ blog is one of several I dip in and out of (usually when the modelling mojo is lacking) so I’d heard of ‘Ribbons’ but it had quickly sold out whilst I deliberated, so I happily accepted this offer.

In a world where many modelling magazines are notable by their cheap paper and multitude of adverts, Ribbons is the antithesis and the quality production makes a welcome change.

Over the next fee days, I read the issue from cover to cover and then found myself re-reading it again a second time taking it all in.

Whilst some of the photos are technically imperfect, they all exude atmosphere. It took me a little while to realise that the class 08 on the cover is actually an N gauge model, the photograph being published about three times the size of the model itself!

As someone who’s modelled in 7mm scale narrow gauge (or NG7 as it’s now known) for thirty plus years, the vast improvement in the quality of n and oo scale ready to run rolling stock is something I’d not completely appreciated. ‘Ready to plonk’ is a new fangled invention to people in my chosen scale and my current modelling project being a kit I’ve had since the late nineties nicely mirrors one of the articles within.

The similarities between my own experience and those sharing theirs within the pages of ‘Ribbons’ didn’t stop there. With plenty within the pages resonating with my own experiences over the years. Divorce, the struggle to balance modelling time with family time, having a scattergun mind that thinks up new ideas almost daily yet struggles to finish layouts and finally, how much the completion of a small layout, that you can turn on in moments and run a train or two in an instant to encourage those endorphins that produce a happy mind.

Ribbons has helped stir my own malingering modelling mojo, thoughts are stirring again about a layout once my current kit building project is complete. And I found an idle moment to look out the modelling blog of one of the contributors and read more of the story behind their layout that is featured. 

As I read my way through, my thoughts turned to my own inspiration to model. There were those youthful trainspotting trips with my school friend William, like others there was contact with the Talyllyn Raikway. Whilst the British Rail of the 1980s and early 1990s left their mark, it was the fortnight each summer spent camping in Mid Wales and running to the gate every time a Talyllyn train came past that left a more permanent mark. But maybe I shall waffle on about the impact of that gate on my life another time.

‘Ribbons’ is an example of thinning outside the box and I like it. Highly recommended.