Jump to content

THIS is how it started, 1957


Etiennedup

Recommended Posts

I still recall that Tuesday afternoon......checking out the toy section at our local Woolworths, and there sat this

beautiful  light blue  kit of a Spitfire in a plastic bag. I just had to have it,  but I had no money.

With  pounding heart from  sheer excitement  I pedalled home and begged my mom for an advance on my pocket  money

which  was only due on Saturday.

Well, an hour later with glue and paint still wet, this chuffed thirteen year old was admiring his very first Spitfire model

................and  that is how  it all started.:cheers:

 

 

S2.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

S%203.jpg

  • Like 28
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aaahh.  I still have a few bits from one of those in my bitza boxes - my first I think but I did have three.  I believe I may have slightly beaten you if not by much:  mine probably came from a model shop in Sunderland but as it was just before my town had a Woolworths I can't be sure whether the kits had appeared in Woolies by then or not..

Edited by Graham Boak
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I congratulate you on keeping it in such good order over the years. It must be a very special thing to own. I wish I still had my first one, though I did re-create it later on. Mine was a decade later, this iteration of the original IX:

 

171801-12155-pristine.jpg[/img]

 

My dad bought it for me in (I think) 1970 when I was seven, from the kiosk that used to be on the viewing gallery roof of Heathrow airport. It was a big day, that. I became hooked on aeroplanes and aviation and it's stuck ever since.

 

Edited by Work In Progress
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Work In Progress said:

I congratulate you on keeping it in such good order over the years. It must be a very special thing to own. I wish I still had my first one, though I did re-create it later on. Mine was a decade later, this iteration of the original IX:

 

171801-12155-pristine.jpg[/img]

 

My dad bought it for me in (I think) 1970 when I was seven, from the kiosk that used to be on the viewing gallery roof of Heathrow airport. It was a big day, that. I became hooked on aeroplanes and aviation and it's stuck ever since.

 

Oh how I wanted one of those as a young modeller back in the early '70's. My local hobby shop just never seemed to get them in stock, or if they did they never stayed on the shelves long enough to be seen. Then one day I managed to get one only to find that there was no canopy in the kit. No, I did not return it or even send off to Airfix for a replacement as how could I get IRC's to do so? Maybe I should find one for nostalgic reasons.

2 hours ago, Etiennedup said:

I still recall that Tuesday afternoon......checking out the toy section at our local Woolworths, and there sat this

beautiful  light blue  kit of a Spitfire in a plastic bag. I just had to have it,  but I had no money.

With  pounding heart from  sheer excitement  I pedalled home and begged my mom for an advance on my pocket  money

which  was only due on Saturday.

Well, an hour later with glue and paint still wet, this chuffed thirteen year old was admiring his very first Spitfire model

................and  that is how  it all started.:cheers:

 

 

S2.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

S%203.jpg

Hmm, Airfix kits have changed a bit since then.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a great thread...and fantastic that you still have the "one that started it all".  

 

The first kit I made myself was the Frog Mosquito back in 1975:

 

162471-12155-pristine.jpg

 

Alas I don't have the actual kit.  I was 6 years old and didn't comprehend the intricacies of optional parts.  So...I glued the Mk VI solid nose ontop of the Mk IV perspex nose.  I built it with undercarriage down and applied the markings (for the 105 Sqn option on the boxart) straight onto the plastic - no painting at all.  I proudly took the kit to show a relative and put it on the seat of an armchair when invited to grab a sandwich from the kitchen.  I returned, plate and food in hand, and promptly  sat on my new pride and joy. :(

 

I have considered buying the kit again just to make it "properly" this time...despite its known flaws.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah, the impetuousness of youth, and the joy of memory.:D

To be honest, and with regret, I have to admit to only a hazy and perhaps unreliable recall of building a model (ship, perhaps) in about 1970. Alas I don't even remember where I got it.

Later I discovered the true faith of aviation models.:angel:

 

DennisTheBear

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got mine at about the same time, at Hopwood's Toyland in Leeton. I was/am a bit younger than you, and so I didn't paint mine, other than to paint the wheels, prop and exhausts gloss black (Dulux house paint). Sadly, mine went the way of all flesh a couple of years later, blown to eternity by a penny bunger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few years ago I purchased that old Airfix MkIX just to visit memory lane,and would you believe it I got so far with it and decided that I just couldn't finish it! I have built too many Spitfire's  over the years and even with rose tinted glasses I just couldn't justify the effort even for old times sake. A shame really as I have fond memories of my early modeling year's. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

my first encounter with airfix was the guards band,plus a "set"of humbrol paints(5 or 6 glass phials of paint),for my 6th birthday.first proper kit was the airfix stuka,though i was tempted by the bagged aurora cougar,but it was a shilling dearer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't decide if it was the Spitfire or Gladiator that started me off, or when,   Either way, the kit would have been bought in Woolworths in  Hamilton Road, Felixstowe.

 

Dad was a Quantity Surveyor at RAF Felixstowe when I wa a lad and as a treat he took me there where some marvellous RAF people escorted me into the hangars and I vividly remember standing in the cockpit of a Sunderland, totally overwhelmed by everything I was looking at.   Oh happy memories!  Later, after he was promoted, dad took me to RAF Martlesham Heath and I watched the 2-jet, 2-Merlin Lancaster take off, as well as being taken into an Anson to watch. RAF Technicians working on the radios.   More happy memories.

 

Bless dear old Airfix.  Nothing with their Trademark on sale then is a patch on today's offerings.  Such is life .... .

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a thread over in chat about first kits. You might want to post it there seeing as you are almost unique in that you actually still have it. 

 

While not my first kit but the first I built and painted myself was also a Spitfire. The Frog version. It lasted a long time, even a trip to the seaside on it's first day. It also led me to meeting an actual Spitfire pilot. Sadly it too succumbed to fate of many a real Spitfire, eventually suffering Cat E damage - Written off.

Edited by noelh
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a vague memory of those bagged kits claiming to be in 'impact resistant' plastic, or some similar wording. I can testify that they were not resistant to the impact of a .177 air rifle pellet, sadly the fate of all my early efforts was directly related to just such an impact :)

Cheers

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 28/10/2016 at 0:46 PM, Graham Boak said:

Aaahh.  I still have a few bits from one of those in my bitza boxes - my first I think but I did have three.  I believe I may have slightly beaten you if not by much:  mine probably came from a model shop in Sunderland but as it was just before my town had a Woolworths I can't be sure whether the kits had appeared in Woolies by then or not..

 

Chippys, Josephs, or Maxwells???

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What memories Ettienne's post has stirred !!

 

I bought the same Airfix Spitfire kit - in 1957, when I was 10 !!

 

I got it from the local Woolworths in Brentwood in Essex - where my new stepfather was stationed in the East Lancashire Regiment.

 

I rushed home and started gluing it together - then painted it gloss chocolate brown and grass green - and was well chuffed with the results.

 

Later in that year my stepfather was posted to Hong Kong - me and my mum followed later on a troopship - through the newly re-opened Suez Canal - stopping at Aden, Columbo, Singapore and finally, after 28 days, Hong Kong. 

 

In Hong Kong I fed my newly acquired interest in modelling with kits from Revell, Aurora, Lindberg, Renwall etc.

 

Thanks for stirring those dormant memories - I'm off for a wallow in them..... Aurora (or was it Lindberg) Ontos anyone ???

 

Ken

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Amazing that you still have it. The first kit I built for myself was the Airfix P38 when I was about eight in 1962, still at it all these years later and I think I build better these days

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fantastic to be reminded of the hobby as it was in my boyhood! 

My early contacts don't go back as far as Mr Etiennedup, but the Spit' IX in the plastic bag with stapled-on instructions is well remembered.

My first "builds" were mainly watching and occasionally assisting while my Dad built for me.  To be honest, we had not heard about painting then, so everything was decals on raw plastic to start with.  Imaginary dogfights and sorties were the order of the day - building (and painting) for display only was not in the picture at that point in time (late 60's).

I remember the first model I built and painted was an Airfix Bf-109G (IIRC).  I likely thought it was a good effort at the time but is long lost to some trash heap now.

Since those boyhood days (allowing for the "traditional" hiatus from the hobby in my later teens) I have witnessed how adult the kit building hobby has become.  I think we all do well to remember when it was truly about fun; and matters like accuracy, precision fit and detail were not the primary concern of the market at the time.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember my first model, it was a Spitfire, but not an Airfix. My 

Spitfire was a 1/144 UPC model from Japan and I walked two miles to the little corner grocery store as a seven year old, which you could do back in 1965. My mom married an Englishman from Blackpool who worked for Atlantic Records (I would later get to meet the likes of Led Zepplin, King Crimson and many more bands) and he introduced me to the wonderful tradition and institution known as Airfix. My first Airfix kit was the 1/72 Wimpy. I didn't care about paint or accuracy, just the finished kit with as little glue on the clear parts as possible, I developed glue discipline early on because it melted the plastic otherwise. I foolishly decided to leave my finished kit on the dashboard of my dad's car, and in a few hours we came back, and to say the least I witnessed extreme negative dihedral! The bottom line is that we all started our romance with those little plastic replicas which allowed us to experience in a small way the great air battles of WWI and WWII. Those plastic replicas put me in tune with history. As an aside, I am a history teacher at a local school. I was talking to an associate and told her that in England everybody at just about any age can tell you what the significance is of the Spitfire, while here in the US, we have become so detached from our history. My students can tell you about Hurricanes and Spitfires that is for sure. Thank heavens for those days gone by when we could relive that little bit of history. Ahh, the good old days!

Cheers 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can remember that Spitfire kit, would have been built by my father possibly before I was born. It's quite an eye opener to see how inaccurate it was, am I right in thinking that the undercarriage legs were ridiculously short? I think the first model he built  was a Martin Baltimore. Haven't a clue from  what manufacturer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I obtained a fuselage half of the original Spit in a box of bits that was donated a few years back, along with a largely complete Hurricane IV.  I've also got an original header card for the original Spit.  Wonder if they'd be worth much?

 

The first Airfix kit I remember building was the late 70s Fw 190D9.  My first Spitfire was either the original 48th Airfix Spitfire Vb or the 72nd Revell mk II in the phototop box and moulded in this vile khaki green.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first plastic kit, purchased in a Woolworths store in Nelson, New Zealand, and I started to build it in the back seat of our family car on the way home to Blenheim....1956-57!

 

85bristolfighter_zpswpt8ssrs.jpg

 

That was really jumping in at the 'deep-end'!!!!!!!

 

Pete M. :cheers:Who can't afford to come over for Telford this year...to all those attending this year...have fun...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I rather think the same store sold me my first kit, though I can't recall what it was, something Lincoln I think, the first I can recall was some years later, a Revell Hurricane from a shop in Richmond. I did pick up an original BT-K some years ago, probably with a replica header card, with the intention of assembling it alongside the modern BT-K but it has stayed in the bag & will probably continue to do so, it seems a shame to build it now.

Steve.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first aircraft kit was way back in about 1955. It was a Spad XIII in some kind of dark blue plastic and the scale IIRC would have been smaller than 1/72. I glued it together with some kind of rubber glue which was excellent because it allowed me to pull it apart and put it back together numerous times. I have no idea of the maker but I do remember it was purchased from a local shop that sold dress making and sewing stuff - why they had a model section I don't know, it was the only model they had. But back then when Airfix got going here in Australia a couple of years later you could buy them at hardware stores, newsagents, toy stores in fact anywhere that the local Airfix agent rep. could convince to sell them. Lovely all of them in their plastic bags and paper headers with the red/blue and black art work IIRC.

 

The kit that got me started as a "serious" modeler (is there such a thing given the nature of our hobby :P ?) was the first issue Airfix Westland Whirlwind fighter in a deepish green plastic. Now after probably a couple of thousand aircraft models and some nearly 60 years I'm still modelling although for the last few years aircraft have given away to model railways because after all that time I just figured I needed a change and its fun to build and scratch build things that actually work. Plus with all the real lubricants and carbon deposits that occur from normal use they are self weathering. :D     

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...