Richard Humm

My Nan and Grandad lived at Chingford Mount, so I remember Arts and Crafts and Rossi's (owned by the family of the bloke from Status Quo). I also used to buy stuff from Sid Rich at Bridge Models, but there were a few more in Walthamstow - Arnold's Gifts in Hoe Street opposite the Rose and Crown (a toyshop with a good selection of kits), Russell's at the Bell Corner (a combination bike shop and model shop), Lea Models down towards the Baker's Arms (mostly model railways, and they had their own OO scale white metal bus kits called Pirate Models) and Telford's in Wood Street (another classic model shop). Other shops I remember selling kits round that way were a toy shop called The Doll's Hospital in Walthamstow Market, Diamond's newsagent at the Crooked Billet who had a good stock of Airfix, and another shop whose name escapes me on Hoe Street next to the photographic shop at Greenleaf Road. Of course, there was also a Woolies in Walthamstow Market as well as the one at Chingford Mount. I never went to Beatties in Southgate as a kid, but did go to the one in Holborn on occasion, and more often to the one at Wood Green that opened around 1979. About the same time I started going to H J Walker in Homerton High Street, which did a lot of specialist stuff - people might remember their ads in early issues of Scale Aircraft Modelling. They moved to Leytonstone in about 1983, but as I was 19 or 20 by then, it doesn't count as being a kid.

I've got a bit more work done on this, so here's a qucik update. The main figure is still in the middle of being painted, but here are a few bits that are about finished. The floor is painted Tamiya Dark Yellow with a Citadel Devlan Mud wash to bring out the woodgrain effect. The table and stool legs are Citadel Dryad Bark, with the top of the stool Tamiya Semi-Glass Black.The name plate backing is Citadel Abaddon Black with the letterring left in the original glow finish.

The Jaguar has a stand slot in the fuel tank, which Airfix show as on the centre line, though usually the Jag carried two tanks, one on each wing.

I've been meaning to get into this group build for a while, but coming up with a kit took some doing - a lot of the more memorable kits I built in my youth are quite rare and expensive these days (Airfix Saturn IB and Boy Scout spring to mind, as do a lot of Aurora kits). I knew I had this kit, but it was in my secondary stash in my mum's loft, and I've only been able to retrieve it recently due to the lockdown. Back in 1973, when I was 9 or 10 years old, I built a lot of the Aurora glow-in-the-dark monster kits, missing just King Kong and Godzilla. For some reason I remember they were 79p each back then, so I don't know how I afforded them. In 2008 I saw the Moebius reissue of Dr Jekyll as Mr Hyde in Modelzone for £20, which seemed a good deal at the time. Some pictures are, I think, called for here. The box: The main parts: The clear parts: The glow parts: The instructions: and I even found the receipt, which is how I know when I bought it: I've started construction, but it needs some paint on his shirt front and trousers before I can assemble his lab coat.

There was a John Menzies in Walthamstow from the late 1960s (as far back as I can remember) until about twenty years ago when the shopping arcade it was in was demolished. I don't reember them ever having model kits, though.

Revell USA doesn't exist as a manufacturer anymore, though. The tooling was all acquired by the German branch, who sold off moulds they didn't think were fit for their current plans.

The Airfix range of paints was pretty limited in the 1960s - nine gloss and eight matt colours were available in 1967. Around 1969 that got extended to sixteen gloss and seventeen matt colours plus gloss and matt varnishes. In late 1972 or early 1973 there was an eighteenth gloss colour and another ten matt colours (taking those to twenty-seven) added, shortly before the paint went from glass bottles to tinlets (though the thinners and liquid cement stayed in the bottles). A lot of 1960s Airfix kit instructions just give a general description of the colour without a code or a suggested mix.

HLJ has a page of stuff they say was going to be announced at Shizouka. Tamiya aren't included, but have an upcoming releases page on their own website.

I think Revell Germany would have held on to those tools. The ones they sold off seem to have been the very old box scale kits.

Quarter Scale Modeller had a companion called Seventy-Second Scale Modeller, and there was also Military Vehicle Modeller from the same publisher. The most obvious missing title from your list is Scale Models, which ran from 1969 to about 2009 as a general modelling magazine then became the current Scale Military Modeller International. For the longest running title, there's IPMS Magazine (which I think started in 1964), though that's never been available in newsagents. In the 1960s, Airfix Magazine was about the only newsagent title, though Aeromodeller, Model Cars and Model Maker/Model Boats would have the occasional plastic modelling article and Meccano Magazine had regular conversion articles on FROG kits in the 1965-67 period - these can be found at http://www.nzmeccano.com/MMviewer.php. Ron Firth published a few titles, PAM News in the 1970s, Plastic Kit Constructor from the mid-80s to about 2002 and 21st Century Plastic Modeller for a year or so around 2001. After Chris Ellis left Airfix Magazine in 1972, he edited 18 issues of Modelworld for Almarks from 1972 to 1974, then four small format issues of Model and Kit Review for Ducimus from 1974 to 1975, before taking over Hornby Express (despite its title, a general modelling magazine rather that a railway one) and changing the title to World Models in early 1977 - that ran into mid-1978 and then amalagamated with Scale Models and Chris went back to Airfix Magazine. After he left Airfix Magazine the second time, around 1983, he launched Army and Navy Modelworld, which ran until 1988 then became Military Hobbies, and Aircraft Modelworld, which ran from 1984 to 1989. Another short run title was Model Art, which had about six issues in 1992 and was also launched by a former Airfix Magazine editor, in this case Frank Reynolds. Military Modelcraft International has been running since the late 1990s, sharing a publisher with Scale Aircraft Modelling. Model Military International is the military companion to Model Airplane International and Tamiya Model Magazine.

That's actually the first issue British boxing - Airfix seem to have got a bit confused with what was in the box, and it was quickly reissued with Hurricane IIB as the description.

The kit appears to have gone into a box around 1971, so the pictorial instructions would be from that era. The "locate and cement" type went around 1969.

Kingkit has five of the bagged I-16s in stock. Interestingly, the kit has the later logo.

Those look like they are boxed versions without the boxes, as there are no header cards.

There were quite a few of these, I think. I have the FW 190, I've seen the DH2 and P11C and know someone who's seen the P-36, I-16 and SE5a. I think these date from the mid-1960s, as the logo is the "Authentic Kit" version which seems to have been dropped around 1968.