F169 - Caravanning by Moth

[R T Fishall]

I’d imagine that builds are not often inspired by the pages of Society magazines but this one comes courtesy of an image in The Bystander (a magazine that merged into Tatler in 1940) from August 1932. 

 

© Illustrated London News/Mary Evans Picture Library
Approval from the copyright holder has been obtained for my posting this image here and I’d like to thank Luci and Jessica at the Mary Evans Picture Library for their help with this.

 

I’ve been doing some digging on the Man and his Moth and I’ll spread a bit of the Story of Mr Presland and his De Havilland D.H.60G Gipsy Moth G-AALW through the build. 

Anyway, on with the kit! This is a Novo version of F169 from my box of bagged Mystery Frogs but the plastic doesn’t actually look too bad and there’s much less flash than I was expecting.

 

I’m going to try and keep this one fairly simple, there’s a few additions needed (a bit more cockpit detail (i.e. some cockpit detail...), and there's an exhaust pipe that needs adding) but that’s going to be it. First job is going to be sanding down the wing corrugations a bit and drilling out for the rigging.

I think I must be teetering on the brink to embark on another biplane needing rigging when I already have a Vimy underway with more rigging needed than a Frigate of the line but compared with that this should be an amuse-bouche…

Cheers,

Richard.

[CliffB]

What a superb choice and back story Richard.  I'm looking forward to learning more .

[Rabbit Leader]

That’s one very evocative photo and I’ve often been inspired to build something after coming across a new photo that takes my fancy. 
 

Great to see this Gypsy Moth being started, all the best getting this one done. 
 

Cheers.. Dave

[JOCKNEY]

Well if he was near Abingdon I do hope he was towing the caravan with an MG !

 

Inspired choice best of luck with this one 

 

Cheers Pat 

 

 

[marvinneko]

Love this. Will you be adding the caravan? 

[R T Fishall]

4 hours ago, marvinneko said:

Will you be adding the caravan? 

He's onto me! Quick, hide the plasticard and craft knife blades...

 

After all, it could be used again!

© IWM CH 106

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205208426

[Malc2]

A DH60 AND a caravan, whats not to like?

Looking forward to hearing more about Mr Presland. Wonder what the car is behind the caravan? Bit before my time so I'm not very good on pre war car identification.

Will be following this for sure!

Malc.

[R T Fishall]

The Moth

I’ve been working on creating some roughly representative detail for the cockpits; all the kit provides is a seat (and pilot figure) for the rear cockpit, the front cockpit is just an empty hole. Given the quality of the provided seat I’ve decided to replace that as well.

 

I needed some specific sized U section for the seats but didn't have any in stock.  So I knocked up a form from dowel and coffee stirrers and used it to shape some plasticard. 

 

 

A bit of cutting and sticking later I’ve got my two seats; based on the seats of the Amodel Moth. Probably need some cushions?
 

 

According to the DH.60 Moth Production list on Air Britain (https://air-britain.com/web/da-dehavilland/) G-AALW was originally purchased from the dealer (Malcolm Campbell 1927 Ltd), by the Brooklands School of Flying so I’m going to assume it was set up for dual control, with instrument panels in both cockpits. So I’ve boxed in around the cockpits and roughly based things off references. My main reference for this build is Stuart McKay’s De Havilland Moths in Detail which has some good pictures of Moth Cockpits; for the instrument panel I also used images from the Science Museum of G-AAAH, which of course I should be building from this kit…

 

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8636216/jason-i-de-havilland-dh-60g-gipsy-moth-aeroplane-aircraft

 

 

Now that I look at the Macro photo I think I'll redo that rear instrument panel. But I think it's getting there.

The Man
 

So who do we have? Mr H.R.Presland, a London Business man, with his Moth.

H R Presland is Henry Rowland Presland and the business he ran was the London Caravan Company; one of the first Caravan distributors and apparently the largest distributor of Caravans in the UK in the pre war era. So, suddenly, his appearance in a photo in a Society Magazine with a Caravan takes on a somewhat different air!

 

The company was run by HR Presland and his brother Reginald Clarence Presland. RC Presland had served as an Observer in the RNAS and RAF in the First World War and was then a Reserve RAF Officer in the 1920’s and it appears that he introduced his brother (who had served in the Army in WWI) to flying; as far as I can work out, RC Presland started learning to learn to fly with the London Aeroplane Club, in 1925, and HR Presland in 1926, both not long after it was founded. 

 

HR Presland appears to have progressed more slowly in his flying career than his brother; he was granted an Aviators Certificate (No. 9650) by the Royal Aero Club (RAeC) on June 21 1929, nearly three years after RC Presland. What this did mean however was that one of his instructors at the London Aeroplane Club was Captain Valentine Baker, co-founder of the Martin Baker Aircraft Company, and one of his fellow students was a certain Amy Johnson, whose more famous Moth G-AAAH “Jason” was the reason for FROG making this Moth kit as a Trailblazer.

 

The Presland brothers appear to have managed their aircraft together; G-AALW, the DH.60G Gipsy Moth depicted in the photo, was RC Presland’s second Moth, having been purchased in June 1931, then sold to his brother in 1933 when RC Presland purchased a DH.80 Puss Moth, G-ABNS. Now, as RC Presland had sold his first Moth (Cirrus engined DH.60X G-EBWY) in June 1932 (it then crashed and was written off the day after it was sold…), the only aircraft available to the pair in August 1932, the time of the photo, was G-AALW. So, it wasn’t, as the caption states, HR Presland’s Moth but his brother’s. However I assume that they were sharing it’s use, especially when for business purposes, and for some free publicity (which I assume this little photo in The Bystander was) they wouldn’t quibble over this! I do wonder whether perhaps RC Presland is one of the others in the photo.

And his Caravan…

 

I’ve just undergone a crash course in 1930’s Caravan recognition (quite why I was lacking skills in this area previously I have no idea…) and I think that the Caravan in the photo is either an Eccles Type 10 or Type 35. As far as I can work out the main external difference between the two models is length, with the Type 35 being 15ft long, which is either 1ft or 6 inches (I can't find a clear source!) longer than the Type 10. I’m happy to be corrected by anyone with more expertise in this area! I’m leaning towards the Caravan in the photo being a Type 10 so I'm going to build my Caravan at a scale 14’ 6”. If it turns out the type 10 was actually 14’ long it’s only about 2 mm difference in 1/72 which is probably within the margin of error of my cutting abilities anyway…

I found two Eccles Caravans on Auction sites; I think the first is a type 10 and the second a type 35.

 

Only one photo for the first. 

https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/20144/lot/640/1932-eccles-four-berth-caravan/

 

The below auction entry was the most useful, having photos from multiple angles of ‘Lady Eccles’ whose “first owner was Sir Rowse Boughton, who bought her from The London Caravan Company in Bond Street, London”. In case you’re wondering, Sir Rowse Boughton was a ‘hunting’ gent who lived in the rather grand Downton Hall (not to be confused with Downton Castle (real place) or Downton Abbey (not a real place but much more widely known…).

 

https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/lot/8effbeb19dfdbad48674fb34e5257768/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/the-contents-of-two-workshops-lot-533/

Anyway, I’ve taken these photos and the original photo, done some image adjusting and scaling, and come up with the below profile for a Type 10 (ish) Eccles Caravan.

I’ve printed this at scale, attached it to some Plasticard and gone to town with a knife.

 

 

To get myself some Caravan sides and ends. Windows and door cut out (rather badly, but it’ll be covered over with the frames, cough…); need to work out how I’m going to roof it, put an underframe together and make up some wheels.

 

I’m also dithering over the level of interior detailing to do…

Cheers,

Richard.

[PeterB]

The caravan looks a bit like the semi derelict one the old couple in the house opposite my parents had standing in their back garden in the 1950's, alongside their hen run - needless to say the hens got out quite often and probably spent more time in the caravan than their "official" enclosure. After the old man died his wife had the caravan burnt in situ as I recall.

 

Pete

 

 

[R T Fishall]

On 11/03/2024 at 20:18, Malc2 said:

Wonder what the car is behind the caravan?

First read of this I thought you were referring to the original image, where I hadn't even noticed the car peeping out from behind the caravan!

 

Then it clicked that it was much more logical you were talking about the car in the below image...

 

© IWM CH 106

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205208426

 

I'm not an expert but I think that's a Bentley, possibly a 4 1/2 litre (the Bentley the famous Bentley Blower was modified from)

Interestingly, it is a remote possibility that the car in the original image is a 4 1/2 litre Bentley as well; in 1932 RC Presland owned a Bentley 4 1/2 Litre reg. UL 3153 , chassis no. XR3343. Would you have taken such a car caravanning though?

 

https://www.vintagebentleys.org/newsletter/2016/jun/page-9.php

 

21 hours ago, PeterB said:

The caravan looks a bit like the semi derelict one the old couple in the house opposite my parents had standing in their back garden in the 1950's, alongside their hen run - needless to say the hens got out quite often and probably spent more time in the caravan than their "official" enclosure.

And all these years later you can actually buy a caravan just for chickens...
 

https://youtu.be/9WY-aqx17HA?feature=shared

https://chickencaravan.com/

 

21 hours ago, PeterB said:

After the old man died his wife had the caravan burnt in situ as I recall.

 

One feels that Clarkson would approve; didn't they set fire to a couple on Top Gear?

It's nice to see that not all Caravans in the 1950's were quite as suggested by the 1954 film below; the section from 1:33 onwards was filmed at the London Caravan Company's site at Elstree and it paints a rather rosy picture of life in a Caravan Park. The only hens in sight are those being delivered by the mobile butcher.

https://youtu.be/3BE0-xWMFDU?feature=shared

Interestingly I think that the two gentlemen dressed up for dinner from 3:30 in the film are actually HR and RC Presland; there's a definite resemblance and it would suggest that their public relations skills were still sharp 20 years after getting caravans into The Bystander by cunning use of a Moth...

[R T Fishall]

It's been interiors month...

The Moth

 

Cockpit has been finished and painted, it’s not perfect but given what will actually be seen through the little cockpit openings I think it’ll do.

 

Big wide interwar lap belts added from tamiya tape.

 

Time to seal it up and actually start making this look like a Moth from the outside!

 

The Man

 

HR Presland sold his first Caravan in 1922 and the London Caravan Company later advertised themselves as “The World’s Oldest Established Caravan Distributors and Agents” so they got in right at the beginning of modern Caravanning. It seems that initially the Presland brothers sold them through their P&P Motor company (an engine reconditioning business); as late as 1927 the P&P Motor company were being given as the lead company with the London Caravan Company (formally established in 1925) as a subsidiary. Caravans were evidently profitable, pretty soon the London Caravan Company took the lead and then the reconditioning business ceased.

 

Originally operating from Walthamstow their main depot was, from 1931, in Ellstree, between Stag Lane and Hatfield; surely not a coincidence when both Presland brothers had been taking flying lessons out of Stag Lane. They also had a central London Showroom, first on Great Portland Street (I think from around 1928) moving to Dering Street, just off New Bond Street, in 1930. 

 

When the modern Caravan Club was established in the mid 1930’s H R Presland was one of the first members and he attracted attention at the first National Rally, at Leamington Spa in 1936, with a Cheltenham Caravan which had liquid petroleum gas cooking, lighting, and central heating. These days for LPG you might think of Calor Gas (founded in 1935) but the early market leader was the magnificently named “Bottogas”. 

 

I’m quite sure that if someone told me thier Caravan was lit and heated by Bottogas I would not immediately think of LPG; evidently the 1930’s were a more innocent time. I’m also sure that unwanted emanations of Bottogas have caused consternation on Caravan holidays ever since…  

 

And his Caravan...

 

Caravan sides have been glued to the base.

 

I am, by nature, not a caravanner. It occurred to me earlier this week that I’ve never actually been inside a touring caravan. Therefore I am little qualified to scratch up the interior of any Caravan, let alone an early 1930’s Eccles Type 10. But I’ve never been inside a Moth either...

 

I couldn’t find a plan of the interior of an Eccles Type 10 so I guessed based off auction photos of surviving caravans, other Eccles Caravans of roughly the same era, and a bit of fanciful thinking. Early Caravans were often luxurious and wood paneling seems common. So Wood paneling. Sinks seem common (tap is probably a bit overscale…) and a Cooking area (now we’re cooking with Bottogas?)

 

It’s a Four berth Caravan, I’d guess in the real one the table at the end would fold up and the two facing seats could convert into a small double, then two more people would get the bench seats at the other end, under the handy overhead storage lockers. I think in the real thing there was a divider that could split the caravan into two rooms.

 

I suspect that this being the 1930s the seat covers were probably a little more chintz than I've done them but I draw the line at trying to replicate or even represent chintz in 1/72...



Now to close it up and add on the windows and doors so the interior is entirely hidden…

 

I was thinking about how to do the wheels when my three year old son, who regards my office / workshop / general household flytip as a cornucopia of delights wandered in (with many a No, don’t touch that, that’s sharp, don’t take that lid off, don’t drink that etc.) and tipped over a box of assorted DIY parts. Out tumbled a box of O rings which I don’t remember buying. 

 

Suddenly, inspiration!



Two of these O rings are just about the right size. In photos it looks like treads were minimal on 1930s Caravan tires so their smoothness won’t worry me. Some plasticard discs to fill them out as disc wheels and those should look the part?

Right, should probably focus on the Moth properly now but I’ve been enjoying the Caravan a bit too much...

[AdrianMF]

Caravan looks fabulous. The layout is pretty timeless. I've just had flashbacks to rainy weekends in North Wales when we stayed in my uncle's caravan in the 1960s.

 

The Moth interior looks great too. Nice to see you still have momentum on this!

 

Regards,

Adrian