Growing up in Hornchurch

History Corner

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a town called Hornchurch...

I was born and brought up in the Essex town of Hornchurch, well, actually, the London Borough of Havering if you want to be pedantic. I spent a good deal of time (as did most of my 'confederates') on my bike, scaring the heck out of many a hapless motorist, who was forced to swerve out of our way to avoid collision, as we engaged in death defying and 'devil may care' games of dare, and other such 'fun' activities. I'm not really sure we needed handlebars back in those days, except possibly as a convenient 'rack' to bolt our various accessories, 'gadgets' and sundry superflua on to, and of course, for carrying passengers & cargo!

They didn't go without punishment however, and I did once get a tremendous whalloping from our dad, who was having none of it!

Early DIY

From an early age, I can recall my dad (Bill) spending many hours working on his model aeroplanes, if I close my eyes, I can still smell the 'dope' fumes that would pervade the house. He also dabbled in the 'new' field of 'Hi Fidelity' sound, albeit in a home-spun way. Continuing the DIY theme, he fashioned himself a huge speaker cab from a chipboard type material, and placed a large bass cone at the bottom end (woofer), and (I think) a smaller 'tweeter' unit at the top, but my memory is a little hazy on that detail. I know it seemed quite revolutionary to us kids, as it was designed around a futuristic 'lozenge' shape, and was of the 'Monaural' type, being 'one'. Stereo would have to wait another decade for Dad.

N.B I beleive the cab ended up being used by my mum as a clothes storage box!

Historica antiquita

My older brother Rob (Billy) and I went to school at Langtons Jnr School, and from what I can remember, I hated the first couple of years, in fact for the first few weeks of school life, I managed to persuade the 'bus lady' (as we affectionately called her) that I had some kind of problems with my legs, and would need to be taken straight home to mum! Lucky for me, the bus depot happened to be a few hundred yards up our road, and mum knew the bus conductor.

Happy days! So as I say, models were part and parcel of growing up, and I was soon 'dabbling' myself. Early matchbox 'musings' grew into balsa airframes, tentatively covered in whatever materials we could get our hands on, and not always with particularly satisfactory results :-)

I'm going to drop a picture into the mix now, (top right) this is moi, at tender age of about 6-7 (ish), proudly holding aloft dad's DH Puss Moth, so would be about 1967-68 I guess.

Underneath, is a pic of dad himself, whith the same model. I think of all the models he built in his 64 years, this was his most successful, at least in terms of flight.

As I say, dad would spend many, many hours, evenings, and indeed weekends, building a model off of a plan, moving, it seemed to us, at an infitesimally slow pace. I guess it was down partly to the nature of his job maybe, which was a design draftsman, (at the Ford tractor plant in Dagenham), so every last deatail and rivet was in it's correct place. I particularly remember on one occasion, he spent months working on a cowling (can't recall the model in question) that had a particular feature detail known as 'engine turning', a kind of circular machine burnishing, which I recall looked stunning.

BTW, here's a link to the original G-ABYP:

Sadly, the real thing is listed in the CAA's 'Ginfo' as being destroyed in a crash, some time during 1947, whilst owned by a Miss Joan Emily Hayles of London.

Onward & upward..

In 1969, amidst the epic & pioneering prospect of an imminent lunar landing, we moved from the commuter 'dormitory' suburb of Hornchurch,100 miles 'oop north' to the green rolling pasturelands of Leicestershire. A shock to the system if ever there was one!

My interest in modelling continued however, and we all joined the MHMAC, where I met and befriended a few like minded & decent lads. Our principle interest & focus as I recall, became 'control line', mainly as it was accessible to us youngsters cost wise, although of course we all still relied heavily upon the charitable natures of our parents and relatives, as well as the odd bit of casual labour, which was rather thin on the ground I'm afraid.

Learning curve

My first control-liner was (I belive) a Kiel Kraft 'Champ', a solid balsa trainer, fitted with an EDBee engine, that I bought second hand from the local model shop. Again, my memory is hazy, so it may have come from somewhere else. A lot of stuff was swapped in those days, not sure if that sort of barterring goes on anymore? I know some parents even back in the day were very anti, often forcing a reversal of the swap once they had leaned of its shady & elicit occurance!

Back to the 'old days'! The third picture in the series is of my Uncle David, with his B.E.2. David must have also spent a great deal of time on his hobby, but I think he worked at a much faster pace than Dad, and seemed to lack the hesitancy Dad had for flying his creations. I recall, his B.E.2 flew sweetly, gradually climbing away in a gentle arc, it's motor, a small Mills diesel engine, burbling away merilly, ah, heaven!

Next up, we have a picture, taken on a runway at Hornchurch Aerodrome, (which was the flying field of the Hornchurch Model Aero Club, I believe).

From right to left, Dad's DH Puss Moth, the model in the centre was built by Uncle David, (I'm still attempting to identify this). Over on the left, is David's DH 60 (Cirrus Moth).

Fifth in line, is a close up of the DH 60, A fine model indeed, as was my Dad's Puss moth, seen in close up underneath. It's a shame that you can't see the detail in the cockpit, as I recall it being particularly rich in detail, (utilising a red faux leather for the seats) something that was not lost on me as a youngster, as I attempted to emulate his attention to detail on my own models!

A Progression

After graduating from the Champ, I seem to recall the model of choice back then (for us lads) was the 'Slick Schick', a '1/2 A' control line combat wing designed by D Sparkes. This (I notice from a plan on ebay) emerged in 1968, which sounds about right.

My version as I recall was covered in orange day-glow nylon, but had to be repaired before it's maiden when my mate Patric sat on it accidentally!

Incidentally, ebay has become a real preserving ground for this kind of stuff, I recently picked up a 'Sharkface' plan in mint condition, and I plan to have it copied, and, (if I ever get round to it) I'll use some technology to scan it into a cad setup to convert for eventual reproduction from our laser cutter (if I ever get the time that is!).

Many hours of fun were had flying these models, I even managed to secure the 'trophy' for the C/L balloon bursting comp, setting a pretty unbeatable target of 2.25 seconds, which probably still stands! Unfortunately due to the fact that the previous competition results had been erased, and given that there was only a prize for beating a record, (not for setting one in the first place), I effectively precluded myself from receiving a monetary prize!

It still rancours. :-(

Whilst recalling all this stuff, (using self hypnosis and regression techniques!) I was reminded of the fascinating concept of 'Round the pole' or RTP as we called it.

Basically, it was an indoor electric version of control line, whereby the 'pilot' controlled the model from outside the perimiter of the circle (usually about a 10ft radius) using a controller or 'rheostat' device, attached to a 12v car battery. In this way, plenty of power was available to propell a decent size of aircraft, optimally with a wingspan of aproximately 20-30 inches. We had many hours of fun in this way, even managing to set up a home made pole at an after school club at my former local primary school.

The most popular RTP model amongst us young enthusiasts was the 'Voltswagen' a superb semi scale-ish low winged balsa & tissue trainer, which could be built in around a week of evenings or so. I think we even managed to get two flying together once or twice, but I think it was short lived and not without incident!

I recall owning the book on the right, (wow, the internet is a wonderful thing!) It was a great handbook for all things RTP, but I can't rememeber the inside at all. The cover depicts the defacto Mabuchi 12v motor that I beleive cost about 25p in 1970-71. These motors were much sought after, but came into short supply to our local hobby shop empresario and club chairman Vince Redfern, citing the state of the country, the bolshy miners and the oil crisis, among other shortages & woes as the root cause.

RTP

The pole our club owned, was fabricated by a fellow member, who worked for a local engineering firm as I recall, and comprised of 4 (or 6) 2" ball races of sturdy quality (probably from the stub axle of a Ford Cortina or some such vehicle) with pieces of 2mm steel strapping wrapped around the races, and then bolted to paxolin tabs, onto which the power wires were attached. These wires were made from shelac covered wire, more often than not cannablised from an old electric motor.

The pole itself was made of steel tubing of suitable dia with a shoulder turned at the top to hold the races in place. The pole was then welded to a small plate, and subsequently bolted to a piece of 15 or 20 mm ply, aprox. 18" square, which was finished off with 4 rubber feet. THe whole thing was powder coated in grey. A thing of pure engineering beauty!

I beleive the picture opposite to be the original 'blue print' of the pole we used, being designed by Doug McHard from the Grantham club (as I remeber the same 'old style' pre BSI/EU 5a mains plugs being used on our base board). I shudder to think what the health & safety mob would make of that these days!

Tip: When soldering shelac wire, first pass the end through the flame of a cigarette lighter, then clean off the carbon with fine emery cloth.

Have fun.

Andy

Early 2014