MEMORIES OF A NATIONAL SERVICEMAN
TREVOR SIDAWAY
ROYAL ELECTRICAL AND MECHANICAL
ENGINEERS
More about the Models
The
To celebrate the visit of the Royal
Party, a public collection had funded the manufacture of presents, a
dolls house for Anne and
the Rock model for Charles,
about £2000 was collected
The dolls house presented no problem, there was an excellent civilian model
maker, Mr. Dananio, who
produced a first class Spanish
style Hacienda model however, the civilian "Royal Present"
committee
mistakenly assumed that
there would be a queue of UK companies willing to take on the Rock model
How wrong they were, 3 months to go and no
UK company had been found to touch it, including the
leading model train
manufacturers, Hornby and Trix,
and after some fairly high level talks involving
senior Military, back in the
In plain clothes at Madrid Airport
As the senior Design Draughtsman I automatically took on the design and helped
manage the project
under the guidance of the REME Commander, a sympathetic Colonel Mathews: he was also a good
engineer
I had a fairly free hand with the design but the subsequent "management" of the
manufacture proved
rather delicate as I was out ranked by a
number of regulars , working on the project, and the Colonel
occasionally had to "lean" on some of some of
the more regimental types
Time was of the essence and 18 hour
days were the norm, an RAF
transport was on standby to fly in
any parts that couldn't be sourced in
Gib, although a model shop in
track and rolling stock
As a guide, we managed to borrow a scale model of the Rock from the Royal Engineers and this spent
the first few weeks on the floor of
the Drawing Office. It proved to
be invaluable and to the credit of the
REME workforce and a few Civilians a very robust and lifelike
model was made
On show at the Calpe Institute in Town
Pictured at the Calpi Institute in
Most of the model ships and planes had to be removed; they were becoming
“collectors” items
It measured more than 4.5m x 2m, built at
a scale of 1300:1
CONSTRUCTION
It was constructed using wooden formers,
spaced about 18" apart. Screwed to a base board, the formers
were profiled to
approximately match the contours or the Rock and cladded with a skin of 22 swg
copper sheet, the flatter areas had to be carved from
the solid. Before securing in place, the copper
sheets wereformed and hammered to closely reproduce the topography in the finest detail
The master tinsmith was a
special friend of mine--John Gregson--A
National Service Lancastrian
It was painted and decorated by
another National Serviceman, a studious
graduate, Phillip Digweed,
who had earlier demonstrated his artistic talents with some very
commendable water colours
of the Rock. An RASC launch was on standby to help him get a 360 degree
perspective and enable him to produce detailed sketches to help reproduce
the surface terrain
Before final painting, he reproduced the "scrub" areas by gluing sawdust, of varying grades, to
the
copper sheets
As practically the whole population would look at the model close up, it was
vital that all of the main
features and as many of the minor ones were faithfully reproduced. I had a big problem
fitting in the two
tunnels and the tracks without distorting some of the features
and contours especially the minor bays
Two bays in particular gave me a
problem:
(The
NAAFI girl, Lourdes et al)
The only access to Little Bay was
through a tunnel on the opposite side of the road to Europa Point.
It was deserted except for a Toc H hut
and it was there that I trained with the Combined Services
football squad, prior to the series of
games with the GFA
I also went swimming there a few
times with, amongst others, the 20 year old daughter of a serving soldier
She ran a NAAFI cafeteria
on the top of the REME office block, she was a pretty girl but—unlike
Lourdes, the Gibraltarian
girl from the office next door to the Drawing Office-- I noticed that, close
up,
she had a slight cast in her left eye!
THE TRAINSETS
Trix was chosen as the supplier of
the model trains mainly because the design allowed two trains to be
operated at the same time by two operators--Charles and Anne
The track was OO gauge, there was a circular main line with colour light signals, a secondary
circular
line with semaphore signals,
three sidings; one at Europe Point and at the North and South Moles in the
harbour
Three train sets were provided,
one an Express with an
illuminated Pullman car, the
second a mixed
passenger and goods train, pulled by a tank engine and the third, a goods train, also pulled by a tank
engine
Amongst many other innovations was a coal
yard into which coal could be tipped from trucks from an
automatic tipper and twin control units were built in—one for each child
The control system for the trains, signalling systems and points was interlocked to try to make it
"Royal children
proof" The interlocks didn't
quite work as Charles quickly
demonstrated, fortunately
we'd built in two hatches
to enable rolling stock, derailed in the tunnels, to be recovered and the track
joints were soldered to
decrease track resistance and to further enhance reliability
I probably failed to
realise at the time what the price of failure would have meant to the Colonel
and it
perhaps accounts for his
"unmilitary" generosity when it became clear that the project would
be finished
on time--I had the first
night off in almost two months and with his wife and two kids was
"treated" to a
visit to the Naval cinema
in the town
As a further example of his
gratitude, the personel who had put in all the "overtime" were
awarded extra
leave.
I had two weeks and spent most of
it in Tangiers with the tinsmith,
JohnGregson, and
"Brummie" Roger Merricks
On Display at the Calpe institute in Main Street
Cutting from
Following the public demonstration at the Calpi Institute, it was
installed in the Admirals Office
in the
Dockyard, to await the
arrival of the Royal Yacht
In addition to Colonel Mathews,
three of us, including two amateur model makers, Don Youldon and
Bob Richards (all National Servicemen) were in the
welcoming party in the Admirals office, rubbing
shoulders with the top brass, including the Governor of
The Politicians couldn't exclude us
as we were the only ones capable of driving the trains but I like
to think that the Colonel
would have included us anyway
The Royal
Yacht Britannia pictured just before its maiden voyage to Gibraltar
Meeting up with the Royal Party
Shortly after Britannia docked, the Royal party, excluding the children, made
their way up to the
Admirals Office and were given a 30 min demonstration by us. It was pretty informal but we were
"gently" kept at arms
length from the Queen but I do recall that Prince Phillip made a beeline for
us--we must have stood out
like sore thumbs as the only khaki
drill amongst all the plumes
and
number one dress uniforms!
The Queen's party moved on to
tour the Rock and were replaced by the children
and we spent the
next 3 hours with them, most of the time with them sitting on our knees, learning how to
crash the trains!
Scale models of a selection of warships were in the dock and model planes
on the runway and I was
surprised that Charles could
identify most of them, Anne
showed little interest in the dolls house but
was an enthusiastic "train
driver"
The only other person present was their Nanny
and although we'd been warned that cameras were
not allowed there was an individual who kept "sneaking"
arround the open door and was clearly
taking photographs.
Any subsequent reference that I made
to photographs was met with a blank look but, out there
somewhere, there is someone
with pictures of me with Anne on one knee and Charles on the other
and I would like to hear
from them!
A special packing case was
provided together with a full set of drawings and using instructions and in
May1954, en route to Buckingham
Palace, it was shipped back to the UK on board an Aircraft Carrier
Pinning
Medals on the Colonel
During my spell in the Drawing Office I developed quite a bond with
the
Colonel and the REME MUSEUM of TECHNOLOGY kindly
provided this photograph of him as a young engineering officer
They also confirmed that he retired in 1959, with the honorary rank
of Colonel, and died in 1984
On the evening before the big day, I was collected by the Colonel
for a final double-check on
the installation and walking from the
Dockyard car park he remarked on the unmilitary state of my hair.
I tactfully reminded him that his was no better--haircuts had been
the last thing on our minds
for several weeks.
We did an about turn and boarded the largest warship in port and
persuaded the ships barber to give us a short back and sides".
It may have been the cruiser Belfast
The following morning, on the big day, this time running from the
car park with the Colonel
in full dress uniform his array of medals
Colonel Mathews as a young Subaltern
fell off and I found myself pinning them back on his chest
Summing up all of my self-discipline I resisted the temptation to kiss him
on both cheeks!
And back at the Palace
Off to
Princess Anne meeting up with son and heir James.
He forgot to mention the model as well
AND 30 ODD YEARS LATER
A letter from Prince Charles
As I'd heard nothing about the model, to try to round off this part of
the story, I decided try my luck and
wrote to Prince Charles to try to find out what had happened to it
since 1954
To my surprise I had a reply in Sept. 2004 confirming that the model
had been safely received in 1954 and
had been installed in the schoolroom at the Palace.
It had been played with and enjoyed for some considerable time until it was
eventually moved to
Castle and stored in a controlled
atmosphere
# Playing
trains with Prince Charles & Princess Anne #
# "Resting"
in Tangiers--at the EL Farhar #
# Football in Gibraltar (Part
one) # # Football in Gibraltar (Part two) #
# Keeping the
Laundry going and other Sports #
# Home #
email
me trevor_sidaway@hotmail.com
Link to "Black
Country Stories"