Silver Sidelines

A view of the Bachmann Scenecraft Brewery with the local ‘pick up’ goods setting back to pick up some empty coal wagons from the boiler house. Note the trailing connection with the ‘main line’, much safer than facing points? Bachmann Scenecraft Brewery It is summer and rather than completing the scenery effort has gone into brewing real beer and making wine. Is there time to look behind the scenes? Maturing Wine (Rhubarb and Parsnip) We have been making our own ‘country wines’ for over forty years and now seems to be an opportune moment to share some ideas. I think there are no hard and fast rules to making wine. However two books which have provided us with guidance and inspiration are listed below. Sadly both books are probably long out of print. ‘Pick, Cook and Brew – food from the hedgerows’ by Suzanne Beedell, 1975, Mayflower Books Limited. ‘Food for Free – a guide to the edible wild plants of Britain’ by Richard Mabey, 1972, Fontana/Collins   ...

During the 1960s and the 1970s it was fashionable to make 35mm colour slides rather than prints. Slides appear remarkably stable, but how to convert them into digital images? I am aware that there is equipment ‘out there’ to be bought, but how much better to capture the images for free. Luckily we still have a quality projector, so the other evening we projected some of our slides onto the kitchen wall and made fresh images with our current digital camera. Two images that I came across were of an early layout which lived in our spare bedroom in Brighouse in 1972.  Dublo 8F The first image is of a relatively pristine Hornby Dublo 8F. The second image is more tantalising and shows a Hornby Dublo Castle with Triang CKD coaches passing beneath a scratch built station booking office. Scratch Built Booking Office The platform steps were cut from an Airfix footbridge whilst in the far distance I can make out a rake of Airfix cattle trucks. There is also the rear of an Airfix gara...