Why are we all here?

For the uninitiated amongst you (and that probably relates to 99.9% of the population) model-making is so much more than a hobby.

It is a vocation in the same way as doctors, lawyers, actuaries, members of HM armed forces, florists, religious zealots, farmers and CCTV control room operatives answer an internal “calling” to embark on a life of good work.

You do not choose to be a model-maker, instead model-making chooses you.

It can be genetic, although it does tend to skip a generation. Indeed, my grandfather was a supreme model-maker but my father was a sanitation engineer – quite a different career, but he did admit he always felt that there was a modeller lurking deep inside the darkest recesses. Father had no regrets, however, he was an award-winning sanitation engineer and set qualitty benchmarks that have yet to be surpassed.

Turning back to model-making and you may be intrigued by the image I chose to accompany this “web”-site.

I am actually standing next to that bag of material and it is only an error in “cropping” the photograph that “excludes” me. However, there is some good fortune in that “cropping” error as the bag of material is vitally important to the craft of the model-maker.

That bag of material is quite simply the model-maker’s best friend – it is the raw substance from which every model is made. So you could say that I am that white bag of substance, without it I would not be a model-maker.

In this “web”-site I plan to reveal some of the secrets of the model-makers life, craft and standards.

I had hoped to pass on these “words” of “wisdom” to my son. But, true to form, the calling has skipped a generation and he is planning a life away from model-making.

This “web”-site will also be a chance to pass on some of my thoughts about life in general – as, again, my son is resisting the opportunity to spend time with me hearing what I have to say.

In the meantime, I need to get back to my latest commission – a scale model of Sir Alan Sugar’s boardroom off of The Apprentice television programme (it is for someone who failed to get on the show after being ejected from the auditions, but who believes he is the spiritual apprentice of the self-made millionaire).

Happy modelling!