As a young boy, I developed enthusiasm for my older brothers' 0 gauge railway, with its extensive layout in a large loft over the garage (a former coach house) and adjoining harness room. They had a stock of clockwork engines comprising some George Vs, an LNWR tank, a Leeds Model Co 0-4-0ST nicknamed Chuffer, an 0-4-0T called Buzzer, and some others. I was given a little tender engine, freshly painted, which I subsequently learned had previously been given to my sister carrying a different livery.

There was sundry coaching stock, some commercial and others built by my brother Ron. Initially there were tinplate wagons, superseded by wooden ones, most of them from kits, but some scratchbuilt by my brothers. When I was six or seven, Ron took me to Bonds 0' Euston Road to select an engine as a combined family present. We came away with a robust 4-4-0T of German manufacture. Around that time Ron ordered an LMS compound, a freelance 2-4-0T and then an 0-4-4ST from Exley, and he made an LNWR small-wheeled 2-4-2T using tinplate sheet. He used a treadle fretsaw and turned chimneys and domes on a round-bed Drummond treadle lathe which was a 21st birthday present in 1932.

I recall it was Christmas that year that my present from the family was an Exley-built LMS Class 4 freight in primer which, fortuitously, was delivered by the postman mid-morning on Christmas Day. Ron constructed an excellent tender for it and painted the whole lot in red livery.

I have overlooked that my previous major present was a Bassett-Lowke Compound, which after a few years was considered substandard and replaced by another Exley Compound.

In a previous article, A Garden Railway in the 1930s, published some years ago I described how I nearly forsook my brothers' layout to play trains in the garden, first temporarily on the lawns and from 1933 onwards with a layout in a shady spinney.

In the 1930s, I commenced wagon building to build up the fleet and Ron was active making new coaching stock. By 1934 he had transformed the basic Buzzer 0-4-0T into a small-wheeled outside cylinder 0-6-0T, with new cab and bunker. He was proud of this and was not happy for it to be used in the garden. Chuffer had already been rebuilt with outside cylinders and a bunker added, but it was not in the same class.

The other commercial engines were being withdrawn and their mechanisms salvaged for new builds. Two other Exley engines not so far mentioned were a Midland 'Spinner' owned by a family friend and a pseudo-Jinty containing a massive short-wheelbase six-wheel mechanism with a wide spring which was arduous to wind. This engine was also somewhat rebuilt by Ron. Along with the 2-4-2T, it was sold during the war.

Loch Maree is a freelance 2-4-0 largely based on Beyer Peacock locomotives for Ireland; it is powered by a Leeds Model mechanism.

At Easter 1936, with Ron and two friends, we toured South Wales to photograph industrial engines. Amongst these was an ex-Taff Vale 0-6-0ST built by Kitson in 1899 and named Blaendare, working at Black Vale Colliery near Pontypool. With its deep saddle tank able to disguise the clockwork mechanism, I felt it would be a good prototype to model. That autumn I ventured into metalwork and fretsawed the tinplate body parts and soldered them up. Ron helped me with advice and by turning up the chimney and dome, the cab spectacle plates and splasher beading. The result was very successful and led to the almost complete updating of the loco fleet by new construction and rebuilding of other engines. The annual output averaged two a year until the outbreak of the war.

Ron continued to be active in constructing coaching stock, particularly their bodies, until the mid 1950s when his spare-time handiwork was transferred to the benefit of the resurgent Festiniog Railway. I ceased model work until I retired in the 1980s when I set to making wagons, mostly using plastic kits, but often carrying out plastic surgery to cover a larger range of prototypes, generally MR ones. These activities, and also wagon suspension, were the subjects of two articles in the Gazette a few years ago.

Some members have at times expressed a wish to see more pictures of these models. Having recently taken some new colour photos of them and two later ones built in the 1940s, the illustrations show six of the more interesting and successful ones.