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
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 were formed 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!
Assembled and tested
in the Carpenters Department
The Garrison Workshop was built into tunnels
in the rock face and comprised a main chamber with ten
side caverns—five on
each side (shown in blue)
The main chamber was about 70 feet wide and
30 feet high—easily big enough to take the largest recovery
vehicles and artillery
pieces, these were repaired and serviced at the far end of the main chamber
The roof and walls were bare rock but the
side caverns were cladded to look like normal
workshops
and it was in the
third cavern on the left—the Carpenters Department--that the model was
assembled
This was chosen as the main part of the
project was carpentry and the low lying parts of the Rock, which
were unsuitable for
the wooden former/copper sheet cladding construction, were carved from the
solid—these were in the
area of Europa Flats
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
(see Resting in
Tangiers at the El Farhar)
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!
Princess Anne meeting
up with son and heir James. At Royal Holloway
He forgot to mention the model
Off to
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, mothballed 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"