Phil’s Workbench: April 2021
A very unhappy put up to start the week. Saturday saw the final buying and selling day of Gee Dee Models in Nottingham.
I’d not deliberate to go to, rushing to the closing down sale of any model shop appears a bit ghoulish, however I was invited to have a look round by one of many individuals serving to clear the decks – and that i reasoned that they had enjoyed a few of my cash in earlier years.
Which may sound strange, but I actually cannot stand people who have refused to hand over cash till there’s a stonking great sale on. Model shops are an endangered breed. Deserve our support. No-one is getting wealthy working one, but they provide a invaluable service for our neighborhood. This doesn’t suggest the odd packet of observe pins or pot of paint, however those massive-ticket gadgets too. Maybe you can save a couple of quid on-line, but what’s the larger value?
I digress. The shelves have been looking pretty naked after i arrived, but there were bargains to be had and i bagged a couple of after my tour and a free cup of tea. The place is huge, with considerable storage as well as a generous gross sales flooring. There have been a couple of surprises found when digging to the back of the cupboards, a superb model store builds up a nice mattress of odd things over time that are nuggets of gold to a sure type of modeller.
The very first department opened in 1946 so we are talking a couple of enterprise with seventy three years of buying and selling, only closing on the retirement of the owner now into his 80s – who dropped in to see the final closure.
The photograph above comes from the Gee Dee web site, effectively price a search for footage showing a very good model store in its heyday.
Among the goodies found were some “Joy Club” cards utilized by customers within the 1960s to save lots of up for gadgets. You would are available and pay your cash into the savings scheme and eventually be capable of afford the Hornby Dublo locomotive or Aerokits boat you desired. At one level there have been 4000 members, all information being painstakingly recorded by hand – no computers in these days!
Gee Dee was a proper, conventional shop masking all branches of the mannequin-making interest. Railways, radio management boats/planes/vehicles, plastic kits and diecast collectables stuffed the shelves in all scales. The train space might have been largely OO and N, however 7mm and G scale were additionally well represented.
I remember my first go to back in the mid-1980s. My dad and i had taken the prepare to the Nottingham present, it being (accurately) instructed as one to visit by our new mannequin railway club colleagues. After enjoying the event and a hearty chip-based meal at the ice rink where it was held (the lady serving appeared to contemplate a bag of frozen chips equalled two parts) we walked to the shop and had been in heaven.
A few years later, when building Melbridge Dock and needing some boat fittings for the scratchbuilt Clyde Puffers, we dropped in and were allowed to raid a stack of tiny plastic drawers in one of the cabinets. I’ve by no means seen such an array of mannequin boat fitting in a shop since. Some of these we purchased are in all probability still in our drawers as it was an extended method to journey, so we stocked up!
Every go to to Nottingham since has centred on a visit. Much as I like the town, boat fitting it is great to have a focal point and i by no means left empty-handed.
Sadly, this has all come to an end. The shutters came down. The lights have been turned off. Those shelves nonetheless have goodies on them, though there were extra spaces at closing time than when the doors opened.
I went for a beer with the employees afterwards. Obviously, marine hardware [https://www.pinterest.com/bachmannsherwood018] they will miss the place, many having worked there for years and all being modelmakers themselves. Everyone appeared in good spirits regardless of the occasion.
The individuals of Nottingham can have misplaced one thing necessary too. Some will name me silly and sentimental, in spite of everything, we have the Internet so who wants a physical store when you’ll be able to order your latest Bachby locomotive sat in your pants at home?
Places like Gee Dee are more than simply a store for buying things. Peter, the boss, explained that if you’d like to speak soccer, you may go to any pub. If you want to speak model railways (or boats or planes) you can’t do this.
Maybe you are lucky sufficient to belong to a membership to sate your need to talk, however for lots of people, this isn’t an choice. In an excellent model store, you possibly can talk about the stuff you make, the passion you love, and marine cleat for sale no-one thinks you might be bizarre. Because if you are bizarre, so is everybody else in there. At the very least we will be weird together.
