HADARFORD

My interest in model railways and canals has run a parallel course throughout my life. I started railway modelling when my parents bought me my first train set when I was 10 years old in 1962. My interest in canals started when I was 15, when I discovered an ex-working narrowboat called Pisces owned and run back then by the London Borough of Hillingdon as a community boat. I started working on it part-time from the age of 16.

While still living with my parents, I built two different OO gauge model railways, both based on early dieselisation of BR. However, in 1982, my job moved to Felixstowe, and I with it. Due to two unsuccessful relationships, model railways and canals took a back step in my life, until, to recover from my divorce, I bought an O gauge wagon kit. This was the start of what was an unsuccessful