By Barry Lafbery 

In my collection of smaller models, i have two Rolls-Royces, a Silver Shadow and a Silver cloud. These always remind me of the time when I worked for a Rolls-Royce agent in London just after I came out of the RAF. The add Read, wanted Mechanic willing to learn Rolls-Royce. Perfect I thought just what I need, I phoned and got an interview. The first thing the manager looked at was how I was dressed, and of course I had my suit and tie on, back then if you didn’t have a suit and tie on you didn’t get the job and that was that. I really must try and find a larger model. Maybe a 1/50 or 1/43 scale would be nice. Staying with the upper class for a moment, I also have a couple of Bentley speed 6s, you remember John Steed and Emma Peel, type, and whenever I see Diana Rigg on PBS I always think of that show and my Models. 

Well this year the wife and I took a cruise to Alaska, the last time we went was six years ago, in fact that was the last really get away holiday we had, so this made a nice change. While browsing around the shops on the ship I came across a couple of candy tins, one in the shape of a double-decker bus, and of course I had to have that, also one in the shape of a British phone box, that, as you might well imagine went well with the Double-decker bus, so I ended up with both of them. The candies were soon removed to anther container, and the tins put with my model collection where they look quite at home. I know they are not really a model but they are of interest and make a good conversation piece. Its funny isn’t it how when you have an interest, be it old cars, old Buses, Models, or what ever, where ever you go they seem to jump out at you, one of our ports of call on the cruise was Skagway, a place I highly recommend to visit. We went on the narrow gauge railway that  follows the gold rush trail of ‘98’, well while chugging out of town I saw parked a very old Double-Decker Bus that was not British as it was left hand drive and the doors on the right hand side, on our return, to my horror it was gone, anyway after lunch we had a walk around the town, and of course we found the Bus, it was parked down a side street with another Double-Decker, this one from Britain, From the town of Bristol. It was a 1965 Leyland. I had quite a chat with the owner of the buses who uses them for tours in the summer months. The older bus was 1931 GMC and was all in original condition and in good running order. I would certainly like to get a model of that. While in Juneau I came across a store that had a few die-cast models of about 1/50 scale very well made and very heavy, but I resisted the temptation.

Happy modeling,
Barry