The workshop (as mentioned in the “steaming event” — Chapter 1) was a large attic room sporting a ten-foot long bench equipped with a carpenter’s vice, a small bench fitted with metalworker’s vice and drilling-machine, and a smaller bench with grinding-machine and a gas-ring. A large table served as a base to a small shaping-machine and a collection of steam engines. A treadle-operated fretsaw and another drilling-machine that could be wall-mounted, filled the corner next to a cupboard in the wall, used for keeping bottles of stain, acids, oils, and some chemicals like copper sulphate, red lead, shellac, white lead, methylated spirit and ammonium sulphide. This latter chemical was used by my father to blacken a copper silhouette, cut out using the fretsaw, of the liner Queen Mary (although at that pre-launch time she was known as No.534 from John Brown’s Yard, Clydebank) which eventually became a decoration in one of the staterooms aboard her. However, as I grew older and took a bit of an interest in chemistry,I realised that ammonium sulphide could be used to make “stink bombs” (at that time one of the schoolboy’s favourite possessions). They were bought from joke shops packed in saw-dust in little wooden boxes and were quite small. The ones I produced were a lot more generous and endowed me with a certain notoriety at school. I made dozens and became pretty quick at blowing the glass bubbles, but it was a good job the filling of them was carried out in the workshop at the top of the house, because the stench was abominable even with the windows open. The family would occasionally catch a whiff or two and make some remarks but I managed to counter the criticism somehow.

There were literally hundreds of files, saws, drills, taps, dies, reamers, chisels, hammers, screwdrivers, gimlets, pliers, planes, spokeshaves and other hand tools and a lot of them were sorted in a deep, ten-drawer, mahogany cabinet and kept well oiled in an attempt to keep rusting to a minimum. In those days we didn’t have any VPI paper or spray to inhibit the formation of rust and we used all kinds of mixtures to keep rust to a minimum, mostly based on tallow, blacklead and camphor, although I seem to remember that oiled brown paper was just as good. Obviously the regular steaming of the engines in the same room didn’t really curb the rusting problem.

One of the most pleasurable things that I recollect in the workshop was the junk box – a large wooden box kept under the main bench and full of odd scraps of metal, lots of gear wheels, bits of clocks, springs, spare pieces of Meccano, an old triangular French bayonet, a Great War trench periscope, cylinders and chunks of discarded model engines, wireless tuning condensers and coils, many ancient tools, (some in working condition and some not), many obscure gadgets which taxed the brain in trying to discover a purpose for them, in fact a veritable storehouse for a tiny boy with an inquisitive bent. Delving amongst the huge variety of junk provided me with hours of imaginative fun as well as, I must say, many a cut and grazed hand – break out the Germolene and sticking plasters!

I was co-opted occasionally to sort out a large pile of screws and hardware into various sizes for storing into cigar-boxes and cigarette-tins. I soon got to recognise the differences between the various thread sizes, Whitworth, B.S.F. British Association, Model Engineer, Gas threads etc, useful training which stood me in good stead when I eventually became an engineering apprentice. Quite a lot of the hardware and junk was acquired from a place called The Caledonian Market near Euston Station. It sold every second-hand thing imaginable, suits of armour, swords, tools, screws, books, and my father was forever buying stuff which took his fancy. I have a tendency towards a similar indulgence, regret to say!

In addition to the engines already described, we had a Stuart Star and a Stuart Sun, both of them totally enclosed, twin-cylindered, high-speed jobs for driving model boats or coupling to dynamos. Also one or two little oscillating models by Stuart or someother manufacturer and, at odd times, a couple of Bing or Marklinn vertical boilered engines which were spirit-fired and could very quickly be steamed to provide power for driving Meccano models. I was extremely enthusiastic about Meccano. We had a goodly amount and building with it became one of my favourite pastimes, although I always preferred to experiment with my own designs of cranes, bridges and mechanisms rather than use the manuals supplied. The Meccano that we had was all finished in nickel-plate which, to my way of thinking, was a vastly superior finish to the painted stuff that later became fashionable.

Incidentally, in 1938 we moved to a house in West Norwood, London and during the 1939-1945 War, the roof was damaged on several occasions by the bombing and, sad to say, most of the aforementioned engines and boilers were appropriated by the “gentlemen” who came to repair the roof. I was at work all day and the house was left open for them to repair. Unfortunately the engines had been stored in the loft and the loss was not discovered until some months after the repairs to the roof had been carried out. Ah well, c’est la vie!