R
ichard William Andrews (also see
Facebook.com - same name)
Age 53 Married, two ankle biters
Unqualified educationally, spent younger years in a band in London in the eighties, managed litho and high street print companies until fell into a 27 year career in antique restoration and interior design. Have to date made no money but had a happy and creative, self motivated working life!
Settled in England’s West
Country - live in Stroud, Cotswolds.
Lifetime modeller and
military history nut. Seeing ‘The Blue Max’ in a village hall in mid Wales on a wet holiday afternoon in 1967 affirmed my love of WW1 aircraft, but I had made models of any sort before that.
Memories of summer
holidays filled with air shows at North Weald and Old Warden with the treat of an Airfix or Revell model to take home are amongst my happiest. Often waking in the morning to find a finished, painted and decalled aeroplane on my bedside table.
I still have the remains of a
polka dot-lozenged Airfix Hannover and a Revell DVII with it louvres painfully shaved off and replaced - but most met fiery ends with cotton wool and white spirit blazing their way across our garden…
Distracted by guitars and
girls in my twenties I occasionally still bought a book or magazine for old times sake and kept it all in a box until another chance daytime viewing at home of ‘The Blue Max’ had me transfixed again. Married by this time, my wife came home from work to a living room strewn with my WW1 collection and a husband who would never be quite the same again. I found myself drawn back into the hobby by Ray Rimell’s heroic ‘Windsock’ output and the appearance of the early Eduard kits and
improved vacforms, which were a dream come true.
Pub life went out
the window, kids came along and my modelling fate was sealed. At least my wife knows where I am.
Promoting the
hobby and subject felt like a calling and so I created Aviattic about 10- 12 years ago as a reference website displaying the original artifacts, such as propellers and fabric, that I was finding at antique fairs and online. Once I realised there was a legitimate reason to buy this stuff and a small but growing market for it, that was it - Aviattic became part of my working life. Much of my propeller and ephemera collection ended up at the Vintage Aviator ltd (Peter Jacksons TVAL museum and aircraft company) in New Zealand.
I attended shows selling
surplus kits and books, thrusting copies of ‘Cross and Cockade’ and ‘Over the Front’ at half-curious passers by, giving kits free to kids whose fathers seemed all to keen to drag them away from those weird things with two wings (carrier bags stuffed with jets and ‘target’ kits).
Running a model club at my
kids’ school is also still very rewarding, their most popular ever after school club. Every term we have to turn some away. Too many clubs, magazines and societies forget the youngsters, our life blood - surely? The main stumbling block I have found to kids taking up the hobby is the parents, who have no experience of creative pastimes it seems – ‘too messy’, ‘can’t afford it’, ‘too smelly’…
..the glue I assume they mean! I’ve heard it all…
The gradual decline of the antique furniture and interior
4
WWW.SCALEAIRCRAFTMODELLING.CO.UK
Richard & Amanda Andrews - owners of Aviattic
Harry Green - wingman and the talent behind our lozenge artworks
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86