A bit geeky
I am probably a little older than your average B3tan, racing towards 50 with a fixed rictus grin and a rock filled sock hidden under my pillow ready to confront the grim reaper on my own terms when he dares show up.

So the things I lost were not transformers or star wars figures etc. After my time.

My thing (and all of my childhood friends) was Airfix models. The average kids pocket money would cover one kit per week and we loved it. Buy and build them (badly) on saturday and by sunday evening they would be in a fairly sorry state on the shelf in my bedroom after some rigourous bombing raids over Mr Hill next doors pond (dambusting) or Mr Ridouts cabbage patch on the other side (very dangerous due to hostile Yorkie dogs!)

I was very lucky in that I had what seemed like 1000 aunts, uncles and older cousins at the time and they all knew Little RadG loved his Airfix stuff, and as they were so cheap, every time they called round (at least 3 of them called a week, the benefits of a large extended Welsh/Italian family) they would bring me a kit to keep me quiet.

The result is, by the time I went off to University I had 5 or 6 very large boxes of unbuilt Airfix kits, some donated from the collections of older cousins dating back to the 50's and early 60's, along with my collection from the 70's onwards.

I totally forgot about them for almost 20 years until one day a few years ago I stumbled onto the Airfix website by accident and was immediatley lost in my childhood for a while.

I ordered a kit or two online, just for nostalgia sake, and had great fun building them. It was such great stress relief that within a few months it was again one of my hobbys, it may be saving my life!.

Then I remembered those huge boxes full of my vintage kits ... I saw on E-bay how much vintage plastic kits go for (silly money for some) called my Mum to see when was a good time to call roundand pull them out of the attic.

"Those silly old plastic airplanes" she said

"Oh I gave those to the church jumble years ago"

I was crushed ... but never mind, I had my rediscovered hobby to keep me going. Until about 2 years after that phonecall, when I was helping Mum clean out the attic when I saw 5 big very familiar boxes lurking at the back. MY KITS !!!

It turns out she found one boxfull and gave it away and the rest were safe in the eaves out of sight.

The only trouble is the box she gave away was the "James bond" box which was worth a bloody fortune!

I could never sell the rest though, even though I have worked out a rough value for them all of about 4k.

It is just such a pleasure to look at them every now and then and the memories of my childhood come flooding back as if it was only yesterday!
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Sat 16 Aug 2008, 14:14, Reply)