Blokes with families are unsung heroes.
They spend their days appraising metaphorical mammoths, coshing them and bringing them home so that the nest of gannets they have begat can live to slope off to school another day.
These days the mammoths are not the huge muscular wooly tusked supercreatures of yore. No: plunder for my husband Phil might include managing the public face of a company in the face of a national news event: organising an awayday for hundreds: writing a key message for a talented but perfectionist chief exec.
He was designed to hunt such quarry, but it’s still demanding stuff: he wields that cudgel, he plants a meaty right-hook just where it will fell a mighty beast.He brings it home and we eat another day, chiding him unthinkingly for eating cakes set aside for the children’s packed lunches.
One would think that in his leisure time, he might want to forsake tasks which demand perfectionism, challenge and focus.
One would think that. But one would be wrong.
Let me take you back to a time when Maddie was six; it seems an age ago; and utterly obsessed with Admiral Lord Nelson.
She had visited the HMS Victory at Portsmouth, and knew intricate details about the Battle of Trafalgar, Emma Hamilton, and whether Nelson really did say “Kiss Me, Hardy”.
She has always been a tough customer for which to buy presents because she never really wants anything. I was at my wits’ end when I was wandering through a hobby shop and my weary eyes lit upon an Airfix model of HMS Victory.
Is Airfix international? To my generation in the UK it is simply legendary.
Airfix produced plastic construction kits which must be popped off their plastic moulds and stuck together.
They made planes and cars and boats and tanks, with myriad tiny detailed parts which used to get squashed and hoovered up and inadvertently eaten by household dogs.
So much so that teenage boys, desperate to construct something of moment, oft retreated to their rooms to preserve the whole, and grew high on the fumes of tubes of glue which could take one to heaven and back.
Airfix, Airfix, Airfix. A colossus amongst toy companies. The apex of a boy’s desire to construct something which really meant something. Which was so like the real thing, it was almost as if one had created the original.
Of course, as you read, you will have spotted my schoolgirl error. I was buying the Holy Grail for a teenage boy: but this box of plastic parts was about as much use to a little girl as a Hay’s Car Manual.
Many of Maddie’s presents that Christmas were successful, but this was not one of them. It lay gathering dust underneath the sofa for five long years.
A few weeks ago, a young archaeologist had identified Under The Sofa as a viable site for excavation.
The crucial difference between Maddie and this intrepid bounty hunter was that he was eight years old, and male.
Felix drew out the box and dusted it off. Immediately, the young mammoth-hunter in him was hooked.
Felix does not hang about. He began an immediate campaign to have the long-lost boat constructed as Horatio Nelson would surely have wanted.
It did not take long. One Saturday evening a couple of weeks ago, the box was borne up to the middle floor where we live and watch television in the evenings. And construction on the Victory began.
Naively, I had thought that the business would be a father-and-son enterprise, with each detatching and fitting together and glueing with painstaking care and attention.
Not so. Construction is achieved by Felix jumping about delightedly, cannonballing about the room, commenting volubly on progress. He always wears the widest of grins for the occasions.
Phil, it is, who is putting together the Victory.
He assumes an air of focus which is almost spiritual, like a buddhist monk meditating. He never smiles, but wears a slight, scholarly frown.
For he is returning to those teenage years when modelling was what you did when you weren’t studying, or helping your mum by hoovering the ground floor. He is back there with his inner adolescent, constructing a boat with much of the detail of the real thing.
Now the hull is constructed, and work will soon begin on the sails which, on the real thing, would have propelled the great warship across the sea.
As it sits on the floor next to the dog’s cushion – its temporary shipyard – the dog takes it as just one more sign that he is in an unorthodox household. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
I wonder if they will both be bereft when it is finished?
Kate Shrewsday 
Oui…comme ca! Tres bien.
Merci, Amy 😀
Ah yes models – they take a lot of patience – my hubby IS like yours (he will study the model and patiently attach bit by bit, and then paint, and then the stickers – but such a perfectionist that he once threw away a model of a spitfire plane because one of the stickers broke in half – not good!). The name Airfix does sound familiar 🙂
I think Phil would be just the same with that sticker, Gabrielle 😀 I think Airfix has been around down under…
Yes, Airfix was well known and much sought after Down Under – at least in the 60s! They had a good model railway range. And one isn’t bereft when the model is finished, be it galleon or cattle wagon – there are weeks to come of admiring it from every angle as if it is the only creation of its kind in the world – and it is!
Thanks for the clarification on that, WonderingPilgrim 😀 I shall not trouble to dread the moment the closing pieces are put into place!
Why is modelling in this way SUCH a male thing? Reminds me of the chap from Top Gear who has done programs on buys from the past – James May, who put a model train line down across the country side.
He also did one on Airfix… this isn’t the one I had thought of, but it captures the idea
I love James May. What an affable bloke. I do note, however, that when he built a lifesize Airfix model of a Spitfire, he also had a lifesize green model of himself built as the pilot!
Great – I saw the original build, but didn’t know about the fix and return. Thanks!
I love this! I can see Felix bouncing and Phil frowning with concentration. I hope you don’t do anything daft like try to chat during construction time!
It has occurred that a few stray words were caught in the crossfire, Speccy 😀
My husband never met an Airfix model he didn’t build. Sigh. Because then, of course, they have to be displayed somewhere.
Re Nelson: we are related by marriage on my husband’s side to Hardy, who married a many-greated aunt. We stoutly maintain that it was ‘Kismet, Hardy.’
I’m afraid I never introduced my son to Airfix. I was put off that sort of thing by the awful night I was up til dawn trying to construct the Playmobile Pirate Ship and Island before his ?th birthday. The Island was ok but the ship was a NIGHTMARE! and, of course, Playmobile isn’t glued so it was soon in pieces again. There’s part of it still in my garage roof (the bits are in a box with all the other Playmobile stuff). I even moved with it in case, one day, I have grandchildren.
Now there’s masochism for you!
Those Playmobil models, they’re terrifying. We bought the great castle for Maddie – I think that was her fourth birthday – and if it hadn’t been for our friends and Mad’s godparents, Miff and Nick, we wouldn’t ever have got it put together!
I made all the
WW 1 planes
I somehow knew you would have, Carl 😀
Thankfully my husband hasn’t been bitten by the model-building bug, his clumsy fingers would make for interesting language.
There are more enlightening blokey things to do in South Africa than Airfix, Cindy: it is only us pale sad Northern hemispherians who need such entertainment. Judging by Naomi Estment’s blog you might even have a few mammoths still out there to cudgel!
Dear Kate,
This posting is delightful. It weaves together the desire of the male to build, the exuberance of the boy, the expectancies of the woman, the insouciance of the young six-year-old girl, the patience of the dog, and the wonder of the craft.
Thank you.
You’re welcome, Dee. It sounds so calm and beautiful when you put it that way. In actual fact it’s a whirling dervish of an activity 😀
A girl’s gift, left to gather dust, becomes a future man’s treasure? Had I been the girl, though, I would have gobbled it up – my brother was always getting the constructor type items, while we girls had to make do with dolls and such… 😦 (Not that I didn’t like girl toys too, guess I wanted it all.)
Lovely of Felix to gift his dad with the pleasure of putting it together… 😉
I was a little like you, Ruth. I’ve always been a tomboy. But my daughter is the girliest girl in girl land 🙂
What a beautiful vignette of family life, happy mammoth hunters bonding over what appears to be a really great model of Victory. Family fur-person standing by if needed. Wonderful!
I think family fur person was slightly outraged that the ship yard was so near his favourite cushion, Elizabeth. You’re right though: the model is turning out just as Viscount Lord Shrewsday would have it do….
Isn’t it amazing that you bought the perfect gift for the right person in the end? It just took him a while to find it.
I used to be the one who enjoyed trying to put together model cars and airplanes. This post has me itching to try again. 🙂
That sounds like an excellent idea, Andra 😀
Lovely tale Kate, you had me hooked at the mention of Mammoth.. .. I remember as a child my Nan took me to visit some relatives. and as I was alone in the Front Room (Northern for lounge) … I picked up the Airfix model of something or other and it fell apart in my hands.. and as any god fearing child would do…I hid it under the sofa. (and worried about it ever after…as you can tell …I shall roast in Hell methinks 😉 ) … I visited Portsmouth Christmas before last..,. and went round t’Victory… Tour-wise.. I mean not on my own… ‘cos it’s too big to fit under any sofa I know… 😉 xPenx
I believe it manages to be both impressive and oppressive, Pen! Those tiny spaces must have been pure hell simply to travel in, let alone to fight a battle from. I must go and have a look.
I wonder if that model’s still there mow?
Building models, like putting together puzzle pieces, is a lovely meditative pastime.
Here’s hoping that Big Al doesn’t plunder the ship before it sets sail! 😉
Good point, Nancy. Must put it on a very high shelf indeed before Thursday morning when he bursts into the household once more.
I remember having fun making little aeroplanes (I was a bit besotted with them) and now relise I may also have been addicted to the glue – oh dear and there I always thought it was quite harmless fun
Every occupation has its hidden vices, Sidey 😀 Look at blogging!
true
Great story kate. Look forward to seeing Phil’s handiwork.
Airfix once got into trouble with MOD, though. Once upon a time they produced a model of the Blackburn Buccaneer aircraft. They included the rotating bomb door which then was a state secret at the time. The Buccaneer is now 60 years out of date design and build.
Love Dad
Gosh, what a great footnote. “Don’t tell ’em about the Airfix Buccaneer kit, Pike!” 🙂
Lovely blog, Kate I trust we will see The Victory when she’s complete. 🙂
You may depend on it, Jan 🙂
That is a brilliant foonote, Dad. Phil says its still a great plane, even though it’s 60 years out of date….
Naughty Airfix.
Love this post. My girls would have appreciated this gift, no doubt, but, it would have dear-old-dad putting it together, probably still.
😀 The Dad’s must rub their hands together in glee when we bring the boxes home, Penny 😀
I think these kits are mostly for the Dads!
Airfix models are fantastic! The cars, the boats, the planes … and trains. They make, or at least used to make, fantastic models of great railway engines. And there is when you know you really have a problem – when the male in your life starts filling up the house with model trains. And agin, why are trains a near completely male excursion?
So start with the ship. Then build it a dock. At the dock you can have a massive locomotive delivering goods to the port. And the world can expand from there – to every room you have available.
Michael, thank you so much for coming over to read 🙂 Your enthusiasm for models is infectious. Now: how does one get a dock? Does one Google it?:-D (Best leave that to Phil!)
Well let’s see, one could start with a few copies of Railway Modeler, http://www.pecopublications.co.uk, and move on from there. Just make the suggestion to your Phil – I am sure he will know what to do. 😉
What a fond memory these two “boys” will have of their combined effort…one in the doing, perhaps and the other in the joy of having a father who would lovingly “do” for his son. The imagery of young mammoth hunters is perfect. I can definitely “see” them in that particulary male role. I’m in agreement with the dog, Kate. What a perfectly unusual household you are. Marvelously so! Debra
Thanks Debra: nothing is ever straightforward here, that is for sure.
I covet that with a great covet. Having said which, I still have the half-finished hull from a model given by Much Better Half when we were engaged. This wasn’t Airfix – one started with a perishing block of wood! It took some serious slicing just to get the hull into shape. One day, I’ll do all the rigging and stuff. I have a vague idea the paint tubes may have dried up by now, though, and that I’ll have to buy more glue.
I suspect they’ll just go out and get another to build – it’s addictive. I love that photo, Kate 🙂
The dog is so very oblivious, isn’t he, Nuvofelt?