This page follows on from Pre-history - childhood and teenage years.

When I left university I lived at Christian Holt House in Kilburn and had a single room, initially one of the smaller ones, then a slightly larger corner one. There was no space for a OO layout, but as I now had a job and regular income I decided to re-kindle my interest in model railways.

I had still bought occasional copies of the Railway Modeller and decided that I wanted to focus on the late 50s, early 60s BR steam and diesel. I therefore found some adverts, in Railway Modeller I think, and bought some secondhand stock. I took too London some items like a power packs, and wires, and then needed a board. At the London Transport offices in Newman Street there was a soft board waiting to be thrown away (at least I hope it was) so I took it home in a large bag on the tube and began to experiment.

This convinced me that N-gauge was the way to go.

In August 1987 we married and spend the first leg of our Honeymoon in Shrewsbury. On one of the roads up to the town was a Model Railway shop so we called in an I bought a Railway Modeller. On leg two we were in Ripon but the journey between took us through Skipton. A Model Railway exhibition was being advertised, in the Town Hall I think, but it was for the week after our visit. Therefore it was a few years before I eventually went to the show, which by then was in a school.

However, I had the bug and got permission to begin to plan a model railway. I researched what we might fit in the flat we occupied but never got as far making anything.

Instead, I found that having decided it was time to explore again my call to Ordained Ministry I was rushed through the process by London Diocese and we started planning to move to Durham. I hoped there would be sufficient space in our accommodattion for a railway and so it proved. In fact there was lots of space. There were two good sized rooms in the attic, one of which was the spare bedroom but the other was just junk.There was also a virtually unused medieval cellar, but that was dark and damp. But the master bedroom had an en-suite bathroom. In fact the washbasin, bath and loo were one one side of it and about 2/3rds was unused. So, before we moved, I started planning for what I have termed  “my first layout”.

Added 28 Dec 2025.