Yesterday we had the REAL PLEASURE of exhibiting in Swaffham Norfolk.
The local town council has a very active "Cultural Consortium" department and they had organised a "Railway Reflections" event to commemorate the importance of the railway to the town,,,all in bygone days of course as Dr Beeching killed off most of the railways in East Anglia in the mid 1960's.
We did not know what to expect as it was not an official model railway event,,, and we were somewhat surprised to discover that the event was open to the public and it was ALSO FREE!!!!
WHAT!!! now there's a novelty.
Have we made the right decision I thought to myself in the van on the way to set up,, whatever,,, never mind we have had so few chances to do a show of late that it dosen't really matter,, lets have a good day "playing trains" and when all said and done it is only an hour away,,, which is yet another novelty.
The steam gods were with us and it became very apparent very quickly that we had definitely made the right decision.
What a lovely hall,, what a lovely bunch of people the organisers were,, not only friendly but helpful as well and I have to say that the questions and interest shown by the Swaffham public made it one of the most enjoyable show days I have ever had as an exhibitor.
Neville warmed to the occasion and graced us with his top of the range Top Hat,, it worked wonders,, he quickly recruited several under 8 trainee tram drivers who all seemed to enjoy the experience,, and the smiles on Mum Dads and proud grandparents faces make it well worth the risk every time.
Needless to say no day is perfect,,, we do keep a rough guide on which model creates the most interest and yet again Lizzie the Elephant garnered around 50% of the questions/requests closely followed by the tram at around 40%.
What do I have to do to get some interest in the railway aspects of the system,, which is approximately 95% of the total offering.
Just for the record can I say again,,, "I know nothing about trams and even less about elephants"
We even had one person ask permission to take a photo of the elephant for a friend of hers who was on holiday in France,, apparently the text message was "whatever you do make sure you get a photo of the elephant" .
I sometimes wonder why we bother!!!
To conclude,, what a great day,, what a lovely place and to the lovely gentleman who asked all the right questions for an hour in the morning and then returned for another session in the afternoon,, we are doing Spalding in the near future,, why not come and join us,,,,we can even provide a chair.
A final shot to confirm my modelling of the tram track is not bloomin rough,, it is deadly accurate.
