SASIG Events v2

The 2008 Scottish National Model Show was held at the Dewar Centre in Perth on the 26th and 27th April. This was SASIG’s first trip ‘north of the border’ and it was a very pleasant, friendly and successful two-day show. As Steve and I were also having a week’s holiday on this trip, we were a little limited on space for models but I managed to put together a reasonable single table display. The only downside was the amount of dust in the air on the Sunday…lots of careful dusting was required when we got home!

I combined aspects of last year’s and this year’s themes in the display and this turned out to be a very good idea. I was able to chat to several veterans including guys from 2 Para and the Scots Guards and a crew member from HMS Argonaut. The FIGAS aircraft and Nigel Denchfield’s Spitfire got particular attention, as did the models of HMS Ardent and SS Canberra. Thankfully all the models arrived home safely despite all the travelling.

The Hinckley Show was held at the Leisure Centre in the centre of Hinckley on Sunday 20th April. This was my first time exhibiting the SASIG display at this show in a very pleasant venue. SASIG had been allocated 2 double-depth tables and as we are still building up this year’s theme display, I shared the space with my husband’s WW1 display. The show was split between two main rooms with a reasonable selection of traders but unfortunately for me there was no one selling decals. There were more visitors in the morning than the afternoon, not unusual for a Sunday show. I didn’t meet any new veterans at this show but did get a chance to chat with several that I had met before.

New additions to the display were Mike Smith’s Shreck FBA-17 and Supermarine Walrus Mk.1 and Dave Gait’s FIGAS Fisheries Patrol Islander. Dave is not a member of SASIG but offered to build this model as he had been involved with passing on design details for the radome for the Bendix radar to Pilatus-Britten-Norman. Thanks Dave

The 2008 SASIG theme, ‘Aviation in the Falkland Islands 1931 – 2008’, had its first outing at the Shropshire Model Show at the RAF Museum Cosford on Sunday 6th April. Despite the snowy weather, the show was very well attended and at one point in the morning the Museum gates were shut for a short time as visitors were having trouble finding parking spaces. For those of you who know Cosford, the SASIG stand was in Hangar 1, almost underneath the open rear door of the Argosy.

Along with last year’s Vulcan, SHARs, GR.3, Scout and Gazelle, the display incorporated Mike Smith’s Pucara, Alec Smith’s Turbo Mentor and Argentinian Navy Lynx. Nigel Denchfield’s model of the Falklands Presentation Spitfire ‘Falkland Islands II’, as flown by his father in 1940 was also on display. My fellow Brampton club member, Sam Bratby, kindly allowed me to use his Argentinian Army Iroquois and RN Sea King. My own contribution was the FIDS/FIGAS Noorduyn Norseman ‘V’ and captured Iroquois ‘Hernandez’ in its FIGAS red paint scheme. I added information and photos relating to as many of the models as I could, to illustrate their connection to the Falkland Islands.

The display attracted considerable interest. In particular, the Spitfire and its story (a print-out of this was on the table) caught the eye of several visitors. Towards the end of the afternoon show organiser Gary Stevens came up to the stand to tell me that we had won the Best Display trophy. The tannoy announcement about this wasn’t audible at our end of Hangar 1 and until Gary arrived I was unaware that we had won. It is always pleasing to have your efforts recognised at a show and many thanks to everyone who contributed models for the display.

Our first outing in 2008 was at Modelkraft 2008 at its new venue, the Stantonbury Leisure Centre in Milton Keynes on Sunday 3rd February. Attendance was good and our display, a slightly reduced version of the Falklands 25th display from Telford, was very well received. Several veterans stopped to talk about their experiences, including a former member of the Commando Engineer Regiment who had taken part in the attack on Pebble Island.

This year’s FAA Museum show took place on Saturday 9th February. The SASIG display was sited in front of the Sea Harrier on its Ski Jump. This proved to be a very satisfactory placing as there were still several artifacts from the museum’s Falklands 25 exhibition on the low wall behind us. The show was very busy and our Falklands 25th display was popular in this, its last full outing for a while, at least. Amongst the veterans that I was able to speak to was Mike Costello, formerly of 42 Commando. The high point of my day came when I met Justin McAulay. Justin’s father, Allan ’Mac’ McAulay, was an AEMN[M]1 and part of the Flight on HMS Ardent. ‘Mac’ died when the first bombs hit Ardent’s stern on 21st May 1982

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