Arthur Ward

This book is from the same author who has written a number of books on the history of Airfix. However, it is deficient in a number of places.

The amount of space it devotes to each company is variable; in the case of some minor manufacturers from the past, this might be excused. However, given the importance of, say, Heller or Italeri, it is odd that such "national" flag-carriers should only get one or two pages when some Japanese manufacturers such as Bandai or Nitto get as much if not more.

Within the histories, there are some major inaccuracies - even in the account of Airfix, where the World War I incarnation of the 'Old Bill' London General B Type bus is lumped in with the 'civilian' version and the Dennis fire engine, when the wartime version was a re-use of the original moulds. And in the section on Esci, Ward states that they "...produced a range of aircraft, all DC-3 'Dakota' derivatives..." Far from it! The Esci range covered the gamut of post-war military aircraft, including the USAF Century series fighters, British, French and Italian machines, and came up to date with F-4 Phantoms and the early variants of the F-16, in both 1/72nd and 1/48th scale.

Matchbox's imaginative choice of subjects is little touched upon, nor its timeliness in producing a Sea Harrier just in advance of the Falklands conflict, which coincided with the company's slump into bankruptcy. It is said that the Official Receiver went into the company to be faced with a pile of orders for the Sea Harrier, which at the time was the only model of the type available. It persuaded the Receiver that the company was a potentially viable concern (and was actually a well-engineered and accurate model, especially given its entry-level price. I can vouch for that as I built one and was impressed with its engineering and the way in which it was demonstrably true to scale when I added after-market accessories without any need for adjustment).

On Kitmaster, the British company who produced a range of static plastic kits of railway locomotives, Ward makes the error of saying that the kits were all "HO/OO" scale, despite three of the box tops he illustrates stating clearly that they are to the short-lived "TT3" scale. He also suggests that "most" of the kits were reissued by Airfix, when perhaps only about a quarter of the range were.

There is little attention given to the commercial environment that these models were sold in. Perhaps the key thing about Airfix was its marketing arrangement with F.W.Woolworths, which meant that they could be found in almost every town of any size across the country; certainly, this was where I first came across them. Compare and contrast with Frog, say: in its heyday, I could not find Frog kits in rural Derbyshire, and had to travel to Derby, where I found a small supply in the toy department of an independant department store ("The White House", for any old Derberians reading!); whereas Airfix could be found in both the Co-op and Woolworths. And at that time, the Co-op had no problem with taking Tri-ang model railways, produced by the same company as produced Frog, the Lines Brothers Group. Anything more exotic, such as Revell, had to wait for occasional trips further afield.

Undoubtedly, the main attraction of this book is the photographic record of iconic box tops; and this is great. But even here, there are omissions. Heller's iconic black boxes were instantly recognisable and were part of the brand's retail image in the UK for a good number of years - yet none are illustrated.

The book dates from 2004, when manufacturers from eastern Europe were already beginning to be noticed. Even though probably too early for the likes of Zvezda from Russia or ICM from the Ukraine, some mention should surely have been made of Kovozavody Prostejov (KP) from Czechoslovakia, as their history was already reasonably well-known in the West; and also of their protégé, Eduard, who by 2004 were making the successful transition from cottage manufacturer to a major player. Also touched on, but not covered in detail, was the earlier appearance of various Frog kits after that company's demise under the Novo brand from production in the former Soviet Union; but Ward makes no mention of the way that these kits were actually produced, often in the USSR's "apprentice factories", run under the aegis of the individual Soviet Republics' education ministries. Of course, that story had to be pieced together from some of the anonymously rebagged ex-Frog kits that appeared on the UK show circuit after Novo kits in turn disappeared, whose instruction leaflets revealed the origins of the mouldings as long as you could read a little Russian. (This explained the sometimes poor rendition of some of the mouldings! Presumably, there was a reasonable quality control process in the Novo packaging operation.)

Equally, more recent developments in the Far East are not covered. The rise of Trumpeter and other high-end manufacturers from China is perhaps too recent; but that of Academy in Korea is not. Starting as a purveyor of kits copied from other manufacturers (presumably with permission) as sub-contractors for other clients (notably Hobbycraft in Canada), Academy had begun producing its own kits by the early 2000s and these easily stood comparison with those from the more established brands.

So we have here a book that is long on nostalgia but short on facts. It very much shows the areas where Ward has done his research and those where he has not. It may be that the book is a product of a packaging proposition and so was written and published to a deadline. That would explain much. It is, after all, a very fine looking book and will serve many people well who just want to leaf through the pages over a cup of tea and wistfully think back to the days of their modelling youth. That is ultimately its strength; and it does that one thing very well. But for an accurate history of the industry, serious researchers will have to look elsewhere.… (meer)

This is a book with two identities. Outwardly, the title (itself echoing a popular series of educational books from the 1950s and 1960s), the photographs, the packaging and part of the text is a nostalgic celebration of childhood and something of a tip of the hat to the "new laddism" as many of the said "new Lads" move into middle age. But the book starts with, and keeps returning to, the history of the company, its founders, and their ups and downs. The career of company founder Miklos Koves, who later anglicised his name into the more comfortable-looking Nicholas Kove, is paid special attention: his career in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, his brief political career as a minister in the short-lived Communist Hungarian government of Bela Kun, and his life in post-war Europe helping build a new industry - plastics - is paid special attention.

Having become a household name - and indeed, a generic name for any plastic assembly kit - the post-war fortunes of Airfix draws in a lot of the rest of the British toy and model industry, and there is reasonable mention of Airfix's competitors and their stories. Many of these companies ended up as part of the same business group. Airfix is now a part of the Hornby group, and the enthusiast community has sustained optimism about its future for the first time in many years. This book is a celebration of that optimism, and should be read by anyone who has ever 'located and cemented parts 16 and 17'.… (meer)