Trawler at Sea
In my home-town, we had a yearly Eisteddfod where I usually entered for model making, painting and anything arty. This developed into make dioramas of various scenes from history using Affix models or figures I made. Such examples were of the Affix Skeleton model wrapped in mummy wrappings coming out of a crypt made of Paper Masha or the scene of the Battle of Waterloo around the Farmhouse with all the French and English troops fully painted uniforms and placed in their actual position on the battlefield. They were placed on a 3ft square board covered with Paper Masha and homemade trees of green lambswool, sand sprayed green or brown to add texture to the grass or mud and all painted as realistically as a 10-year-old could. It took me hours of work but kept me out of mischief. Some of the subject matter did raise eyebrows and the details of models/ figures chopped up to add body parts to the battlefields were groase.
As my kids grew up I was again asked if they would enter the Eisteddfod as numbers were diminishing and people wanted to keep it going. So I went back to my childhood and did a diorama on a smaller scale. I added some of my watercolour paintings as well as the Dolphin carvings and won a number of certificates that year. It’s sad to say a number of years later the Eisteddfod closed due to non-participation. Shame, as it was fun and some elements are remembered with fond memeories.
For those in peril on our Seas