The Little World

That’s the catch cry of the plastic modelling club members over their coffee and biscuits as we glue together $ 100 model kits of equipment that existed 74 years ago and has never been seen since. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that we can attract ourselves…

It’s not quite that bad in the model train world – though you might think it would be. The WA model railway exhibition is regularly well attended and in some cases it can be elbow-room-only at the popular layouts. Kids everywhere and money being spent. I think it was also the case at the WASMEX and IPMS exhibitions I saw earlier in the year. If it was not a sea of schoolboys in caps, it was at least a sea of enthusiasts.

The cry of the aged – and I am one of them who cries at every opportunity – is that the youth of today are not what we were. No, they are what they are, and we are not that either. Let well enough alone. Let us be who we are and if our interests diverge, so be it. The youth still want to do something with their time and now have more money to fund it than we ever did.

Just wait. The circle of life will eventually bring them back to doing things with their hands, and if it is not making Airfix Heinkels, it will be some other activity. Keep your own interests for yourself, and revel in the small-run kit or the yearly release of the $ 250 plastic fighter plane. The ones who do wander in off the street and stay will be enough to keep the spark alive. Mind you, they’ll find it a pretty stiff club membership fee for a year if they don’t get there every week.