The Little World

Don’t leave knowing it all to the professionals.

I belong to scale model hobby clubs that derive information from various sources. The members read the internet, published books, and many specialist magazines. They have local museums to visit and can meet people who have seen and operated the things that they are modelling. There should be no fact left unknown.

Yet so much of the rock-solid information that people trade in is hollow. Much of it would not pass the test of evidence in a magistrate’s traffic court. People read material that is speculation to start with, and then turn it into hearsay that eventually becomes gospel. There are religions of thought with scale models much as there are with divinity.

However, sometimes the facts are right, the images seen not distorted, the history correct, and the anecdote real. We can always hope for truth without really knowing how to recognise it when it appears. However, there are some things we can do to increase the odds in our favour:

a. Read books with bibliographies and footnotes. For all these can be dry and boring, they show a better scholarship that the simple action and adventure tales. Unit histories can be particularly boring, written as they are for the insiders and relatives of the various forces. Some promise action and deliver only departmental paperwork.

b. Read books from both sides of any conflict. The other sides are generally writing in a different language and need to be read in translation, but at least they might lie to you with a different accent.

c. Try for original images where possible…even if these are staged factory setups. The closer your eye gets to the real thing at the time, the better. Beware AI and the pointless trickery of Photoshop.

d. Accept all personal histories cum grano salis. Old service tales are fine but not every old service person will remember accurately a long time after the event. And many have fallen into the trap of repeating a furphy for so long that it becomes true despite being false. If it is an amusing one, it sticks like a burr to a saddle.