This is one of a series of books written by Christine Sanderson for the 78 Derngate Trust on different aspects of the work of the model engineering firm Bassett-Lowke. The company was named for W.J. Bassett Lowke, who virtually invented the model railway hobby. His first marital home was a Georgian terrace house at 78 Derngate in his native Northampton; the property is now renowned because of tis unique interiors by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

This book covers Bassett-Lowke's war work in both world wars. It is rather anecdotal and tends to repeat the same story from a number of different sources.

However, it achieved something unexpected as far as I was concerned: it revealed details of military hardware previously unknown to me, in the form of Churchill's plan for a mechanised trench digger, prototypes of which were built at the beginning of World War II. Churchill was concerned at the great loss of life in the trenches in the Great War, and so devised a mechanical trench cutter that would dig trenches in ways that the enemy could not observe. The eventual machine, known as "Nellie" amongst other names, worked entirely as required. Unfortunately, trenches were no longer the dominant means of warfare and eventually the project was abandoned. It gets mentioned here because Bassett-Lowke were asked to construct a working model This they did, to 1/22nd scale, and it was demonstrated to Churchill who declared himself highly satisfied.

Bassett-Lowke undertook a lot of war work; specifically in both wars producing recognition models of various capital ships of all nations for training purposes. As these models could be viewed from any angle, they were a better aid than printed ship silhouettes, which did not offer variations in viewing distance or perspective.

The firm also produced training models of the Bailey Bridge, enabling the principles of its assembly to be practised with scale components.

They also produced a number of presentation models, including an architectural model of the proposed rebuilding of Coventry city centre, and one of the D-Day Mulberry harbours, the prefabricated harbour that was shipped across the Channel and assembled at Arromanches on D-Day+3. Bassett-Lowke had provided models to test the concept before the project was committed; in 1956, they provided a display model for the museum at Arromanches. I saw this model when I visited Arromanches in 1977, but did not fully appreciate its provenance.

So: an interesting little book which sparked off all sorts of associations for me. Visitors to 78 Derngate should obtain a copy. ( )