Model Aircraft! Photo credit: Buccaneer finished! by Kris Davies (license)
Name: Liz
Occupation: Historian
From: Ireland
Object: Airfix aircraft
Story: I was fascinated by aircraft and model aircraft from an early age. My dad gave me his copy of “Biggles Learns to Fly” when I was seven and I developed a fascination with historic aircraft, especially those from World War One, which continues to this day. I regularly dragged my parents and siblings to air shows and aviation museums and would meet them in the café afterwards as I liked to read and look at everything in the various museums and also question the gallery assistants too.
When I was 10, I was brought to Eason’s, a book shop and department shop in Dublin city centre, where I discovered their model aircraft section and never looked back! It may have been the paint and glue fumes or maybe just my passion for aircraft, their technology and history, but I got a real high from carefully building and painting model aircraft and hanging them from the ceiling of my bedroom with thin wire and blu-tack. I would buy an Airfix aircraft set and then read up on the history of the aeroplane and the people who flew them.