"William James Avery, modeller & railway enthusiast" Topic

Also my Uncle Bill. Just got back from the cremation today of a really good bloke. Bill got me involved with Airfix kits in the early 60s. We was a really fine modeller but his main love was railway models. He never played with toy trains it was "operating a model railway". At the service today the vicar had brought along a model of his old church that Bill had made for him when he left. Full of detail and in the one true scale, N gauge.
It must have looked a strange sight today, half the people there were either wearing line dancing gear (another enthusiasm) or model club sweatshirts and he got played out to the tune of "The Runaway Train". His wife is a bit special as well.
I last saw him two weeks before he died, it was very quick and totally unexpected. I'm glad he didn't suffer too much. If the hospital had been able to save him he would have been so disabled his life would have been a living hell.
I'm going to start to attack my backlog of jobs a bit harder from now. No point having plenty to do when I'm gone.

Rest in Peace Uncle Bill

mongo

My sympathies for the loss of your uncle. SOunds like one of us!
--
Tim

Sounds like a great guy, Buff. You are a rich man for having known him.

May he rest in peace.

I think I met him Buff at the Alexander Palace railway modellers convention and recall he was very well liked indeed.

A lesson for us all as you say, never put off until tomorrow, what you can do today, there's always plenty of time to sleep when your dead.

RIP.

Bill was a regular at meetings like that, thanks for the memory of him. He was at a toy fair the day before he died, he finally managed to track down some Meccano wheels he wanted to run something new for his layout.
Bill always liked to have a plan for everything. He got quite tetchy when his wife suggested an impromptu trip out. She had to explain to him. "Bill, that's what retirement is about, doing things when you feel like it because you don't know how long you've got." Sadly Bill only had 3 days left.

I found out a few things I didn't know or had forgotten. Bill and his wife Hilda were born in the same house. It was wartime and the midwife refused to travel out to where my grandmother lived during the blackout so Hilda's mum said, Well, you better move in with us until you have the baby." Bill was serving in the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery when they married, full dress uniform for the wedding and a guard of honour with sabres drawn. I remember all that but I didn't remember the vicar leaving the bride & groom locked in the vestry while he ran round to look at the guard.