Trip Around Town

A close up in Uncle Mick’s ‘Birsley’ town, along the track that leads out to a small hamlet and around the coast.

It’s a rare opportunity to see it in fine, minute detail, the depictions of daily life as envisaged by Uncle Mick, the hustle and bustle in the town centre, road works, evening scenes, glimpses into buildings to see folk inside and the buses and trains travelling through the town.

People bought him these tiny people, trains, buses and some buildings too. But Uncle Mick sometimes re-purposed the buildings with new looks - the brickwork, roofs and shop fronts, and some of the urban landscapes in the background - he designed and printed at home. In other places, he constructed and hand painted scenery and realistic textures such as rocks, railway embankments, seashores, and even scrap piles - a few minute examples of a much larger undertaking.

Surprisingly, Uncle Mick actually designed and built moving machinery such as the mine shaft, cable car and Fairground rides ‘from bits of cardboard and a few plastic tubes’ - I can vouch for this as witness. The scale is 00 Gauge, which means the little people are about 2cm tall.

He’s truly a remarkable gentleman. I’m forever grateful for him allowing me to make these little films - he’s a very humble and quiet gentleman and is happy and content left to his own devices. So Thank You Uncle Mick!

Becky JamesUncle Mick, trainline, train, model railway, model world, bus, townComment