Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Time Travel in styrene!, 14 Oct 2003
What a brilliant book for the Airfix fan! I spent well over an hour and a half just drooling over the pictures of the kits, catalogues and promotions...being instantly changed back into a 10-year old lad, eagerly browsing the latest catalogue so that I knew which would be my next purchase, or what I should be asking for for Christmas or my Birthday, or...or...or...! Airfix was my main hobby as a lad, in fact, besides Scouting, it was my <i>only</i> hobby! (And I even managed to get a couple of badges from my modelling exploits!) There's pictures of assorted, brilliant artworks and of kits, both completed and awaiting assembly. I can smell the glue. I'm transported back to the kitchen table, my modelling stuff filling my new model box. My Dad's telling me I should be outside, my Mum's offering advice on painting...my Uncle's arrived with a Series 2 for me, my brothers struggling with a tank kit and the dozens of wheels...it's raining outside, I've got aircraft books all over the shop...Slade are on the radio, it's Jimmy Savilles Old record Club! Unlike the many small boys referred to in the book, I was never one to crash and burn my completed kits...I was too proud of them! Dad had just finished extending our bedroom and my brother and I had four 6 foot shelves each on which to display our kits, plus I had a large dressing table. No planes dangling from the ceiling for me, gathering dust...they were all on their stands, apart from those with fixed undercarriage and they were shelf-bound...but I babble...
The book is a great read too, although there is some repetition in the anecdotes and details and some of the text is a little on the dry side, particularly when stuff other than the kits themselves are discussed.
There are plenty of little niggits of trivia in there for you to store in your grey cells, to throw into various modelling Forums at your leisure. The origin of the "Airfix" and "Frog" names, for example, the kits-that-nearly-got-made-but-didn't, the myth of the Airfix Sea Venom, TSR2 and Nimrod and the liklihood that any new kit, featuring a new subject, would be in 1/48 scale. (It seems nowadays that if a kit manufacturer is already producing a particular type of plane, no other is likely to do the same...unless you are Tamiya, apparently...most subjects are now covered in 1/72, which is why 1/48 is the new Flavour-of-the-Month).
I heartily recommend this book, if only for the reason that it's given me the <i>almost</i> uncontrollable urge to buy all those Airfixes on eBay and to re-create those 4 shelves of my youth!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A tribute to dust gathering....Airfix by Arthur Ward, 1 Dec 1999
By A Customer
It's only when you get older that you start to miss the simple pleasures of being a child. From age 11 upwards, I collected, painted and diligently assembled just about every model Airfix produced. As Arthur Ward's gorgeous book demonstrates, I was not alone - oh no. My enthusiasm may not have been shared by my mother, who admired my skills in putting the little marvels together but loathed the piles of dust which gathered daily on airplanes hung from the ceiling, in the rigging of huge fighting ships displayed on any available surface. Arthur Ward's lovingly researched, wittily written and fabulously illustrated volume leaves the reader in no doubt that he or she need no longer hide in doorways, ashamed to be known as a plastic modeller. The colour reproductions of original box artwork are stunning, the photos of kits assembled and in pristine packaging will bring a nostalgic tear to the eye of anyone who's wrecked their vision painting the tiny creations. For this reviewer, when the sixties blossomed and rock music took over, my love affair with Airfix was on the rocks; trying to recreate it with my 9 year old son, I knew I was on a slippery slope. For anyone looking for the minutiae of social change...for anyone with a backward look over the shoulder to the embers of the 20th Century, Arthur Ward's Airfix will bring a tear to the eye.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Superb production let down by poor editing., 26 April 2002
By A Customer
The mass of research and company history which is complemented by a vast array of excellent colour pictures of the models and artwork has been rather spoilt by bad editing of the text.Nevertheless, if you can wade through text which jumps from one subject to another here is a book of nostalgia for anyone with an interest in the subject.
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