The latest issue of the Gauge ‘O’ Guild Gazette carried the news that Jack Ray had peacefully passed away five days after his 95^th Birthday.  I had the pleasure of meeting Jack when he came to Leeds one weekend to photograph and record a commentary for a slideshow about our G & J Shortline which Jack wanted to include in the Gauge ‘O’ Guilds collection.

At the time my father and I were erecting the layout in the Foyer of the Yorkshire Post building for a week long ‘airing’.  Jack efficiently and unobtrusively set about photographing the layout whilst we dealt with the trials and tribulations of unpacking, assembling and getting to run an extensive collection of locomotives, rolling stock, accessories and scenery.  Every now and then Jack would diplomatically enquire if it was possible to move this or arrange that for a particular shot, always prepared to patiently wait whilst we assembled the necessary items.

Once the shooting was over we retired to my parent’s house where mum had prepared a most welcome supper during the course of which Jack entertained us with his stories of other Guild slide shows he had produced.  After supper we decanted to the lounge where Jack had set up small recording studio and for the next hour or so he expertly interviewed my father and I about the G & J.  This would then be edited later to provide the accompanying commentary to the slide show.

Some weeks later through the post a personal copy of the slide show, commentary tape and notes duly arrived.  Most impressive it was too, in my view as good as any professional.  Over the years our copy of the slide show has been shown at and appreciated by all sorts of meetings, not all of them railway orientated.

On my bookshelf are the books that Jack wrote; ‘A lifetime with ‘O’ Gauge’ and ‘Model Railways and Their Builders’.  Both books are written in a most enjoyable style and have been read and re-read many times.  What struck me about Jack was how easy he was to get along with and how passionate he was about ‘O’ gauge.  His philosophy of wanting to record for posterity as many of the different layouts as practical before they disappeared was spot on as, like in our case, the G & J no longer physically exists.  However, as with so many other layouts and their builders they live on in Jack’s slide shows and for that I am eternally grateful.

Thank you Jack.

One of the benefits of having this website are the correspondence that one receives from time to time from people around the world who have stumbled across the site when doing searches.  It is nice to have ones efforts favourably commented upon and I felt that I would like to include extracts from some of them here:

Gentlemen,

I just thought I would let you know that I think the Elizabethan galleon and your restoration job you did on it are absolutely phenomenal!  I love it!  Since I was young and I saw my first image of the elizabeth jonas I have wanted to build it, but life has had a way of getting in the way. 

Had you ever been able to figure out who built that model in the first place?  or how old it was when you acquired it?  Interesting that it was never given a paint job in the typical multicolor zigzag pattern like the real ship has always been shown with in all the other images I have run across.  It’s good though because your model has some very interesting surface detail.  I hear tell that the reason they gave it such gaudy paint job was to make it resemble the merchant ships of the time and disguise its true firepower until it was too late for its hapless victims to do anything about it …element of surprise and all that rot…

Beautiful Job!

Cheers,

Tom Joslin, Shingletown, California, USA

Jeremy,

Just a note to say how much I enjoyed your article, and admire your skill in restoring Bat so beautifully.  I’m a great admirer of LBSC for his progressive contribution to model engineering. He left a great legacy in his writing and drawings.

Kind regards,

Allan Wallace (South Australia)

Dear Mr. Bull,

Thank you for your email regarding the unique Galleon model you have for sale. Although we do have a large model ship collection, our focus for any future collecting will be on ships directly connected to Littlehampton and the local boatyards.

I was very impressed with the attached document, which demonstrates your passion for the topic.

I wish you the best of luck with your search for a good home for your model.

Kind regards,

Juliet Nye, Curator, Littlehampton Museum.

Thank you for taking the trouble to write to me, it is appreciated.