I’ve been digging into some history, of the house and into some of the things hanging around.

First up we have an old EKCO radio, with the various choices of Gram, Long, Medium and VHF for wavelength choices.

Then we have an old Corgi Simon Snorkel Fire Engine, model 1127. You’ll see quite a few of these for sale around the web but none quite like this. Grandad was the Chief Rate Fixer/Engineer at the Simon factory in Dudley having moved there from the Simon factory in Stockport in 1959 to start a new production site for the engine. When the first sample models were delivered to the team from Corgi, he was pretty upset that the toy manufacturer’s had got it wrong and painted the whole thing red. So he painted the lift white to demonstrate what it was supposed to look like and apparently got into a big argument with them. But he didn’t win it, as the production model still has the lift painted red.