Laying over...

It's a sunny summer evening. The scene is the waste ground by the old pier/slipway at Port Appin (the fictitious one). The early morning bus is laying over there ready to catch the early commuters off the ferry, first thing. The furniture van is probably just parked up for the night, the driver may even be sleeping in the back. They used to do that.

In the back of the Vauxhall Cresta with the steamed up rear window - well you can make your own mind up about what's going on there. Notice how he's parked it up in the shadow of the fish van so as not to be seen from the harbour road. In the early 60's a car like that would suggest you had a certain level of employment/income, sales rep, businessman - that sort of thing and potentially a good catch. Well someone has certainly caught someone - or something :O

This a part of the Port Appin layout reconstruction. When I built the model of MV Glenachulish it was obvious it didn't fit the slipway so I had to remodel it. And one thing inevitably leads to another (ask the bloke in the Vauxhall).

The two motor vehicles in the picture are built on the real things. The scratch built furniture removal van is one that used to run around the west of Scotland and was based in Rothesay and worked from an office on Rothesay Pier. It's an Albion Claymore, SJ2041 and was new in 1959. Meikle and McKellar painted their vans yellow and red but I didn't know this when I built and painted the model 2 years ago. M&M sold out to Green's in the 1980's and they have now ceased operation. I've just been reading the latest CalMac report on passenger numbers; seems many people have stopped going to Rothesay and the Isle of Bute for holidays. A great pity because it's a lovely island.

The bus is in a version of the livery of West Coast Motors. They didn't actually operate one like this but I liked the full size version so I bought a resin shell kit and rebuilt and repainted it to suit. It represents a Maudslay Marathon (part of AEC) new in 1949 with a Brockhouse coach body and was originally owned by Young's Bus Service of Paisley. Western SMT acquired Youngs and the vehicle was sold to Bannantynes of Blackwaterfoot on Arran. All true facts so far but now you have to imagine that WCM acquired it after that.

The fish van could have been ex North British Railway, more likely LNER but I'm no expert in that field.