Hornby Competition results announced!

Congratulations to our Hornby Competition Winner and Runner up!

Over the past year The Almshouse Association has been working with Hornby, a keen supporter of positive mental health and the almshouse movement, and between us we wanted to encourage hobbies amongst almshouse staff, trustees and residents – seems it’s good for us all!

We put our heads together and announced our Jump on Board! Competition asking members and residents to tell us all about their hobby or hobbies – what inspired them to take them up, how they have supported their mental health and encouraged family and friends to get involved or helped engagement with their local community.

We have been overwhelmed by the response. So many wonderful stories and insights into the vast array of hobbies members are enjoying or have enjoyed for many, many years and some that have been discovered during lock-down; the common theme throughout being how hobbies are helping to keep people healthy and engaged, providing a platform to create something really satisfying that can be shared with others.

“It has been a real pleasure to be involved in this project and even more of a pleasure to read such personal and touching hobby stories covering various different interests. As we say here at Hornby, it’s more than just a hobby, it’s a lifetime’s journey and it’s clear that that is the same for many others.”

Competition Judge, Montana Hoeren, Head of Brand at Hornby says,

THE WINNER – Mr Reg Jordan, resident – Penrose Almshouses, Barnstaple

Mr Reg Jordan was born in Pottington, Barnstaple in 1934. He left school at 15 and became a wood machinist, a career which he enjoyed for the first 15 years of his working life. 

After that, and until he retired at 67, Reg became an architectural wood craftsman with only one week of unemployment during his whole life! Reg acquired many skills at work which he was able to put to good use – building a four-bedroom house and an 18ft motor sailing boat!

Reg became a resident at Penrose Almshouses in 2004 where he has become a much-loved resident. He loves the old sailing vessels and, not one for being idle, has hand-built the most incredible collection of boats including several Full Riggers, 3-masted Schooners, and Ketch. He has completed one boat a year since his move to Penrose. These boats have to be seen to be believed!

Every single piece has been carefully handcrafted, even down to the tiny canons made from rawl plugs and dowling.  No kits here – He has converted plans from illustrations in books and adapted them to scale. His magnificent boats include The Mayflower, The Kathleen and May, HMS Bounty, and HMS Weasel which sank at Baggy Point, in North Devon.

As well as making the models, Reg has painted some beautiful illustrations including some of the working boats in Barnstaple he knew as a boy. In 2021 Barnstaple Museum asked 3 ex-employees of Shapland & Petter (they were the largest privately owned architectural manufacturers in Devon in the 90’s) to display some of their work in their ‘Busy Hands’ exhibition. Reg was one of them.

RUNNER-UP – Garth Holman, Trustee – The James Goodman Almshouse Charity

When Garth read the notice for the competition in the Gazette, he thought about what he and his family do and how fortunate he is with the life he leads.  …..

Garth and his daughter, Heather, have three shared interests. 

Firstly they are both trustees of The James Goodman Almshouse Charity.  Garths father was also a trustee for many years, until he passed away. Being trustees of an almshouse charity enables them to give something back to the community. They were recently involved in the building of Goodman Court, a development of 12 new almshouses which won The Almshouse Associations Patron’s Award in 2018.

They are also traction engine enthusiasts!  Their latest restoration took 8 years and they enjoyed the challenge of doing as much of the work as they could themselves, which gives them a great sense of achievement.  It started with dismantling the engine, which they did with the help of Heather’s husband and a local man who Garth has known since they shared the same desk at the village primary school. Garth and the almshouse administrator had a day out taking the boiler to be rebuilt and re-assembly on its return was a team effort and requires many skills with each part requiring cleaning and refurbishment, always with the aim of the end result being a faithful restoration.  Heather’s husband uses his blacksmithing and engineering skills, Garth does the painting and Heather has taught herself how to do the lining and sign-writing.  One of the regular crew is a man Garth worked with forty years ago who comes from Bristol to Bedfordshire to help, another gentleman, who lives in one of the almshouses enjoyed helping and was one of the first to steer it on an early test run.  The charity administrator again came to assist with lifting the canopy back on with Garths son helping and the grandchildren were in charge of recording the action. 

They have a large poster in the shed which reads “Where there’s tea there’s hope” and that is supplied with cake and other encouragement by Garths wife.     

Their third shared interest is ‘campanology’ which they do at the village church – bell ringing!  Garth has been doing this for over fifty years and Heather for about ten. Ringing provides a physical and mental workout, but above all it is a sociable hobby and their group includes a resident of the almshouses, the charity administrator, and his wife, amongst its members. 

All in all, they are kept busy throughout the year and come in contact with a wide variety of people from all walks of life and places.  Garth wouldn’t change a thing and they are teaching the grandchildren how to run and look after an engine for the future.

COMMENDED SUBMISSIONS

Revd Edwin Myers, trustee – John Thomas Matthews Housing Trust in St Ives Cornwall

Edwin Myers was introduced to model railways by his Dad. He was about six years old and  over weekends they used to catch the train into Cape Town. Opposite the new station there was the weekly flea market on the old parade grounds. There was an eclectic array of stalls. Edwin recalls his Dad finding a train set for sale. He brought it home and set it up for them to play on the dining room table.

The train set was Triang, which was later taken over by Hornby and became Traing/Hornby. His Dad also came across other train sets and brought them home for Edwin to enjoy. When he got married, he still had the train sets and his son then became captivated by them.

When Edwin’s family moved to the UK in 2005, they brought the locomotives and rolling stock with them. Once here he sourced track, and then Edwin and his son  (who was 4 at the time) set up a layout in the house in which they were staying.

During the pandemic lockdown, having the hobby certainly provided the welcome space of filling the lack of routine with a new one. There was time to tinker with the layout, do maintenance on the loco’s and just enjoy the time focusing on something else. Edwin’s son is now working, and he bought Edwin a Hornby Flying Scotsman loco for the first lockdown Christmas.

The interest Edwins Dad set in motion with the model train hobby also kindled an interest in volunteering on heritage steam railways.

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Patricia Pickard, resident – Penrose Almshouses, Barnstaple

Every year Trish turns her imaginative talents to brightening up her front door at Christmas with some colourful additions such as the Flower Pot Men.

Her crafty talents with a needle and thread have included horse blankets, girth guards and fancy costumes for her family’s horses, draw string make up bags, towelling turbans for wet hair, and an armchair in Manchester United’s strip, just to mention a few.

Always keen to lend a hand, Trish has recently completed 300 metres of very colourful bunting for a friend’s daughter’s wedding and had to create more for Her Majesty the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations.

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Special thanks also go to

Sian Brockhurst, clerk to the trustees – The Birch, Samson & Littleton United Charities

‘I  have made so many friends in the last few years, of all different ages and backgrounds, none of which I would have had the pleasure to meet if I hadn’t taken that first brave step into the unknown on that dreary Monday. It just shows you that to make any big changes in life, it could be as simple as doing one thing differently on one random day.’

to Angharad Saunders, trustee – Christ’s Hospital, Abingdon

‘The process of making this rug was therapeutic, it was a little bit of me time, but it also became a family endeavour and has inspired, at least in my eldest son, an interest in crafty things. So, perhaps our household will be seeing some more rag rugs in the future. Our ‘lockdown’ rug took many months to complete, and now adorns our bathroom floor. Each time I look at it I see fabric that tells a story, a story of our family life, of lockdown and of family time spent making and creating.’

and to Stephen Dexter – Chair of Trustees of The Almshouse of Robert Stiles

Stephens hobby is deltiology – the collecting of postcards. It all started many years ago when he was a young teenager. He sent a postcard from Joinville, Haute Marne, France to his grandmother and wrote on the back “Please keep” and it duly came back to me. And then of course all the pretty cards that they used to send to one another accumulated and he did not want to throw them away. Collecting is in Stephens blood. His father was a keen stamp collector and after he’d died, Stephen found a postcard his father had written to his mother (Stephens other grandmother) with the words “Please keep” written some 30 years before Stephen’s postcard.

At the last count Stephen has 11,140 cards, all catalogued and in albums. The oldest dated card was sent on 4 March 1902 and is of Constantine in Algeria. Now he has every area of Europe, but is some 240 short in Africa, 49 in the Americas and 176 in Asia.

So, if anyone has any from Qarshi in Uzbekistan or Sokode in Togo, could you let us know and we can connect you with Stephen!

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A HUGE THANK YOU AND WELL DONE TO EVERYONE for entering this competition and although we couldn’t give prizes to everyone, we offer our congratulations to you!  Your stories were inspiring and truly uplifting!

You can find out more about Hornby at Hornby UK – Model Railways, Train Sets, Locomotives & Accessories