I first met Allan back in the eighties at the Norwich Model Railway Club and we remained firm friends ever since through a shared love of railways real and model. For some reason we were collecting Persil vouchers that gave you free or money off rail trips and one night in the pub after the usual Wednesday evening model railway club meeting we decided that as we had amassed a significant number of these vouchers that the time had come to use them. So asking for ideas, Allan responded with "let's go to Holland" - the sea route from Harwich to the Hoek of Holland being included in the scheme. So one November Friday straight after work, Bob Palmer, Allan and myself went for a trip. That was our first encounter with Netherlands Railways (NS). More trips followed and after a while we started attending swap meets and visiting model shops and buying models of Dutch trains. One Sunday morning after arriving off the ferry and finding ourselves in Colchester's refreshment rooms, I think it was Allan that suggested we should build an HO model with a Dutch theme and that was how Engelsdrecht came into being. We eventually got it out to shows and that culminated in the Continental Modeller Central Hall show after which we featured in the magazine. We also made friends with staff from the UK office of Netherlands Railways who gave us free Railrover tickets.
We spent many happy times in The Netherlands and there are plenty of stories that remain to be told and perhaps if we could have got our act together we could have written a book.
I am sorry not to be able to attend the funeral but we have a long planned visit to our new Devon home by friends from Sussex and for which dates cannot be changed, but I will certainly raise a glass to Allan. I am so sad not to have seen him before he went to play with that great model railway in the sky but I will never forget our friendship. RIP Allan
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