In 1996, when our son, Stuart, was 11, I built a board on which to put his train set. It was about 8 feet by 4 feet and too big for any floor space in the house so it was suspended in the garage on a pulley system so that it could be raised and lowered, allowing the car still to go in the garage.

Like many people during lockdown, I decided to tidy the garage and in doing so, wondered if the train set still worked. I don’t think it had been down for at least fifteen years! So I lowered the board, cleaned the track and tried a train and, “Yes”, it worked. Stuart had three engines and several buildings, most of which were card kits that Sharon had made for him. We had also inherited a box of railway ‘stuff’ and in looking through it realised there were four engines, several trucks and coaches, some scenic materials and a large amount of track. Having helped Richard Kasher with his model railway over the last three or four years, I decided I could develop Stuart’s train set by designing a more complex layout and adding scenery.

In my study, I have two model “Venture” buses which, some of you may remember, ran in the Consett and Stanley area. I realised that they were the correct scale for the layout so decided to use them and to put other items on the layout reminiscent of my youth. For example, one of the buildings Stuart had was an Infants School, so I made a zebra crossing to go on the road outside, just as it was in Annfield Plain, outside of the Infants School I attended. An unmade kit in the box was a set of brewery buildings. Sharon made them up and I made an entrance based on the Cameron’s Brewery in Hartlepool, but I have named it The Mordue Brewery, as there is a brewery of that name in North Shields and also Mordue was my mother’s maiden name. Last year for Father’s Day Stuart and Sarah gave me some money to buy something for the layout so I bought some cars – a mini (my first car) and three Cortinas (Mks 1 ,2 and 3). My Dad had all three models, (not at the same time!) and I learned to drive and took my test in his Mk3.

I have really enjoyed employing the variety of skills needed – joinery: to extend the board and strengthen the pulley system; electrical work: soldering wires onto the point motors and then routing the wires to a bank of switches; craft work: making model buildings and painting scenery and, of course, lots of “thinking”: planning what is possible and deciding in what order the various tasks need to be done.

I have included in the photographs a picture of the dusty board as it was before I started and then a selection of pictures showing the various stages of development. There is still plenty to do and I look forward to the day when it is possible for other people to visit and see it for themselves. Hopefully, not too long now.

Best Wishes to all,
Ian Murray

Dear all, hoping you are staying well and enjoying the spring weather. 
It seems incredible that it's over a year since we sang together, but I hope we can come together over the summer months and plan for concerts ahead.  As with everyone, the past year has brought many changes for me - I'm no longer working at Durham Cathedral but am relishing getting to grips with archives and starting an archivist training course this May.  I've been doing some online singing with Opera North's From Couch to Chorus and getting to know Ushaw Historic House and Gardens as a volunteer (along with Janet Arkle!).  All the very best to all and here's to singing together over the coming months. 
Anne-Marie x

Can't believe we have lost a year of singing, a year in which we were in lockdown till September to go back to work then back to lockdown in January to March the 8th and back to work again. Over the year I have taken photographs of walks, garden, Beamish, birthday celebrations. Here are some of that year.
Take care one day soon we will be back to singing and fellowshi.
Ron

I hope you are ok and looking forward to spring.  Many thanks, Helen, for forwarding Ron's message and lovely photos.  
I'm fine (touch wood).  My Cathedral job has come to an end (so I'm free on Saturdays!!) but I'm still doing library work and exploring options in archives - also garden volunteering at Ushaw College where I'm enjoying seeing spring gradually come along.

I was reminded of Argus last week when I heard this arrangement of Seal Lullaby with the Kanye Mason family on YouTube - it brought back happy memories:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2on4IS8fIcc

All the best and greetings to all 'Argusians' (not sure if that's the right term!!)

Anne-Marie

In these interesting times (!) it's difficult to think of how to mark a special celebration when you are expressly forbidden from meeting.
It's my Dad's 90th birthday tomorrow (8th October) so we're celebrating via the internet and electronically.
As part of the celebrations all the extended family members were charged with designing a "90" that is meaningful to them in some way. These have been put into a slideshow and printed as a photo album.
... It got the creative juices flowing and kept us all out of trouble for a while.
The picture is a collage of some of the efforts.

Jessica Louise Gilberg was born to our daughter Deborah and husband Pete 10th September 8lb 11oz   
We're very proud grandparents.
Judith x

I was sort of spurred by the photos of a walk around Washington to respond with a couple of pictures from a bike ride around Bolton!! First confession is that I now have an e-bike which makes tackling the hills around here much less of an effort. Every option from our place is either an uphill start or an uphill finish. so a bit of help is great. Bank Holiday Monday was fine with not too much breeze so I took the opportunity to have a run out of about 20 miles as part of my 'how to stop adding pounds' regime(failed). You may recall that in other messages I've referred to being  'from Lancashire' - well this is confession two as our bit of Bolton is (just) inside the administrative boundary of Greater Manchester BUT is still in the pre-boundary change traditional area of Lancs. As a penance, then, a couple of fairly poor shots (and distant ones to boot) from my phone of two of Lancashire landmarks. For those with good eyesight, then Blackpool tower is just visible on the horizon right of centre of the pic shown as Tower 2 with Preston sprawled to the right centre and Southport just creeping into the distance on the left hand side.  Pendle Hill  is seen in the Pendle1 shot taken looking over Blackburn but I'm not mentioning the witchcraft connection for the hill with Pam around :)

Hope to see you all soon

Richard.

So here we are September upon us and no signs of getting back to singing, I do miss the choir and fellowship singing at home is not the same. 
On the bright side we've had some good days out. We were going to Leeds for Anne's 70th birthday to stay in a house all the family but it got cancelled last minute due to maintenance issues, so we all went to Lindisfarne for a picnic and had a great time. We then went back to Marie's for an Italian meal from Sambuca’s Ch-le -St  so it was a brilliant day anyway. 
I am starting back to lollipopping on Wednesday. It will be strange because I am not allowed to keep my uniform and stick in school and must clean it all after every shift - oh joy this covid has a lot to answer for. 
Anne is going in for cataracts on the 11th Sept so we have to self-isolate till then, then things we can't do is really silly: no shopping, no going out etc. We will be staying safe and going for walks and car rides to the coast, keeping a safe distance from others, then we will see what the next instructions are.
Hope everyone is safe and well, take care, we will meet again one day.
Anne & Ron