Thoughts on: In Search of a Dream

I’ve admired the Pendon Museum for a long time and have wanted to visit for an equally long time. Finally in 2019 we made plans to go there in March 2020. It turned out that month they were holding a class in modelling buildings. That seemed perfect: I could visit the museum, take in a class from one of their master modellers, as well as tour Oxford and the nearby regions. 

Well, as we all know, March 2020 was when covid was beginning its onslaught. We cancelled our trip once it became clear covid was a global pandemic and not just a blip on the medical radar. The only good thing that came from that cancelation was the airline did eventually refund our tickets. Like everyone else we hunkered down for the long haul, and 2020 became a banner year for 30Squares posts. I hit an all time high of 287. 

We thought 2024 would be the year for visiting Pendon, but personal events conspired against us. Maybe next year. In the meantime though I went ahead and bought a copy of In Search of a Dream edited by Stephen Williams that was published by Wild Swan Books in 2022. It’s the story of Roye England, Pendon’s founder, and his account of his life and the museum’s creation and development. I had been holding off buying this book as I thought it would be nice to purchase it at Pendon when I visited, but with my questionable travel track record I thought I should just go ahead and buy one online from their shop. I’m glad I did since after reading it I think I’ll have a bit better appreciation of the museum if we ever do visit.

I thought this might be a rather dry and clinical book. I was dead wrong. It’s mainly Roye England’s autobiography supplemented by a large collection of fascinating photos, additional text by Williams to explain and elaborate on some of the more obscure passages in the autobiography, along with chapters by Williams to fill in missing information and update us on events after Roye’s* death. 

Roye was a very engaging writer and I found his accounts compelling. His autobiography reads almost as some sort of adventure story, which I guess in a sense it is. Although at times I thought the book’s title should have been In Search of a Dream and Money as creating what would become the Pendon museum often seemed like a constant struggle for money. Neither Roye nor any of the protagonists were flush with cash. It required tenacity over the decades to bring Pendon to life. There were no wealthy benefactors with big bags of moolah in this story, but there were plenty of good people who helped and contributed in many ways big and small, and sometimes with a bit of cash.

It strikes me that Roye was something of a charismatic figure as well as being a world class model maker. He seemed to have a way with people that got them to believe in the idea of Pendon as he did and attracted them to participate in its mission. However, he didn’t seem to be a scheming entrepreneur, but simply a good person with an authentic dream and a determination to realize it. The people he encountered seemed to sense that. Although the down side seemed to be at times he was taken advantage of and his honest authenticity brushed close to naiveté.

In Search of a Dream is also a story about model making of the highest standard and of the folk art buildings approach to modelling. This may seem like a contradictory combination, but it isn’t. I think part of the problem is that the common association with the term ‘folk art buildings approach’ is with backwoods bumpkins hacking out models with junk found on the back forty. As I’ve discussed before, it’s actually a person’s desire to communicate about one’s environment, built or natural, current or past, and one’s feelings towards it, using materials one can access. It’s ‘folk’ because these people aren’t necessarily trained professionals, just people from all walks of life that have the desire. Let me emphasize: it’s about desire and communication, not strict adherence to certain materials and signifiers. Roye seemed to have the folk art buildings spirit in him from birth to death, but he always wanted to express it with the highest standards of modelling, standards that were far from common in his glory days. He demanded it of himself and of others he worked with. And many worked with him to those standards.

This summer I also read Linn Westcott’s book, Model Railroading with John Allen, published in 1981. Allen and Roye were contemporaries of a sort. Allen was born in 1913, and Roye in 1906. Both created in the mid-century era what would become two of the 20th century’s most famous and influential layouts. Unfortunately Allen’s would be destroyed by fire soon after his death in 1973 leaving behind only a few relics. Roye died in 1995, but Pendon continues on. I have no idea if Allen and Roye ever communicated, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew of each other’s work, at least through the model railroad press.

It’s tough for me to think too deeply about Allen’s motivations for building the G&D as Westcott’s book doesn’t contain Allen’s autobiography - I don’t think one exists? Autobiographies can provide an important view on a person’s life from which patterns might be discerned. But, I will note from the layouts and modelling work, both Allen and Roye were committed to high standards, both were determined, and both took model railroading beyond what had been the norm for hobbyists. Allen’s project was more of a private undertaking; Roye’s a more public one. Allen didn’t seem to struggle for money for the G&D as he lived frugally on good investments; Roye had a constant financial struggle to bring Pendon to life, but he lived frugally too.

Needless to say, I highly recommend In Search of a Dream.

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*I am taking the liberty of referring to Roye England as “Roye” as it seems odd to me to keep writing “England did this and England did that”, and using the full “Roye England” seems cumbersome.