Eltham Park Festival 2021
Report written by Brian Leach for our Winter 2021 Newsletter
Sunday 29 August 2021
Eltham Park South
Eltham
August was an unseasonable month and the 29th was not an exception, but at least there was no rain and a little sun.
I picked up Tim at 9:15am from his house and set him off in the park with James already there. I had to go to carry out something else, but when I got back at 11:15am everything was up. We had a generator and a large marquee, though the Make It With Meccano workshop was outside. At first it wasn’t too busy but soon we had a lot of the public present.
The main interests were the Lightning Leap, Meccasaur, Chris’s robot, Frank’s traction engine and Santiago’s fairground ride. Les’s ping pong ball roller was troublesome and he retired it, but later on ran it with just one ball.
Our marquee
Chris divided his time between our stall, St. Luke’s Church’s, and a stall for an art group which he is a member of. The police were there and showed various cars through the ages and an electric car they cannot use because it does not have the correct instrumentation to record the driver’s actions during a chase!
Come about 3:30pm it was quietening down so I distributed some Meccano exhibition leaflets while wearing a Toy Story Rex inflatable costume (perfect social distancing)! The kids were either interested or bemused, but did take the leaflets. At about 5:00pm we started to pack up and left the park shortly before 6:00pm.
Main Models Shown
Santiago Plicio: Plate Spinner fairground ride.
Peter Clay: Meccanograph; old car; modern dragster.
Chris Warrell: Rogue-Bot; wind turbine.
Models from Santiago Plicio, Peter Clay, Chris Warrell and Frank Paine
Frank Paine: Tower Bridge; motor car; traction engine.
Brian Leach: Nunhead Signal Box; Ferris wheel; windmill; Meccasaur; one direction mechanism.
Models from Frank Paine, Brian Leach, Les Chatfield and Tim Surtell
Les Chatfield: Jeep; ping pong ball roller; minimoke.
Tim Surtell: The Lightning Leap; The Spanish Knight; unicyclist; maraca; spider’s web; Connect 4 game; cup holder.
Les Chatfield demonstrates his ball roller