Peter Cox

Designer

Something Missing?

When two avid model bus collectors meet and find a synergy between them, there is bound to be exciting outcomes. Guy Harrison and Peter Cox met following a “readers query” that Guy wrote in the Meccano Magazine, asking if anyone knew of a small toy double deck trolleybus that he recalled from his childhood. Peter responded to this, as he had just visited the Taylor & Barrett factory, and had made some purchases.

Guy and Peter both lived in North West London, exchanged their knowledge on their prize possessions, including Guy’s Charbens coach and a Keyser white metal half cab LMS road/rail bus, and a friendship was born which several years later led to Pirate Models.

Subject ID: 81622

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When two avid model bus collectors meet and find a synergy between them, there is bound to be exciting outcomes. Guy Harrison and Peter Cox met following a “readers query” that Guy wrote in the Meccano Magazine, asking if anyone knew of a small toy double deck trolleybus that he recalled from his childhood. Peter responded to this, as he had just visited the Taylor & Barrett factory, and had made some purchases.

Guy and Peter both lived in North West London, exchanged their knowledge on their prize possessions, including Guy’s Charbens coach and a Keyser white metal half cab LMS road/rail bus, and a friendship was born which several years later led to Pirate Models.

They both recall meeting on occasions at a model shop operated by Automodels at 70, Finsbury Pavement in the City, near where they worked. Automodels were the makers of Autokits, large scale white metal model car kits.

Some years later, Guy and Peter learned of a Blue Peter Appeal, on BBC TV, for viewers to send in brass light fittings and old toys. The aim was to melt down such items and raise money with the scrap metal obtained. The organisers of this appeal, had arranged a warehouse in Spittlefields, London, where the parcels were delivered. Guy and Peter approached the organiser and suggested that they believed that there would be numbers of valuable toys included in the parcels, and that they would be prepared to sort out as many as possible of these, so that they could be auctioned – that offer was gratefully received – but neither of them knew what they were letting themselves in for.

The appeal produced a total of 50 tons of both light fittings and toys. The parcels were opened by inmates of various prisons, who put the toys into paper sacks. These sacks had previously been used for chicken feed, and each of the sacks had to be opened onto the floor, to enable the sorters to see if there were any worthwhile toys. So, every day, after work, they and other helpers went to the warehouse, put on their oldest clothes, and set to work. The sorting was arduous and lengthy. In addition, all the contents had gathered a layer of chicken feed dust, as indeed did those shovelling the toys! The shovelling was to put the non valuable items back into the sacks for melting.

However, this later proved valuable, as several thousands of old toys were rescued from the furnace, and saved for the auction. These included many old Dinky Toys with broken parts, such as the 25 series trucks and 30, 36, 38 and 39 series cars, and some Tootsietoys. Following the auction, these helped raise many tens of thousands of pounds for the appeal. During the work Guy and Peter had realised that there was a captive market for replacement parts for these toys. However, what was then unknown was how to make them.

They met initially with Jack Alexander, who made 25mm soldiers, and he made masters for these, casting them using rubber moulds. This was a cottage industry process, a laborious procedure and so was not suitable for producing the spare parts that were needed in quantity.

Subsequently, they contacted Paddy Stanley, who was making a range of sports and racing car kits in white metal whilst also working as a Military chaplain for the army, and he kindly introduced them to his casters, who incidently also produced the Marc Europa cars sold as built up models for Brian Jewell. So, they soon had the spare parts, but how to market them, and what to call them?

As these were mostly for old Dinky Toys, and they did not have permission to make them, the name chosen was Pirate Models. Later, as will be seen, the name was confirmed as a good choice, as when they produced models of buses, there was another connection with the name, as there were many buses in London in the 1920s, not operated by the London General Omnibus Company, which were popularly known as “Pirate buses.

At this time, they agreed there should be a third partner in the business, and initially David Pressland joined in a financial capacity, but as the work increased, he resigned and Graham Turrell joined Peter and Guy.

Before long all three partners became concerned about copyright issues with Meccano, the makers of Dinky Toys, but they need not have worried, as Meccano were pleased that they had embarked on this project, as they regularly received requests from readers asking for spares for their old toys, and indeed they agreed to refer collectors on to the trio. The first spares were radiators, and were originally plain white metal, but later they were cadmium plated, which offered a more realistic shiny effect, whilst strengthening the casting. Soon, the range of spare parts was increased, as headlights for the 38 and 39 series and steering wheels became sought after.

The spare parts were advertised mainly in model car magazines, and also in the Meccano magazine. At this time, Peter Cox designed the logo of the well-known skull and cross bones – but it is purely coincidence that it resembled Alec Douglas-Hume, the Prime Minister. Later they received a request for permission to use the logo, and as this was for labels for poisons, the request was approved.

Model Railway Constructor had an advertisement for a casting firm, based in Bristol, who had spare capacity, and thus was born the long association with Ron Charlton, who took on the spares manufacturing, of which the list increased, and included drivers, wheels, milk churns for the French Dinky Citroen Studebaker, and later, a folding type door made from part of a Dinky Atlantean bus, for scratch builders.

Many of the old toys rescued for the auction did not have tyres, and eventually a firm was found who made suitable rubber replacements, but not the correct profile for the Dinky 38 and 39 series, which had been found in large quantities at the auction, so a special tool was commissioned, and tyres in both black and white rubber were added to the range of spare parts. And, some makers of white metal cars, such as DG, bought tyres from Pirate for their models.

Ron Charlton had an association with a pattern maker, Mike Shepperd, and this prompted the next major development of Pirate models – into manufacturing original models, and the first was a kit of the most popular double decker contemporary bus, the Bristol VR. There were no toys or models of an up to date bus, just older Dinkies, although there was at that time a Yorkshire firm, Anbrico, which had issued one model in white metal, but this was a coach, so there was a significant gap in the market, which Pirate decided to exploit.

The patterns for this model were made by Mike Shepperd, using blueprints from the ECW, who made the body for the VR, showing the external details, together with photos, although being based in Bristol, which had large numbers of real VR buses, he could easily see any details that he wanted.

After the masters were approved, the partners made a really rash decision – which was to order 500 sets of castings for the new model, but at that time, they had no orders. These were made by Ron Charlton, whilst Guy and Peter did the packing up on their kitchen table. At this stage, the castings included separate sides, and so could be “flat packed” into a small shallow box. The upper deck seats were not castings, but were vac-formed plastic. The wheels and tyres were bought in from Anbrico.

The castings, - 100 sets at a time – would arrive in containers resembling 7lb biscuit tins, from Bristol to the Red Star office at Paddington. When Peter collected them, the clerk would initially try and lift the container as though they did weigh 7lb, but would almost burst a hernia at the considerable weight of the box of castings.

The pattern maker, Mike Shepperd had always been interested in model railways, and through him Guy and Peter were introduced to Eames model railway shop of Kings Cross and obtained an initial order from Eames to take 100 of the kits. Others were sold by mail order, while the Model Bus Federation also ordered a considerable quantity. Later, the London Transport Museum became stockists, a really prestigious retail outlet for Pirate, whose range included many London prototypes.

Guy and Peter used model railway magazines to advertise, and soon reached a stage when the editors were keen to receive a sample of their latest product for review. As demand grew, the work needed to be divided up in an efficient and business-like way. Graham handled the sales and distribution, and used his garage as a warehouse, and he also developed a relationship with the owner of How Model Shop, at 430 Hoe Street, Walthamstow, who acted as a stockist for Pirate products, and also as an accommodation address for postal enquiries for Pirate.

Peter produced all the instructions for each kit, testing them himself for ease of understanding, and handled the advertising and some development. Guy dealt with the accounting and administration but also with the major development of the kit side of the business, which included suggesting possible new items for the Pirate range, visiting the manufacturers and taking many photos of the various new bus projects.

Two very successful products were the London Transport Q trolleybus, and the Leyland National single deck bus – both of which sold well over 1000 units each.

As a result of the relationship with Leyland with the National, Pirate were commissioned by Leyland to make a model of their prototype new double decker bus, the B15, later further developed into the Titan.

Pirate began developing a range of buses in HO scale, of American prototypes, initially those made by General Motors, but also Grumman city buses, together with a Mack BK long distance coach, of which a preserved example is used by Greyhound for publicity purposes. Greyhound had a publicity leaflet for the coach showing the full livery, - and a reference was put in the instruction, but as Greyhound did not wish to authorise the models, their name was not mentioned, but there was a reference to the livery details leaflet - “available from the foremost US long distance coach company based in Phoenix”

Arrangements to distribute the Pirate American range was arranged with the major US model railway mail order company, Walthers of Milwaukee, who agreed to stock the Pirate HO and later the N gauge ranges and Guy visited them to finalise the arrangements.

The Pirate range developed, and the models were, over the years, made in various scales – 4mm (00 gauge). H0 gauge – particularly for the American market) 7mm (0 gauge or 1:43 scale) and later, 2mm (N gauge, also for the American market) and one kit of a 1:50 scale bus, which coincided with the issue of the same model by Corgi. But a real diversification was the introduction of tube trains, of composite construction, white metal floor, bogies etc, and one piece brass sides and roof, in 00 scale.

The decision was made to form the partnership into a limited company called Pirate Models Limited, partly as a consequence of the American legal system.

The Department for Trade decided to object to the name possibly causing confusion to the public with another company called Pirate Craft Limited based in the Norfolk Broads, and the ensuing correspondence was very protracted. Guy met his MP to enlist his helping resolving this, as the boat operators did not object themselves, and did not see there could be any confusion to the public. This was, through the assistance of the MP, eventually sorted out, and an apology was forthcoming from the relevant minister of the government at the time, for the delay and aggravation caused.

Due to the increase in the numbers of new kits being released, various other pattern makers were being used by Pirate in addition to Mike Shepperd, notably Brian Lawrence of LDM, and Adrian Swain for one model – the Bristol VRL double deck long distance coach. This latter arrangement was unique for Adrian, and only arose as Pirate agreed to place casting work with him for their model Paris buses, and of course the VRL itself, as well as including the HO Paris bus (which he acquired from Varney) in the Pirate range which was distributed in America.

One other pattern maker used was Martin Beacom, who made the masters of the Grumman city buses, and also a range of Plaxton coaches, which were also composite – using white metal for the ends, chassis and roof, but brass sides of various lengths and heights. Martin visited the Plaxton plant in Scarborough with Guy, and they were able to view the lovely new double decker coach, the prototype of which had been assembled inside the factory. They looked on with horror as the company attempted to wheel it out into the open, only to find that the doors to the factory were not high enough, and later the end of the factory had to be jacked up to allow the new bus safe egress.

Ron Charlton’s casting business relocated to Bonar Bridge in north Scotland, and was now called Sutherland Model Casters. He had also made his own range of model bus kits, called Cotswold, and Pirate agreed to purchase that range, and most were added to the Pirate line-up. Apart from Sutherland and Adrian Swain, Pirate also used Scale Model Technical Services (SMTS) to cast certain of the later American models, the baseplates from the spare parts range and also the Plaxton coaches.

A proud moment in the life of Pirate Models came when the London Transport Museum selected them to prepare two sets of the model tube trains to celebrate the extension of the tube to the (then) new Terminal 4 at London Heathrow. One set was to reside in the LT Museum, and the other was proudly presented to Princess Diana at the opening of the line.

However, soon to come was a blow for Pirate, in that their main pattern maker, Mike Shepperd, a keen and enthusiastic motor cycle rider, had a major collision, leaving him unable to pursue his work any longer.

Times, they were changing, and the numbers of kits available from the various different manufacturers was really large, and production runs were reducing considerably, which together with the rise in the cost of white metal – mainly due to its tin content – meant that kits were now getting expensive. Also resin was now being developed for model bus construction – it was to deliver box shaped bodies in one, as opposed to separate sides, and could be produced more cheaply too.

Guy, Peter and Graham then made the decision to sell the company. The company was sold to Brian Emberton of Spilsby, Lincolnshire, who bought it for his son to run, but he lost interest as this was quite a big job for one, even if full time, so Brian then resold the business on to John Gay.

Later, of course, Corgi 00C and EFE diecast buses and also tube trains were introduced, and these did not require building or painting. These makes (and others too) virtually took over that market, as these models were considerably cheaper than the white metal kits, due to several factors – the cheap labour in China, economies in scale of production, and of course, the increasing price of tin, a constituent of white metal. However, it should be noted that several of these models were previously featured in the Pirate range.

Subject ID: 81622

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Subject ID: 81622