Project: British Toy Making Project

Mr Roy Cross Freelance Commercial Illustrator/Artist for

Airfix Industries, 1964-1974

Interview conducted by Juliana Vandegrift

August 2012

Transcribed by Kerry Cable August 2012

Edited by Roy Cross and Laura Wood

August 2013

Copyright © 2012 Museum of Childhood

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FULL NAME: Roy Cross INTERVIEWER: Juliana Vandegrift

DATE: 9th August 2012 PLACE: Home of Roy Cross, Langton

Green, Tunbridge Wells

TYPE OF EQUIP: PMD Marantz 661, Wav, 48Hz, 16 bit

LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: 39 minutes, 41 seconds

PERSONAL DATA

DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH: 23rd April 1924, London

OCCUPATION: Illustrator/Artist

EDUCATION: Reay Central School, Brixton, London, 1938-1940

UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE: Part-time course at Camberwell School of Arts &

Crafts; St Martins School of Arts

QUALIFICATIONS Royal Society of Marine Artists

Guild of Aviation Artists

CAREER BACKGROUND

Born in South London 23rd April 1924. First artwork reproduced in air training

magazine in 1942 and first book illustrations in 1943. First complete work, words and

drawings, on American warplanes published 1942. Wartime work as a technical artist

in the aircraft industry coincided with articles and illustrations in technical periodicals,

and led post-war to a freelance career producing artwork for the technical press and

many major companies in aviation, car, marine, airline and other industries.

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Commercial work included covers and cutaway illustrations for the famous periodicals

Eagle and Swift. Roy spent ten years as chief box-top artist for Airfix industries, setting

a new high-quality benchmark for this promotional work.

Roy is a self-taught artist with part-time training at Camberwell School of Arts and

Crafts and St Martins School of Art. After his time at Airfix Roy did a complete contrast

in his career and became a Fine Artist, specialising in marine paintings and has spent

extensive time in America researching his paintings which have become very popular

on the market over there. He has also published several books about aviation and

marine art.

Roy's says his love of aeroplanes influenced him to become an artist. Before the war he

was very interested in aircraft and his mother took him to one or two air displays at

Hendon where they saw the 'lovely silver bi-planes'.

When the war came, with his love of aircraft, Roy was going to go into the RAF because

he was so interested in aviation. In 1938 Roy joined the newly-created Air Defence

Cadet Corp, an aviation-minded Boy Scouts, to 'groom kids for the Royal Air Force'

which was expanding by then. It became the Air Training Corp around 1941. They

published a magazine and he submitted a few drawings to this magazine and they

were published! Roy's co-worker was James Hay Stevens, who encouraged Roy with

his drawings to join an aircraft manufacturer rather than general RAF as a recruit. So

Roy worked for Fairey Aviation Company in Middlesex as a technical illustrator and

cutaway artist.

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Roy says that James Hay Stevens was a great influence and inspiration for his early

work.

As a freelance artist Roy has always been enterprising and after seeing some Airfix

boxes with what he considered to be rather poor illustrations he wrote to the

management at Airfix offering to improve the artwork on the Airfix boxes. They

accepted his invitation to visit and they gave him some work. Roy's submission of

work was so successful it was the start of a ten year working relationship with Airfix.

At one point he was working almost exclusively for Airfix and he managed to get a

retainer whilst working for the company. He estimates that he painted two or three

hundred finished artworks for Airfix in the ten years. Sadly, very few of these are

around today and it is believed they were destroyed when Airfix collapsed in the early

1980s.

INTERVIEW SYNOPSIS

Roy Cross discusses his interest in aeroplanes and how this resulted in him drawing

and illustrating them; how he began producing work for Airfix; his colleagues at Airfix,

and the end of his work at Airfix.

INTERVIEWER’S COMMENTS

Occasional 'smudging' on the interviewer's microphone. Roy's partner, Ann, is present

at the interview although her voice is not on the recording.

Roy Cross

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Okay, so I can see it’s recording. Today’s date is the 9th of August 2012 and it’s Mr Roy

Cross talking to Juliana Vandegrift about the British toy industry, his time at Airfix

within that and it’s for the V&A Museum of Childhood, British Toy Making project.

We’re at his home in Langton Green, which is near Tunbridge Wells. So thank you very

much. If I could start with a general question that what influenced you to become an

artist? <0:00:37>

I think a love of aeroplanes. Before the War I was very interested in aircraft. My

mother took me to one or two Hendon air displays where we saw the lovely

silver bi-planes. I remember being pushed through the crowds, as a kid, you

know, to the front to see them. And so I started reading magazines about

aviation, also science fiction I was interested in that, but aviation. And then I

saw the drawings therein and began to want to do some drawings myself. And

that’s how it started actually. And then the War came and having this love of

aircraft I was going to go into the RAF ‘cause I wanted to go into the Royal Air

Force and all the rest of it ‘cause I was interested. I would have been about 17,

18 at the outbreak of War. I can give you an age chart, I don’t even remember

myself exactly how – but I was about 16, 17. I was in the er, the er, in 1938 was

formed Air Defence Cadet Corps, a sort of like of aviation-mind Boy Scouts but

newly-created to groom kids for the Royal Air Force, of course to go into the

Royal Air Force because we were re-arming and the Air Force was expanding

and so on and so forth. So being air-minded I joined that. We were promised

some flying but I never got any because this was the beginning of the War and

they had other things to think about rather than giving us air experience, you

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know. So then it became the Air Training Corps, I think in about 1941, but I was

still in it. But they published a magazine, the Air Training Corps, called The Air

Reserve Gazette I think it was called. And again I submitted a few drawings to

them for publication. And in fact for a pound a time reproduction fee I think at

about ’41 and ‘42 I actually began to get them reproduced in there. And of

course this is all concerned with the Royal Air Force and the manufacturing

industry and so on, so the whole aviation scene. And I was co-working there

with a chap called James Hay Stevens who was quite a character and he’s one of

the people in my life, now and again you meet someone who give you a little

push, and he managed to get me – he said, ‘You can draw,’ he said, ‘you’d be far

better off in an aircraft factory doing design work and that than going as an AC

plonk into the,’ – I couldn’t have been flying or anything like that because when

I was even then were not very good so I would’ve been a radio mechanic I think I

was in for, you know. And actually I was quite good at Morse Code. I can’t

imagine that I was – the way I think now that I was quite good at Morse Code

it’s because I was a youngster. So I went into Fairey Aviation Company in their

drawing office as one of the very few two or three people who were beginning

to illustrate the repair manuals that were given to the pilot's manuals, given to

the pilots of course to show them how to work the controls in each specific

aircraft, of course they’re all different. So each aircraft had a pilot’s manual to

tell it how to work the controls and so on and so forth. And also the repair

people wanted illustrations as to how to repair the ---. So I did the illustrations

for those and while I was Fairey’s for two or three years I did my first cutaway

drawing, and I’ll show you a cutaway later on, you know. Any more questions?

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Where did you learn your drawing skills? <0:04:49>

Self taught. I’ve never had a formal art education apart from one or two spells

in some of the top art schools up in London, or art colleges, but they didn’t do

me any good because they don’t teach you how to paint aeroplanes for

example. They teach you all the ---. We’ve just been to the Summer Exhibition -

--.

Royal Academy of Art? <0:05:19>

Yes. I better not say anything about it, but (laughs) we didn’t really enjoy it, did

we? Okay, now jog my memory.

You were talking about your influences as an artist and you were self taught.

<0:05:36>

Yes, I’m self taught but I must say I’ve been taught by the best people in the

business, both in aviation and marine [inaudible 0:05:43] although they don’t

know it. That is to say these people were my inspiration, the names, I could give

you names but perhaps it’s not absolute to this particular ---.

No, it would be interesting to hear them. <0:05:56>

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James Hay Stevens, well he had something to do with the toy industry because

before the War he invented the first 1/72nd scale kits. We all know about Airfix,

that’s done in plastic. He had them manufactured in wood, pre-formed,

fuselage, wings, bits of wire and this, that and the other, in a wooden box, far

too expensive for me to buy, but he was also quite an accomplished artist

because he used to illustrate the box tops and articles that he wrote in the

aviation magazines that I used to read. So it’s all these influences from other

people come in and they’re the people who taught me. They don’t know it as I

say (laughs) but they’re the people who influenced me.

And you did actually meet James Hay Stevens? <0:06:47>

Yes, later on because after a period at Fairey’s, this is still during the War, the

editor of the magazine that I was working for, the Air Training Corps Gazette,

said, ‘I think you’d be better on my editorial and illustrative staff.’ So I got

special dispensation to join them. I also got special dispensation from the Air

Ministry as one of the very, very first and youngest – not first, but certainly the

youngest, reporters or journalists with special permission to go to some of the

aerodromes and indeed sketch the aircraft and so on for the Air Training Corps

Gazette. So it was a semi-official paper, it went to all the cadets and so on. And

of course a great many of the people who were reading it went into the Royal

Air Force of course after that.

Because things like petrol was rationed in those day, in the War, wasn’t it? <0:07:51>

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Oh well you had to go by train of course, you know. But oh I had a bit of a

newspaper article about me, young cadet gets special permission to ---. Of

course you couldn’t go to the airfield, obviously ‘cause everything was secret, so

you had special permission to do that. There’s lots I could tell you about this.

Maybe it’s a bit superfluous.

Well we can carry on, I mean it’s up to you where you want to take it. <0:08:15>

And then you can eliminate, can’t you, anything you don’t want you can

eliminate anyway.

We’ll select the bits relevant for the Museum of Childhood part, but it’s nice to get a

back story, it puts your life story in context of how you arrived at where you came to,

you know, in Airfix. <0:08:31>

Well James Hay Stevens would’ve been part of the pre-War toy industry. I think

the kits were called Sky Birds and they were indeed the forerunners of Airfix and

Monogram and all the post-War makeup models, you know, and that sort of

thing.

Did you actually meet him? <0:08:55>

Roy Cross

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Oh yeah, James Hay Stevens, well I met him at the office. It was in Trafalgar

Square the offices of the Air Reserve Gazette and I met him quite a few times.

And he got me the job at Fairey’s in the aircraft industry. He said, ‘You’re better

off,’ as I said, ‘than just tinkering about doing Morse Code and mending radios

and things.’ So I spent three or four years during the War at Fairey’s and we

were designing, the Swordfish was long out of production, the Firefly two-seat

fighter I worked on and I illustrated the manuals for those. And as I said the

first cutaway I ever did was the Fairey Firefly two-seat fleet naval fighter. Right,

let me have a pause to think.

Okay. <0:09:52>

Where did we go from then? Prime me.

Okay. You said you designed the manuals for these. <0:10:04>

I did the drawings for the manuals, you know, I can show you some of these

later on.

We could go forward to your Airfix memories, your Airfix career. Just tell me your

Airfix story, how did you arrive at working for Airfix, what was the back story to that?

<0:10:25>

Okay. Recording now again?

Roy Cross

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Yes it is, yeah. <0:10:31>

Yeah, okay. Well, you know, after the War I decided to go freelance as a

Technical Illustrator. I had already done the technical drawings, the cutaway

drawings. And so first of all I joined a little art studio up in town, but then I just

decided to go freelance because I was trying to find all sorts of it, not always to

do with the aircraft industry. I did quite a lot of work for the aircraft industry

later on but in I think about the ‘60s, early ‘60s, as a freelancer you’re always

looking for work to do, you have to be aware of what’s going on and you have

to find your own work in fact, you know. So I saw some of the crude Airfix bags

with the kits in, the early ones, with rather crude line drawings on there. And

since you have to be enterprising I wrote to the management and said I could

better than that. So they invited me up and I took some work up, you know, to

show them and so on. So they gave me some work. And I obviously satisfied

them so much that in fact I did a whole ten year stint with them. And later on I

managed to get a nice retainer too because I was working almost exclusively for

Airfix by then. So I must have done two or three hundred finished artworks in

the ten years roughly I worked for Airfix and also all sorts of bits and pieces.

And in those days could you set the scene of the career of a Technical Illustrator, like

what tools and equipment you worked on, how you’d approach doing an illustration?

<0:12:28>

Roy Cross

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Well what happened I did a cutaway drawing of the first jet fighter it was

about, not the fighter, the drawing was that long, and the cutaway drawing. It

was so complicated and I thought there’s an easier way of making a living. So I

went into colour work. This was before of course I got in touch with Airfix. So

by the time I went up to Airfix I was quite accomplished in doing colour work.

So that’s exactly what they wanted for the improved artwork and so on and so

forth. So well I had a ten year stint with them and built this house on the

proceeds of the sale, or most of it in those days anyway.

Can you remember the day you arrived at Airfix, your interview with them? Can you

describe that for us? <0:13:21>

Yes, I went to see Charles Smith, he was the Chief Buyer. Later I used to have

the drawings submitted to the Managing Director, John Gray, as well. So what

happened they were producing a new kit so I went up to the drawing office and

the drawing office gave me the drawings and so on. But of course I had my own

extensive files because I’d been working as an aviation illustrator for ten,

twelve years anyway. So I’ve still got huge files out in the garage to this

moment. So I had my own information but they also gave me the exact type of

aeroplane they were doing. And I did the markings that had to be applied

because of course the cover had to be exactly what was in the kit, you couldn’t

do anything extra on the cover, different markings or anything, it had to be

exactly the same as in the kit otherwise people, customers would complain

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that, you know, it’s not the same as the illustration on the cover. So it all had to

be in tune with what the Airfix drawing office told me.

And what impressions did you come away with on that first initially meeting?

<0:14:43>

Well it looked as if I’ve played my cards right it could be a good commission. I

knew I was so much better than the stuff they were getting before and they

were very pleased with the first one or two, you know. I don’t remember too

much about the first interview, but it got to be a regular thing. You went up to

see Charles Smith the Buyer, or John Gray, I showed them the prospective rough

drawings, some of which I can show you in a moment, which I’ve managed to

retain much of those. That’s the only thing I’ve got left in the raw material

from those days. And so they said yes well that’s all right, usually. Or no, so I

had to do another idea for them. And so I went away, did the thing, went back

to the drawing office, got it checked usually at the drawing office first, although

I knew as much as the draughtsman because I was fairly knowledgeable as I say

in aviation then. And so it went on for ten years.

And where was your office location or the Airfix office location that you worked in?

<0:15:46>

It was in Wandsworth, I’ll have to look up the address for you. Haldane Place I

think, but I can check this because I’ve got some of the original correspondence

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here. I’ve still got all my invoices, which is about the only record I’ve got of

what I actually there over ten years. Quite a huge amount of work. As I say, it

made me experienced in colour, which was so helpful in a different career I

pursued afterwards. And well I learnt my trade. Nothing like being paid to

learn your trade.

(Laughs) And what do you remember about the teams that you slotted with? I know

you were a freelancer worker. <0:16:29>

Yes. Well I didn’t know much about them because all I did is went up to ---. But

no, I went to the drawing office, they were a jolly good lot of chaps. From what

I hear now still from some of them, it was a very happy, happy family I think

and I thoroughly enjoyed going there and having a bit ---. Of course you work

on your own, it’s a bit solitary, not lonely but it’s solitary. A writer or artist will

tell you exactly the same. So it was a nice thing to go up to the whole drawing

office and a couple draughtsmen and so on and we had a good old time then.

They corrected the drawings and helped me get everything right and so on and

so forth.

Did you work closely with, is it Peter Allen? <0:17:14>

Peter I know, he’s still around of course, yes, I remember him. Yeah. He’ll tell

you a lot more. Of course he was in the drawing office as you know, so he’ll

know much more about the inner workings. I was only an outsider coming in.

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And so as an illustrator for them, what’s your typical working week involve? If you

could put some details around that, how you interacted with Airfix? <0:17:44>

Well I have always worked office hours, nine till five. And then often, well you

had the energy when you were younger of course, I wrote books and things,

anything to make a buck, in the evenings. So sometimes I worked to 12 o'clock.

Did you slot this in with other jobs then? <0:18:04>

Well mainly. For that ten years it was mainly Airfix but I did do other jobs now

and again because they didn’t keep me 100 per cent. They probably kept me 80,

90 per cent busy all the time, non-stop. But I did other things. I did a set of

cigarette style cards for Brooke Bond Teas for example. And all sorts of things

came in like that. The odd job for the aircraft industry sometimes, but Airfix

kept me busy.

How busy, like how many drawings does the 300 work out at like a week, or is it one a

week? <0:18:48>

Well I did a fair day’s, week’s work, you know, nine till five as I say, regular.

Was that one drawing per week, like how many models I suppose? <0:18:58>

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Then I could do one in probably less than a week, but of course the bigger they

were – you couldn’t put a thing on it because some of the primitive roughs

could be done in two or three days. And then much of the work was done on

that anyway, so you just enlarge it up and then you can perhaps do the finished

artwork, which was twice, three times this big, in yeah perhaps a week, perhaps

a week.

I’m trying to get a sense of like where you the only illustrator there doing all of the

boxes or did they have ---? <0:19:29>

No, they had other illustrators. For example I did the aircraft and some of the

ships or naval aircraft. There was another illustrator did all the figure work for

all the Airfix figures and so on. I think he’s passed away now so you won’t be

able interview him unfortunately. And he did some ships as well. There was a

fine sculptor of course for all the figures they did and so on. But I hardly ever

met these people then because as I say I just came in and did my little bit and

came out again and came home and did the work, you know.

How did the management or the marketing people give the illustrators a steer then?

Because if you’ve got different illustrators working with different aspects, how do you

get a cohesive style and branding for? <0:20:21>

Well in aircraft for example, which I mainly did, they said, ‘We’re doing a model

of the say the Hurricane one, give us some ideas.’ So I did a couple of pencil

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sketches first of all, they will then choose one. John Gray usually said yes, or no,

all over it and I can show you one or two of those still. Then I did a colour

rendering or maybe two colour renderings, that was a) to submit to them but

also to give me, solve the problems for when I did the full size artwork. Also I

did shaded pencil drawings rather than just line drawings. Again I can show you

some these. So, where were we?

Your style, you have your unique style, but if someone else is doing the figurines they’ll

have their unique style. How did they coordinate it that it looked cohesive? <0:21:21>

Well if it’s good artwork and was accepted to the management. I mean, you

know, the figure man coordinated separately with the management and the

sculptor worked separately. We all were individually going up and working

with the management and with the drawing office of course. The drawing

office would give you some of the first pressings from the machines, you know,

and often if it hadn’t assembled it themselves, I assembled it roughly to give me

the shape and you can pose it, you know. As a by line, I used to think that it you

took the model out into the sunshine and posed it and photographed it, you got

the sunlight bouncing off the right points on the rather complicated lines of the

---. It might seem technical to you but you can’t copy photographs. You’ve got

to make up your own. You can use photographs for reference of course, of

course I’ve got my own reference and they gave me a reference, but you can’t

copy photographs, you’ve got to do the ---. So you had, I found the easiest way

was to pose a model to give me ---. And of course there was a very awkward

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slot with the chip out of it, so they didn’t want the wings cut off or the tail or

anything, as far as possible, so the model enabled you to, a miniature aeroplane

if you like, to manoeuvre into that particular shape. And so that was a great

help in composing the rough pencil drawings you did which you took to submit

to the management and then they chose one, then I did some colour roughs of

that, usually from my own, just to get the colour right, roughly. Again I can

show you some. Very rough. Which then solved the problems. This is the usual

procedure of any a fine artist, any, an RA, this is the usual process that currently

goes to the finished artwork, you know.

Okay, I see. And then technically how is it produced and put on that box from your

proof? <0:23:34>

I’m not too sure about that but of course it would be photographed. Nowadays

it would be all digital, but then it would be photographed and there’s

reproduction process for any colour printing then, it’s nothing very different.

They would’ve had special box makers and so on. And quite often I wasn’t too

happy with the colour reproduction on some of them because it wasn’t really

superior enough to the way I’d been reproduced in books and in advertising

material. So I wasn’t always happy with the reproduction but it sold the kits

and I’ve been told so many times now that, I was told just the other day, ‘Oh my

son he used to buy the Airfix kits for your artwork. He doesn’t like the kit.’ And

I’ve heard that many times. So I think I did improve certainly the box artwork

and the fact that they kept me for ten years, they were very, very sorry to see

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me go at the end of it but I wanted to go onto other things. And I think it was a

big sales boost for them.

It really was, it was the boom years for Airfix that you were there. <0:24:55>

Absolutely, yes.

It can’t be coincidence that, you know, it is all about the packaging as well as what’s

inside. <0:24:55>

Absolutely. And mine were definitely proven. You ask Peter Allen or any of the

other people who will tell you, I’m quite sure, that ---. Anyway, they paid me

very well, helped me build this nice little house, you know, and gave me ten

years non-stop work, which for a freelance was extremely good.

When you work freelance somewhere, how do you find it, ‘cause you mentioned it’s

quite isolating, how do you form friendships with your work colleagues? Is it different

opportunities to bond with them and form friendships outside of work? <0:25:44>

Well that’s what I mean by it being solitary. You have to of course, you see you

don’t work at a firm, you’ll have all your colleagues in the firm you chat and

make jokes and all the rest of it. I only had the rare occasions when I went up to

the office and had that. And of course there’s friends, family and all the rest of

it. But no, you don’t working by yourself, and this is a general, nothing to do

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with Airfix, any artist I think will tell you that it’s solitary up to a point. So

you’ve got make yourself get out a bit and so on and so forth. But that’s got

nothing, that’s just a general thing about it. Writers are just the same, they live

in a little world of your own, you ask Annie. She has to lever me out because I’m

in – you’re engrossed in that painting, you see, you’re living that scene because

it’s all come from here. You don’t copy photographs, you do your own roughs.

You can pose your own picture and then it’s all your own work and you’re

immersed in that scene.

Now I’ve read about the anti-War movement in Australia and the Airfix boxes, the

impact. They had to change their designs, didn’t they? I’m just looking at my notes.

<0:27:06>

Well I don’t know much about it. Peter Allen knows more because again he was

involved. He was actually in the firm. But this was after I had left Airfix. And

when I worked for Airfix they wanted all the excitement, they wanted shell

bursts and gunfire and planes trailing smoke in the background and so on. The

excitement to make the youngsters and oldsters too in many cases, buy the kits.

But after I left they either had the artwork still, what they would’ve done of

course they would’ve had the art till they went bust first of all. They got other

artists to airbrush a lot of that action and gunfire out. And often a completely

different background. Now I didn’t know about this because I’d gone into

another career 115 per cent and I didn’t care what was going on at Airfix, which

is a mistake in retrospect but that’s by the by.

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Why do you say a mistake? <0:28:15>

Well in that a) I could’ve reclaimed some of them back, b) I could’ve said, ‘Well

you can’t do this, this is my artwork, it’s your copyright, yes, but it’s my artwork

and it shouldn’t be altered.’ And so I could’ve had perhaps and might have got

some of the artwork back, you know. But I dropped it to go into a new career

completely, 115 per cent, you know. I had to start making a complete new start

so all my energies, and Airfix was forgotten. Indeed the work was tailing off,

that’s one of the reasons I started looking for other sources of income. It was

beginning to tail off. I’d done a load of rehashes of the old boxes. I’d even

repainted some of my own pictures where they had to have new markings on or

something like that, or another illustration because the kit wasn’t selling very

well possibly. So, ‘Roy, do another say perhaps a bit more exciting this time, try

and ginger the sales up a bit, you see.’ So that was another facet of the

changing scene.

Yeah, those changes must reflect what was going on in Airfix and its manufacturing

side and the economies, ‘cause it was one of the foremost British manufacturers at

one point. <0:29:32>

Well they were very, very big. I like to think my boxes helped. (Laughs)

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Did you get to observe what their managerial style was of the board and the senior

managers there? Did it filter down in the work you were asked to do? <0:29:49>

No, as I say I merely saw them to get them to okay. I saw the Managing

Director and he didn’t have time to make you a cup of tea occasionally, you

know. He had other artists coming in and other obviously going on. A busy

man, obviously. Very successful, John Gray was. But when I left I really dropped

it like a hot coal, I had a completely new interest, a completely different field of

work and so mistakenly, possibly, I took no more attention. If I’d have heard

they were going bust I might been able to get up and rescue some of my own

artwork, who knows. And the question – no, I won’t go on. I was going to go

on, which I won’t mention, okay.

Okay. The Chairman, I think it was Mr Ralph Ehrmann? <0:30:55>

I never met him.

Oh, you didn’t meet him? I was going to ask how ---. <0:30:57>

He was in the background, financial. He’s still alive of course.

Yes, yes, I’ve met him for the project. He liked to get very involved when he had the

energies, when he started out he was always there and hands on. <0:31:12>

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Yes exactly. I just never met him because as I say I only went very occasionally

for each new piece of artwork, yeah.

Are there any particular staff members that you remember working with, to put it into

context? <0:31:25>

The original designer, John Edwards, who tragically died very suddenly in full

flight, I don’t know, he went abroad and picked something up and ---. Jack

Armitage took over from him. Peter I knew well of course. Oh there were one

or two others who have long faded out of the picture as regards Airfix who I

knew then but have forgotten I’m afraid. No, no one apart from the principals

who of course I worked closely with to finalise the artwork and so on and so

forth. But no, they were a happy gang of lads up there. And I think he’s still

here, you ask Peter Allen I’m sure he’ll say, or Barry Wheeler who went on to

edit the magazine which derived from the early one, the wartime magazine

that I was telling you about right at the beginning, Barry Wheeler. He did a lot

of the research and thinking up ideas. But no, I can’t think of any other specific

names. And Barry Wheeler’s still around, do you know the name and have you

spoken to him?

I haven’t no. What was his role? <0:32:48>

Well again this is more or less towards the end of my time. He was the

researcher and obviously helped to decide which ideas will be offered to the

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management. Now Barry Wheeler would tell you because he actually worked in

the office and will be able to tell you a lot more of the inner workings of the

office, which I can’t because I was only there very, very occasionally, you know.

So he could be a good contact.

And which product ranges were your favourites? <0:33:26>

Well of course I liked the aircraft. And oddly enough I had to do one or two

ships and that taught me that I didn’t really know much about ships so I

[inaudible 0:33:39] up on that and that got me into a completely new career

when Airfix faded away. So I would’ve had to find more work towards the end

of the Airfix. They went on several years after I left and I would’ve had less and

less work. And I didn’t know what was going on then but looking at some of

the past catalogues, lots of things they were going into lots of different fields of

toys and things like that, again you will have researched this much more than

myself. But I didn’t know anything about that. I dropped it completely, like

that, and went into something completely different.

It didn’t exist anymore in your mind? <0:34:24>

No, I just had to concentrate 115 per cent on what I was doing, very successfully,

it kept me going for 40 years since then. I’ll show you some of the work later

on.

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Okay. I’ve read a story about the Airfix sent consignments over to a Juvenile Centre in

Orpington, did you ever hear that story? <0:34:46>

No, nothing about that. I think I said to you that I wasn’t deeply involved really

in running of the ---. I was an outsider coming in and doing the work, yeah.

Yeah, it doesn’t filter down. Did they ever ask you to do something for Toy Fair, for the

exhibitions that Airfix became involved in? <0:35:08>

No. The only thing I did do that possibly has some connection, I often did some

quite rough drawings for the new catalogue which was it prepared for the next

Toy Fair, possibly it was. But the artwork wasn’t decided even on then, the plain

was, so I did a little illustration for the catalogue. I read this from my invoices

and things, I couldn’t remember but I’ve just been reading them recently. So

no, nothing for Toy Fairs. I didn’t go to them. I was nothing to do with the

management or anything of Airfix, just an outsider coming in.

Did you observe a cycle to the year of how Airfix worked with its marketing and

promotions, with the drawings that they asked you to do? <0:35:57>

No, there was just the non-stop sequence of new work coming up, you know. A

few ships as I say, including the Tirpitz which will be on show at Hendon

because the chap I know who’s introduced me to the fact that he’s got the

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picture and has to produce some prints which I signed, and I can show you one

of those too. I’ve lost my track actually.

The cycle of the work and the ebb and flow of it. <0:36:34>

No, it was merely a non-stop, which is very nice for a freelance, and the next job

came up usually and only brief intervals in between, which either I took because

something came up or I found something else to do. I wrote a few books, I

wrote a couple of books for Airfix, three books for Airfix too, which you might – I

can show you copies of those.

Was that during your time there? <0:37:04>

Yes. During my time there. I did a history of the Spitfire for example, that was

the first book. And a chap called Gerald Scarborough did about how to improve

the model, mind you the Spitfire that first big 124 Spitfire was highly detailed,

but Gerald in the book would write how to change it into a different mark or

add bombs to it or detail various parts of it and so on. So that’s what the books

were about, the Airfix books. I think I did three, with Gerald Scarborough.

Okay. I’ve just got from the notes that you sent, of one question. Oh, no, I think

you’ve covered that. It was about your sort of official job title, you said I will discuss

this, at Airfix. It said what was your official job title and you said, ‘Will discuss.’

<0:38:24>

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Well I didn’t have an official title, I was just one of our team of artists that’s it.

And there was one, you noticed that the major changes in the company during your

time there was ever expanding and much enterprise and I wondered if you could

expand on your comment? <0:38:50>

Well again the design team lead by John Edwards and then Jack Armitage and

then Barry Wheeler, they would’ve been the people who were submitting ideas

to the top. Of course the top might have said something, we want to start a

new line or what do you think of this, so it would have been a filtering both

ways. I never had anything to do with that. All the decisions were made and

then I just came in to execute those decisions in the form of the artwork. So I

think I told you right at the beginning, I was very much exterior to the inner

workings of the firm. All I saw was when I went up on these joyful occasions

when we had a lot of banter in the office and so on and so forth, which made a

nice break for me.

Okay. All right, thank you very much.

[END OF RECORDING – 0:39:41]

Roy Cross