WHAT did people from a town of engineers do with their spare time more than half a century ago?

“Even more engineering,” seems to have been the answer, if an Adver article from 1958 is anything to go by.

Exactly 57 years ago today we sent a reporter and photographer to the Swindon Model Engineer Exhibition at the St John Ambulance Brigade Hall in Corporation Street. The major exhibitors included the Swindon Society of Model and Experimental Engineers, which had been founded in 1930 as the Swindon Model Power Boat Club.

We said: “At first, members used a miniature canoe lake adjoining Mannington Recreation Ground, put at their disposal by the late Mr Wicks, and by its side constructed an 80ft long multi-gauge model steam locomotive track.

“Then, when it proved too small for model speed boats, the club shifted its headquarters to Rodbourne Cheney pleasure grounds by permission of the owner, Mr Plaum, where there was a larger lake.

“For four seasons until the outbreak of war, the club used the grounds every Wednesday night and weekend throughout the summer, and also ran a 5in gauge locomotive track.”

Mr Plaum’s name will be familiar many readers because the lake he owned – Plaum’s Pit or Plummies – is still a local landmark.

Club members among the exhibitors included three generations of the Palk family from Wootton Bassett, who showed off a layout called The Wootton Bassett and Metropolitan Railway, which had begun to take shape in 1933.

A Mr C Lawrence of Stafford Street in Swindon was photographed with his huge coal-fired model of an LMS Stanier Mogul Class locomotive.

Charles Bladzell displayed a prize-winning model steam tug called Energy, while a steam cabin cruiser built by a Mr Hood was exhibited by a Mr R Goodwin.

The society is no more, but its spiritual successor, the North Wilts Model Engineering Society, runs the successful miniature railway at Coate Water. There is also a thriving Swindon Model Boat and Engineering Club, which was founded in 1931.