Just plane solvent

There is a period of time between the child and teenage years that until recently never had a name. It was a bit of an anomaly that marketing departments chose to label the tweens. If I could capture that era of semi this and half that and give it a physical presence. If this could then be molded and cast in to plastic, broken down in to its constitute parts that had the ability to be reassembled at a later date. If we could then give them a set of assembly instructions and package the whole lot in a box with an incredible gloriously coloured and highly dramatised illustration on the front you would have the an Airfix model kit, the embodyment of my tweens.  

There was always a sense of excitement when going to the model shop almost as if the possibilities were endless, tanks, planes, cars, boats, they were all there. Models of vehicles you never knew existed and some that never did. The boundaries of reality no longer mattered, panzer tanks would comfortable sit next to a star wars battleship each and every one dramatised in technicolour with a picture of your model flying in to battle or sailing the high seas. If you had spent most of your pocket money you could still afford a spitfire or you could save up a little and get a formula one car. Some were easy and others took days to construct, requiring multiple construction areas and time allowed for drying. Everything would then combine in a few pages time and all make sense at the end. Models kits required responsibility they came with warnings of small parts and choking hazards, they were not suitable for small children. They required the use of solvents and oil based paint both of which had skull and cross bones triangles which laughed in the face of toys. These paints could not simply be washed down the sink like the water based ones in school, they required the use of yet more chemicals to clean the brush. To this day I have the words of my Dad at the back of my head every time I go near a tube of glue, warning me not to stick my fingers together. I learned quickly that this was an empty promise and not in the slightest bit possible with poly cement, which despite my best efforts not to I had on every finger in less than 2 minutes flat and which dried in to a harmless flake leaving a preserved copy of my finger prints. I had a tray on which I kept the various chemical solvents needed for construction. It was my mothers was of trying to preserve the carpets and it worked to an extent but an extent can only stretch so far after that a piece of furniture has to be put over the top to hide the blob. Sometimes the models lasted and other times they fell apart after a month or so. I am not quite sure what happened to all my models they just seemed to disappear over time. I am can only imaging a lot had unfortunate accidents in the garden or fell foul to the destructive tendencies that a young boy possess. I should think a good number are sitting in my parents attic in an unmarked box amongst the great mountain of other outgrown items. I am sure I will uncover them some day and admire the sloppily glued edges and the colours painted in shades just close enough, because I did not have the exact one listed in my collection. And I will remember the happy hours spend blissfully unaware that I was high as a kite off a mixture of Poly resin and solvent based paint fumes in my unventilated bedroom.