What Ever Happened to the Commentator?

I always find it amusing that model railway exhibitions are at sports centres – the type of people that ‘do sport’ are generally the complete opposite to railway enthusiasts. I suppose the advantage is that the exhibition organisers do not need to invest in too many signs or arrows announcing its presence (ideally painted onto an old stripped baseboard top with splodgy white lettering on lumpy SR green) pointing to the show. They simply rely on the plastic bag toting unfashionable non-sporty looking middle aged men to show the way (and they'll always be in 'that queue' 45 before the doors open). We've all met them, and they will have been to every show since the hall was built and most likely with the same Rumbelow's plastic bag that their mother gave to them in 1977 for their very first engine which would have been a Lima Deltic.

As I go in through the sports centre entrance, I normally hold my stomach in and head towards the pretty sporty receptionist in a way that hopefully will make her think that I’m going to ‘do sporty things’ rather than heading for the nerdy ‘fug’, then at the very last moment fork a speedy left behind a suitably large ‘rucksack’ heading for ‘Model Railway Exhibition’.

When exhibiting, we all know that ‘Rule Number 2’ (No.1 is ‘it’s my trainset...’) is to avoid eye contact with anyone suspect looking, this reduces the chance of being knobbled for anything up to an hour (and then regularly for the rest of the day because you're now their 'bezzy mate'). As revenge (often after such a knobbling) I like to pull faces at the weirdoes - it helps the day go faster, especially when bored of operating which is normally by about 10.03 on the Saturday morning. If when exhibiting you cannot see me, I'm probably behind the layout pulling a face at you because you smell, are socially challenged, have bad breath, or maybe simply just far too intense as you insist on showing me your sticky snot covered Triang Mk1 coach you paid £1.86 for. Frequently though all these traits go together.

And finally the real reason for this post, a question aimed at the more southerly exhibition goer; what ever happened to ‘The Commentator’? I have not seen him for ages and miss his wonderful voiceovers “Here comes an LMS 8F, 48660 was based at Bath Shed from 1962-64, it’s going over the points to pick up some wagons… oh dear it has derailed, I imagine a breakdown crane will be along in a minute”……