The Model World of Robert Symes (1979)

The British Broadcasting Corporation, better known as the BBC, has released on Youtube a wealth of fantastic television programs and documentaries from their vast archives. These programs vary in subject from gardening to travel to education to the histories of just about anything and everything related to England. The documentaries about crafts and craftsmen are the most fascinating and top of this line-up is The Model World of Robert Symes, a 48-minute presentation released on BBC in 1979.

Robert Symes was a teddy-bearish television host best known for co-hosting Tomorrow's World in the 1960s. Off-screen, he was a railway enthusiast and a model builder, two loves which he merged in the 1970s when he hosted the ten-part series Model World (1975). This series showcased various types of models and how to build them.

The Model World of Robert Symes spins off of that concept slightly and instead briefly spotlights the pleasures to be found in each different kind of model hobby: model railroading, toothpick modeling, R/C planes and automobiles and model dioramas. The only subject he neglected to cover was model sailboat racing. Symes examines each of these crafts and talks with an expert in each field. We also get to see Robert's own garden railway line in the backyard of his property.

Whether you are a miniature enthusiast or not, this is a highly entertaining program worth watching. Programs like these introduced youngsters and adults to the pleasures that can be found in model making. If only a new program would do the same!

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