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Georg Galvin Leslie Smith and Gary Galvin
The London borough of Hackney Lesney exhibition

A few pictures and a short report from the Hackney Museum on the evening of March 18th 2004. Mr Jack Odell OBE and Mr Lesney Smith OBE were the guests of honour and had come to officially open the exhibition, The invite said from 6.30 so we arrived shortly after six to find that the place was already full of people including Mr Jack & Mr Leslie, There were lots of ex-employees among the many guests including George Galvin, father of my good friend and forum member Gary (garymbox1), I got to briefly meet Marcel Bakker from Holland and also Mike Forbes of the Diecast Collector magazine.

The highlight of the evening was when Mr Leslie made a speech reminiscing about his memories of the Hackney factory that was both humourous and informative, the crowd stood in silence to hear him you and could have heard a pin drop, My own highlight of the evening was a handshake and a few words with the two honoured gents, I took the liberty of asking Mr Jack if the brass roadroller that he made for his Daughter that started the Matchbox series all those years ago still existed, Jack's reply was "No, but I'm still here!", - somehow he got onto the subject of decals and told me that the first decals were tried out on the A2a Walls ice cream truck had to be applied with methylated spirit, they were difficult to apply so they switched to waterslide.

I would like to congratulate Helena who worked so hard to make the event the success it was, also the museum staff worked hard to keep the wine glasses filled and a good time was had by all, I think everyone would agree the evening was over all too quickly.

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© Dream-Tintoys by Moko-Man [2024]