Tiger Moth

Yesterday i bought a Haynes manual on owning and maintaining a Tiger Moth biplane. Of course i am unlikely to ever own such a wonderful thing but it is a very nice book packed full of the interwar nostalgia i am currently obsessed with.

I find the Interwar Period one of the most fascinating in history, the world emerged from one of its darkest ever periods and within years the world (or parts of the West anyway) was swept by a wave of optimism, modernism and joy. However by the middle part of this period the world was facing economic collapse which led to the rise of a darkness and a war that even eclipsed that which had happened before. Its also the period where the British Empire reached its greatest extent yet within a few years was falling apart.

I've always liked some of the style of this period, women with those short hair cuts and cloche hats, art deco and of course the machines like the Tiger Moth.



The Tiger Moth is an icon of the Interwar Period. My Dad told me he flew in one when he was an air cadet. I did think of buying him an Airfix kit of one when the company relaunched but he died before i had a chance to. In late 2009 i bought the kit for myself and built it and since them have built quite a few more. When i was a kid i built dozens of models though i seldom painted them and usually they were a bit rubbish, these days i can afford paint and proper tools and sometimes they turn out half decent.