IZZARD FAMILY MODEL RAILWAY
In the late 1950s and ‘60s John Izzard, an accountant for BP, was working abroad in Aden (now Yemen) with his nurse wife Dorothy. Dorothy was expecting their first child so John began a model railway. Second child Edward was born in 1962 and the family moved first to Ireland and then Wales.
Dorothy became ill with cancer and John and the two children worked on the model to occupy their minds. She died in 1968 aged 41.
It became a loving recreation of Bexhill including John’s old home Laburnum Cottages, an industrial unit and a model garage. It also included Sidley station, where John commuted from, which closed following the 1963 Beeching Report.
The model is 00 gauge or OO scale, 4mm to 1ft on 16.5mm track. Models and components were sold commercially such as from Hornby Dublo.
In 2016 Eddie, now known as Suzy, an internationally renowned actor and performer, donated the model to Bexhill Museum. In 2018, a few months after John Izzard’s death, a second model Suzy had commissioned was unveiled. This time an N gauge layout, 15ft by 7ft, based on wartime Bexhill in the winter snow.
Notes/links:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-36769982
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Izzard
https://www.bexhillmuseum.org.uk/our-patron-eddie-izzard/eddie-izzards-family-railway/
https://www.bexhillmuseum.org.uk/our-patron-eddie-izzard/eddie-izzards-ww2-model-railway/
Research and design by:
Danny Coope / Street of Blue Plaques
https://streetofblueplaques.co.uk/
