The secret world of hobbyists Putterers chase joy as Britain crumbles

Phil Parker is the editor of Garden Rail magazine. He’s a passionate man — especially on the subject of steam engines. “The steam engine is the nearest anybody has come to building a living thing,” he says. “It may be a machine, but it’s a living machine.” He talks about the joy of seeing them in action. The smells, the hiss and chuff, the weight of them on the line. It’s a joy that many people want to recreate at home.

“You know that film, The Titfield Thunderbolt? It’s an Ealing Comedy about a group of people who want to run their own railway line.” That’s what Parker’s readers want too. These layouts in back gardens across Britain range from tiny loops of track to colossal, intricate landscapes. Parker knows a guy whose line crosses Lilliputian bridges and snakes through mountains 10 feet tall. Layouts are much more than models, he says. They really are railways, albeit on a smaller scale than usual. A keen sense of ownership is important: “these are their railway lines.”

Ardent hobbyists are often viewed as eccentric. I think they might be the only normal people left. As a rule, they are active and engaged. They are more interested in making than consuming. They dream and they do. A passive appreciation for steam engines or military history or orchids isn’t enough. Hobbyists want to take part. “I grew up fascinated by history, and wargaming helps you make that interest interactive,” says Daniel Faulconbridge, editor of Wargames Illustrated. “It’s not good enough for me that I just read about the Battle of Hastings, I want to collect the figures that represent the troops that fought in the battle, and then paint them and play a game with them. So it’s taking your hobby to the Nth degree.”

Magazines like Garden Rail and Wargames Illustrated are at the heart of the hobby world. The variety is extraordinary. Hornby Magazine, Airfix Model World, The Orchid Review, Lute News. Monthly publications dedicated to remote control aircraft and koi keeping. Some hobbies have broader appeal than others — the UK has enough carp fishermen to support both Total Carp and CARPology. But even the more niche titles have a readership large enough to keep them viable in a brutal publishing environment.

“People often say, ‘wow you still produce a print magazine!’ Because obviously you see people on the train and most of them are looking at phones or screens, they’re not looking at newspapers and magazines,” says Faulconbridge. The physical hobby magazine has in fact proved surprisingly durable. Both Faulconbridge and Parker acknowledge that their readers tend to be older, and prefer print media because it’s what they grew up with. There’s also a practical aspect. If you’re following a guide to painting a model Landsknecht, it’s easier to have a paper copy open on the table than faff about with a phone or tablet. And there’s the love of magazines themselves. Many hobbyists will own collections going back decades. There are memories between those pages. Hobby memories, yes, but also recollections of long-ago bedrooms where the sunlight fell just like that across the carpet. Memories that can be unearthed with the flick of a finger. A digital archive can’t replicate that experience, especially since, as Parker points out, “the thing with a lot of digital media is you don’t really own it.” Paper and ink are there for as long as you want them. The same cannot be said for all of those zeros and ones.

Again and again when talking to Parker and Faulconbridge, I am struck by the emphasis on the physical. Hobbies are about doing things: planning, painting, building, contributing an article to your favourite magazine. “You come into a hobby and you’re not being encouraged to binge-watch something on the tele — which is a very, very passive activity — you’re being encouraged to have a go at something,” Parker observes. “We’re constantly saying to people, ‘Have a go!’”

Hanging out with like-minded people is the best way to have a go. Community is a word that comes up a lot in my chats with the editors. “Up and down the country, meeting in village halls and community centres, there are wargaming clubs that no one would ever know were there if they didn’t accidentally come across them,” says Faulconbridge. Parker emphasises that railway modelling exhibitions are as much social gatherings as they are celebrations of the hobby. As anyone who has worked an allotment knows, shared enthusiasms have a way of collapsing social barriers. Parker remembers one exhibition where he sat around a pub table with “a physics professor, a guy who ran his own bus company, a Liberal Democrat councillor, a theatre manager, a bishop and two lawyers. Our common interest was model railways. You find yourself meeting a really wide variety of people.”

Still, it’s a mistake to think that these groups are purely focused on the hobby itself. Wargames and model railways are often the starting point for other things. Friendships are made, money is raised for charity, and support networks are formed. “Men are particularly bad at chatting,” says Parker. “But they will chat about steam engines and they will chat about garden railways, and that chat can then move on to more valuable topics. We run the largest model railway forum in the world, and tucked away on it is a prostate cancer discussion group.” The hobby becomes a conductor for the wider functions of any worthwhile community.

Hobby magazines survive because they are outgrowths of these communities. Most articles are written by hobbyists, in what Faulconbridge describes as “a fanzine approach”. Neither the editors nor the contributors are in it for the money. They just love it. In a recent thread on X, Stone Age Herbalist observed that the continued success of the hobby magazine can be attributed to a particularly British — and more broadly Northern European — genius for voluntary association. Whether centred around giant vegetables or antique fountain pens, little communities bubble up everywhere with no outside encouragement. I can’t help but wonder whether the British genius for immiseration also has a role to play. Lively minds will always find alternatives to decaying cities and nagging politicians.

Both Faulconbridge and Parker agree that there’s something in the water on our island. But neither are quite sure what that something is. Naturally, history plays a role. Although railway modelling is popular in other parts of the world — Germany, Belgium and Holland in particular — its spiritual home will always be the birthplace of the steam engine. And when it comes to fighting battles with armies of model soldiers, the UK is the undisputed world leader. “Wargaming is bigger here than anywhere else. It started here. And throughout the Sixties and Seventies we had youngsters growing up reading magazines like Battle and Warlord, and building Airfix models as well. A lot of the early writers of wargames rules came from the UK,” says Faulconbridge. He adds that the founding editor of Wargames Illustrated, Duncan Macfarlane, estimated that Britain contained 50% of the planet’s wargamers.

That figure probably still stands up, doubtless bolstered by the growth of Games Workshop, whose range of tabletop games will be many people’s first taste of wargaming. It is no accident that Warhammer is one of contemporary Britain’s few home-grown success stories. When I mention this to Faulconbridge, who began his own working life in the Games Workshop mail order room, he laughs. “Games Workshop do help. You might think that there’d be no room whatsoever for lads playing with toy soldiers and rolling dice today, but they’ve managed to make a multi-million pound industry out of it. As you say, one of England’s only exports is little men in packages.”

A link between hobbies and productive industry can also be found in the world of railway modelling. Parker tells me that, “I’ve just reviewed a loco from a company based in Doncaster, Roundhouse Engineering. You’d be amazed, we do still build steam locomotives in this country! It’s a proper Rolls Royce engine model, beautifully constructed. They do pretty much everything in-house.” This pride and attention to detail is at the root of what all hobbyists are up to. The sheer excitement of creation, of pouring your heart into something and sharing it with others, is its own healthy reward.

Hobby magazines are heartening advertisements for that reward. Planning, making, getting things wrong, having a laugh about it. Towards the end of our conversation, Parker muses on what his job really means. He starts a sentence and trails off. Hesitates, just for a moment. Perhaps he’s searching for the right word. Perhaps he’s worried about sounding pompous. Fortunately, his passionate nature wins out. He says what he wants to say: “We’re a little bit in the business of selling dreams.”