MODEL BEHAVIOUR

‘I’M A ROCKET FAN’

Our resident model expert Andy Pearson goes in search of the ideal concealed weapon and wonders why we aren’t all flying about with jet packs...

The Derringer was frequently associated with discreet use by women because it is easily concealable in a purse or a stocking. All the schoolgirls in the Ed’s day carried them in their Andy Pandy lunchboxes!

Having touched upon toy guns of British manufacture in a recent article (perhaps the most recent, depending on editorial whim) I was hoping to present a comprehensive overview of the topic. My hopes were raised when I met a chap at an antiques fair who professed to have an extensive collection of the guns sold under the Lone Star brand.

There had been a provisional arrangement to visit his premises to take some photographs and to glean as much information as I could on the subject in order to pass this off as my own scholarship. In the event my contact dropped off the figurative radar for reasons unknown. All I can assume is that he’d read some of my stuff in the interim and realised just what he was getting himself into.

So here I am some 140 words in and the only relevant thing I have to relate concerns my childhood secret identity as The Lone Derringer. This persona came about when I had scraped enough together from my pocket money to buy one of the least expensive items from the range of cowboy guns available from local toy shops.