18th of March 2004 was a very memorable evening but it was over so quickly, The invitation said 6.30pm but we got there just after 6 and the place was already full of people and buzzing,motorman wrote:What a great night that must have been Nick. It must have been fantastic to meet those two great men in person.
We had already seen most of the toy displays, partly because we were involved in organising the event from the early days but mostly because the majority of the toys on display were my own.
I briefly got to chat with Leslie Smith while he was looking at my toy display. You could tell that he really loved the toys whereas I think Jack Odell loved the engineering challenges that he encountered and was not particularly endeared to the toys.
I briefly got to chat with Jack Odell about the little hand made brass road roller that started the whole Matchbox ball rolling and also about the use of decals on Matchbox toys. The first models to have decals applied were the M2a Bedford Wall's ice cream truck and these used solvent applied decals and in Jack's own words "The solvent applied decals made the whole bloody factory in a mess",
Well, I could not figure out if he meant the factory was untidy or the staff were untidy but I can only imagine that he meant the staff as using solvent to apply the decals all day would have had everyone tripping out of their heads.
A few of the A1a esso petrol pumps & signs also have solvent applied decals and in the timeline so should some of the 11a tankers but I have only seen waterslide decals on the 11a.
8.00 came too soon and the two esteemed gents made their exit and we left soon after, Three weeks later I moved to Scotland leaving my toys in the care of the museum staff, The exhibition ran until the end of August which meant a trip back to London to collect my treasures.
The red cab/ gray base is my favorite of the obviuos resons, Burma tanker with gray base is also a beauty, I also have a playworn BP with a small axle cover, I don't think it is rare but I have never seen another one, so I kept it for now. So wish list is Red NAMC with labels and Purple NAMC with labels......... some day 
