21 August 2009
Pro Model-Maker Ray Freeman Got His Start Building Replicas in Second World War
Ray Freeman with the the Empress of Japan in March 1989, which
he co-built with Ken Bassam. The original Canadian Pacific luxury liner was built in 1930.
Victoria Vancouver Island British Columbia - For
most of his life, Ray Freeman had a job most boys can only dream of: Maker of model ships.
From his childhood love of model airplanes honed in Tottenham, North London, Freeman plied his world-class skill at
meticulous miniatures into long careers at both the Imperial War Museum and the Maritime Museum of B.C. in Victoria.
Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people have admired his handiwork over the decades even if they never knew his name -
sometimes affixed to display cases and sometimes not.
There are only a handful of paid model-makers in Canada, and the career suited the precise and gentlemanly Freeman to a
T, says maritime museum executive director Greg Evans.
When Freeman retired 20 years ago, he was given the unusual title of model-maker emeritus.
Freeman's early life was far from clear sailing.
Still in his teens at the outbreak of the Second World War, he worked for a company that made him responsible for making
"recognition models" for the British military of friendly and enemy ships and aircraft at a scale of one to 1,200 - "so
you can imagine the skill required," Evans says.
Freeman joined the Royal Navy at "the first available moment" at age 17, serving in the Far East, including Burma, recalls
Peggie, his wife of 55 years.
The couple met at a friend's place in England when Freeman was, after the war, a "tall, good looking" firefighter.
Little did Peggie know that that his painstaking hobby would eventually take their family nearly 8,000 kilometres to the far side of
Canada.
He resumed model-making full-time - this time of fishing trawlers and passenger liners - and in 1963 was
offered a position as senior museum assistant at the Imperial War Museum.
For 10 years, he produced models, including one of a "pre-Dreadnought battleship HMS Russell, which was 10 feet in
length," Evans said in his friend's eulogy.
HMS Russell is still "much admired" on display in one of the main galleries there, "although it will be placed in
storage later this year as part of a gallery reorganization," says an e-mail from senior curator Martin Garnett.
"I regret to say that the museum no longer has any conservation staff with the in-depth knowledge of ship models
that Ray had," he adds.
Ray's departure was heralded by a letter that arrived one day from the Maritime Museum of B.C. - seeking a model-maker.
Intrigued, Freeman took advantage of a trip to Victoria.
Another day, not long afterward, in 1974, he asked Peggie if she'd like to move to Victoria.
She thought he meant "Victoria SW 1 in the centre of London." And the answer was no.
But he meant B.C. and though she had never given the West Coast of Canada a thought, she agreed to uproot their two teenage daughters
to try it out.
Freeman's incredible skills as a model-maker are still on display.
The public can see his Empress of China, Empress of Japan (co-built) and the Brown, a steam-powered whaling
ship once frequently in Victoria.
But his HMS Zealous, once the flagship of the Pacific Station, and other models are in a room that will not reopen until
mid-autumn.
Freeman's meticulous nature helped keep their home shipshape, as well.
"He was a great one for paying attention to details," Peggie says. "If you wanted a job well done, you went to
Raymond."
Daughter Glynnis Kennell was only 13 at the time of the move and remembers their "brand new, gorgeous" home in Gordon Head -
much larger than the family's duplex in Surrey.
As a dad, Freeman was loving, but not surprisingly, paid attention to details.
"I don't think we got away with anything - I'm not sure we even tried," she laughs.
An avid lawnbowler who played competitively, Freeman once had a heart attack on the greens: "I don't think it was because
of the excitement but just one of those things that happened," Peggie recalls.
When Freeman retired and moved to a condo, he gave up building models.
Peggie treasures the only model left in her possession - a New Bedford whaleboat circa 1870, that he entered in the 1989 Regatta of
the Victoria Model Ship Building Society.
It won first prize in its category.
It's a lot harder than it looks to model a ship precisely to scale ensuring accuracy and building tiny fittings, says Ron Armstrong, a
past-president of the Victoria Model Shipbuilding Society.
Freeman never looked down on amateur model-makers and took the time to judge their work many times.
He recognized the dedication involved and responded with generosity and a droll wit.
"He was the type of guy anybody could feel comfortable with," Armstrong says.
Raymond Alan Freeman was born in Tottenham, North London, on 21 Sep 1926.
He died in the hospital of old age in Victoria on 8 Apr 2009.
Katherine Dedyna.
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