The Spring Miniatura, due at the NEC the weekend after this, has been postponed by the organiser because of Corona virus.
I received the email this morning, though the decision was posted, apparently, on social media yesterday afternoon. As I don’t follow social media, I didn’t find out that way.
The organiser, who is Andy Hopwood, said he had taken the decision because so many of the visitors and exhibitors are in the at-risk age group. This a brave and kind decision from a a man who has a family with health problems, a mortgage and whose source of income is the gate from two shows a year. To put the welfare of your exhibitors and visitors above your own necessary income is remarkable and one of the many reasons I support this show.
I did email 10 Downing Street yesterday morning to ask the prime Minister to close the NEC and other major venues. If they are closed by government edict, show organisers can invoke their insurers and be recompensed. As readers in Britain will have seen on the news yesterday, we seem to be lagging behind Ireland and Scotland in this matter. I hope my email will bear fruit, so that Andy will not lose out for doing the right thing.
I am so relieved. I was frightened. I am in remission from cancer, bereaved and with a couple of recent health scares, but I would have gone to support the show. Now, when Miniatura is resumed, we can all go and enjoy it. Save your pennies. When you get there eventually, make sure you take a load of people with you and spend big. Put it all right for the man who made the right decision at his own cost. It is heartening to know there are still such people in the world.
Long live miniaturists. This is the time to stay at home and play with your dolls’ house. In fact there has never been a better time to do so.
I will go on dressing dolls, while the mood is on me. I found a cabinet I’d put away, while I was clearing out for the builders. It is a revolving glass fronted case with small sections on four sides. It could have been made for 48th and 24th scale dolls, but was designed for jewellery and might be fifty to a hundred years old. Anyway I was filling it with dolls, so visitors could touch the case and revolve it and then I could disinfect it. But is is a nice case so I will carry on dressing until I have filled it and you can come and have a revolve next show, when ever that is.
I never thought I would say Miniatura has been postponed, hurray!
You and I will meet some day in the future, when we are all well and happy and talk of little things and the joy they bring us, and of good people and how happy we are to know them.
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