Founded in 1946 by Robertson-Aikman, SME made scale models and parts for the model-engineering trade and hobbyist model builder. Robertson-Aikman, above all an engineer, was also a music lover able to construct his own system. He told me “the Series I precision pick-up arm was envisaged in the autumn of 1958. It came about because my burgeoning interest in hi-fi had reached the point where I was dissatisfied with what the market offered. At that time, the Scale Model Equipment Co Ltd, as SME was then titled, had a useful precision-engineering capability built up over the preceding 12 years. I recall going into the small tool room and asking if we had any aluminium tube.

“By the spring of 1959, a prototype was in use, and it was decided to show it to the then-Senior Technical Editor of Gramophone Magazine, Percy Wilson, a man of great enthusiasm and some useful ideas.” Asked what he thought of its commercial possibilities, Wilson replied that he and one or two of his friends would like to own one. Crucially, he told Robertson-Aikman, “Perhaps an annual turnover of as many as 1,000 pieces might be possible.”