KINGTON rail enthusiast Charles Russell is sending his Christmas cards early this year. The reason, he explains simply, is because he won’t be around.

Having been diagnosed with five tumours in his brain, doctors have given 62-year-old Charles just a few months to live.

While the news has turned his world upside-down he admits, he has bravely pledged to complete both a model railway project and a book, both aimed at raising money for charity.

“I have had a year-long battle with cancer,” says Charles, who lives with his wife, Carol at Mouse Castle Cottage in Kington.

A routine chest x-ray revealed a tumour and Charles underwent a new form of chemotherapy.

Later, he suffered an “horrific fall”, spent five hours in resuscitation and learned that the cancer had spread into his brain.

“It turned my world upside-down,” he explains. “I was given six months and told I wouldn’t see Christmas.”

However, the devastating news has given Charles a determination to put the finishing touches to a model railway station destined for a charity exhibition in Oswestry.

Organised by his fellow modeller friend, Derek Williams, money raised will help provide children in a local brass band with musical instruments.

A music lover himself, Charles has been spurred on by what he sees as “dire funding” for music education.

“I’ve been working on the model since June,” he says. “I’m on the home straight.”

It’s a passion close to his heart and one he inherited from his father. “I grew up with this kind of construction, spending time making models rather than reading the Beano or the Eagle!”

The exacting work provides Charles with a kind of therapy, though the neuropathy he suffers as a side effect of his treatment - pins and needles in hands and feet - makes the task difficult.

“It has been quite a game for me to construct what I have, blood, sweat and tears don’t come near. Yet even though it’s very painful, I get a lot of enjoyment from it.”

He earnestly hopes to produce a book charting the past challenging 12 months, and a ‘memory box’ of his life.

The publication will be entitled, ‘Stick’, the dependable handcrafted stick made by a neighbour, ‘telling’ the story.

As Charles can no longer type, he hopes to dictate his experiences and memories.

“I want to share how I have personally dealt with the cancer over the past year, and how to deal with it up to the very end,” he explains.

Proceeds from his book will go to Hereford County Hospital’s Macmillan Renton Unit.

He added: “I can’t speak highly enough about the hospital where everyone is absolutely brilliant, caring and efficient.”

He accepts with dignity that he won’t be able to book a trip on the Flying Scotsman next year, though he dearly hopes to take a short holiday this autumn with his wife in Snowdonia - a chance to ride the Ffestiniog narrow-gauge railway - and to celebrate his 23rd wedding anniversary with Carol on his birthday in November.

“Just at the moment I’m too busy to die!” he says with a smile.

· Mr Russell is desperate to find an old brass curtain rail, which went out of fashion in the 1970s. It would be perfectly scaled to represent a reinforced steel joint as part of his railway station model. To help, call 01432 845876.