Last of the Line

 A quick break before the penultimate 1983 post, here is the final batch of WSS units which would be fully prepped if I had not run out of black primer! All are plastic Warlord/Wargames Factory and most are destined to be Portuguese. I have a pile of generals to do too, but these are Front Rank. I could have used the excellent Ebor miniatures, but I wanted them larger than life. Never been a fan of Front Rank, but their WSS and 9YW ranges are wonderful. Service from Gripping Beast was top notch.

Black! Black!

Let me take you back to… the end of July 1983

 Fresh back from holiday, and unemployed as I had lost my shared paper round (my chum had got an apprenticeship and we were both replaced by someone younger and cheaper! It was also the last I saw of the local paper; an early lesson in how the nation works today), I began to put my plan into action.

So, here is the map my imagination transferred to my dad’s beautifully kept garden with some photos I found as close to 1983 as possible, as there was a fair bit of transformation going on in the 80s. My dad had just built a base for his new greenhouse on the site of my sister’s old Wendy house, which was lifted and shifted to the position on the map, along with a pile of the original crazy paving. That part of the garden was now basically a spoil heap, which would prove ideal for wargaming.

As far as the kit was involved, the radar station was two bricks on a mound of spoil from the greenhouse base, surrounded by barbed wire made from garden wire I wound round a broom handle! The bridge and lookout tower were from the Airfix Checkpoint set, the ‘resistance house’ on the port was my sister’s Britains farmhouse. The German camp was bare concrete as it was just a starting point and the Italian colonial troops (all the dismounted Airfix Indians!) lived in tents made from folded cardboard. Otherwise, the Italians guarding the station were Airfix (roughly 10 figures), the Germans were something like 20 Airfix and Matchbox DAK transported by the Airfix Hanomag and Bedford and the Britain’s Kubelwagen. The Good Guys were a mix of Airfix (mostly Australians), Matchbox, Timpo and Britains and totalled (eventually, as the resistance would be DAV x figures strong)15 figures.

All the goodies had individual stats in accordance with the Recon rules, but for the sake of my sanity, the baddies had group stats, with the DAK being better quality than the Italians and colonial troops.

Behold! The cartographic skill of Zod returns!

The Port. A later photo, as there was a huge shrub hedge to the left in 1983.

The jungle, and pretty much close to how it would be in 1983. Note tasty tomato production behind.

A good view of the coast road and my dad’s concreting skills. The German camp is to the right, not the left as my map shows.

My dad, post cancer op, using the hover mower he called ‘that bloody thing’. At least it kept him off the heavy petrol mower for a while… He is standing on the exact location of the radar station, the mower is roughly where the bridge was. Note the paving stones which I designated the only passable area of the lawn.

Some Time Away from Everything

 A few days ago I was sitting down to some tea and cake in Saltram House near Plymouth, traditionally where the family holiday begins (or at least Minime’s Annual Ice Cream Scam begins…), when the Mem’s mobile rings. It’s a text from my doctor with the results of my annual dicky ticker test, which I had taken the day before. To cut a long story short, I was gleefully informed that I was clinically dead and must eat more bananas. That put a shot across the bow and spoiled the atmos somewhat, as the Mem made it clear my usual holiday habits of eating pasties and cream teas until my stent begged for mercy would end when I finished my slice of cake.

Anyway, regardless of that, I was delighted to find that Lidl in St Austell had a good supply of fresh fruit and by keeping to my new diet I was allowed a few treats. I also had a break from the internet as I couldn’t link the iPad to the Mem’s phone so resorted to finishing Ian Knight’s excellent Zulu Rising, Corelli Barnett’s equally excellent biography of Marlborough (our greatest general and I will fight you for it) and two James Holland tomes: Big Week and Brothers in Arms, both from Emma’s wonderful New Chapter bookshop in Mevagissey. I also found a Ladybird book on Oliver Cromwell, so my Cornish ECW thing is still going strong.

Back to reality tomorrow, enduring the day job (I was planning to be retired by now) and dealing with my increasingly batty mother, who has taken to swearing like a navvy and giving nursing staff Harvey Smiths. So here are some relaxing holiday snaps to show life isn’t all bad. Yes, they are more arty sunsets.

Let me take you back to… July 1983

 Almost 43 years to the day, in fact!

Somehow, we managed to go on holiday again. I’m assuming as college finished early, like Minime’s has, that we were able to tuck an extra one in before the Skool holiday ripoff period started. Whatever and however, we ended up in a rather nice bungalow in Ilfracombe, Devon (Willow Close, to be precise!). My sister was far too old for family holidays and had managed to duck out. Frankly, so was I, but a week with my parents was preferable to a week of sisterly tyranny, so I went with mum & dad. To head off any potential surliness my parents told me I could do what I wanted (within reason) so long as they knew where I was. Which was fair enough, but limiting when I didn’t have my bike! Nevertheless, I spent a pleasant week dossing, sponging, listening to music and figuring out the most impressive game ever.

Recon was the catalyst. It was meant to be D&D in Vietnam (or Africa, as you could be a merc), which I tried on the college club with no success. But it did have legs as a conventional skirmish game, so I married it up with Once Upon a Time in the West (only the casualty calculator - I’m not mad, they were equally unplayable) and tried out a few moves with some card counters. What I had was something approaching a cinematic experience: I could create characters and use the D&D elements to make them achieve feats of derring-do. And I was in the mood for a commando raid…

My dad brought this back from work earlier in the year, after it had been read by most of the engineers in W E Sykes (yes - my father was a toolmaker!). It was about a commando raid on the coast of North Africa just before El Alamein. It is a fabulous book, but I had to reduce it a bit from a battalion-size action to half a platoon. My scenario was based in the Aegean (guess what film I was also inspired by) where the hun was building an advanced radar station which could seriously disrupt supplies to the Yugoslavian Partizans (bet you didn’t guess it was the sequel!). A small force of allied commandos would land by submarine, meet the local resistance, and destroy the station before it became active.

My room became a flurry of activity, as I diced for characters, made maps of the garden - yes, it could only be done with 1/32 figures in the back garden! - and worked out a plan that would never hold water militarily but would create memorable incidents. And the fact I remember so much so clearly over forty years later, when now I can’t remember where I put my glasses 5 minutes ago, shows I succeeded.

 Next time: more pictures, maps and, if my knees allow me up in the loft, figures.

And not forgetting…

Let me take you back to… June 1976

Saturday 19th, to be precise. My dad was about to undergo a double hernia op, which was a major thing then resulting in a week in hospital and about a month of recovery. Nowadays, you are in and out in a day but I digress…

The important thing is me, and more so as I would have my 10th birthday while dad was under the knife, so he took me to Addlestone for maximum scamming - whoops! - to choose some presents. I came away with a Matchbox He111 and a box each of the new 1/76 infantry (two German, though - dad did not want to be outnumbered). The one surprise present, though, was the Airfix LCM and Sherman. The LCM has long gone, but the Sherman survives in all its mid-80s Guards Armoured upgrade glory!

The hatch was modelled open as the Matchbox British had a tank commander and he needed a mount. So this is 50 years old and a bit fragile, but I still have my original Sherman which is probably 4 years older!

My dad built the Airfix stuff, but I had a crack at the He111. I did very well apart from not painting the pilots, which was my dad’s first comment when I showed him my magnificent effort. It was high praise indeed if you received a ‘Hmm. s’alright’.

Anyway, I’ll be jumping forward in time to 1983 again for my next post, with yet another holiday and my increasingly fertile teenage wargaming mind (helped by Keren Woodward from Bananarama).

Austrian Cavalry and the Wealden House

 I always seem to end up painting Austrians, an attraction the Mem (who didn’t enjoy her short stay in Innsbruck) cannot fathom. Does that make me another misunderstood Austrian painter?

Anyway, one cuirassier and one dragoon regiment done. Austria seemed to have a greater proportion of cuirassier to dragoons in the WSS, so another one is on the cards but I need a break from assembling Warlord plastics for a bit and these were the last of my prepped figures, so I crawled into the loft and dug out my box of unmade Innovate ‘Masterplan’ kits. I find terrain modelling very relaxing (which helps while I’m taking some enforced rest from work) and I’ve been eying up the Wealden House for a while. The original is in the Weald and Downland open air museum and features a garde robe (a khazi, Darren) which is faithfully reproduced in the model. However, Innovate has not included a miniature of Jeremy Lobb, who was rather cruelly shut in it on a St Annes school trip in 1976 (nothing to do with me). The only other strong memory I have from that visit was Jonathan Cox and his sausage sandwiches, which he would not shut up about. But I digress…

I was unaware that Innovate did a few ‘specials’ to go with their generic range, assuming this one was designed specifically for the museum. I’ve not seen another on sale since I got this, so I have probably upset the kit collector gang again, but models were made to be made. I’m still kicking myself I missed out on Thomas Hardy’s Cottage when it was on evilBay a few years back. Never mind. I’ve another Tudor house and some of the other kits will suit the WSS well enough for my purposes.

The Wealden House is one of the more challenging kits and needed more attention than my usual modelling MO tends to allow, but the end result was worth it. I always repaint these kits (cheap craft acrylics are best) as they have some rough edges that need smoothing, but they are good enough ‘in the raw’ and make sturdy buildings for wargaming. You can still get them, mostly on eBay, but they are becoming increasingly rare. I know I’ve said that before, but sadly it is true.

And that completes the French

 I will get round to photographing the whole lot eventually, but the regiment Battenbourg completes the French Collection (see what I did there). My first unit of Spaniards, Reales Guardias Españolas , are done bar the flag. Most of my units are currently sans flag, but this will be corrected when I save up enough cash to order from Maverick Models. The building behind is another Masterplan model, now rather rare.