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.