1983 Retrospective (or something like that)

 As mentioned in the previous post, the descent into A Levels, hunting for a part time job and joining a club for ‘proper’ wargaming began in September and I can reasonably claim that was the point at which the childlike joy of toy soldiers began to fade into ‘serious’. At 60, I look back and wonder if that is why I am now so jaded with the gaming element of the hobby. John Ruddles got it right.

One of the things that amazes me was how I managed to experiment with so much in the first half of the year: Pony Wars, AWI, Zulu Wars, Commando raids… All on a shoestring budget! I think the inventiveness that characterised younger wargamers in the 70s and 80s has been lost. How many wargamers nowadays start off looking at magazine photos and aim for that, buying into whatever ‘system’ and it’s associated figure ranges has the best advertising, rather than chopping up cardboard boxes and raiding bins (especially the bins from Skool woodwork and art rooms - yes, I did do that) for useful bits and bobs. Or spun through a loo roll if they needed a lighthouse.

Perhaps I’m being unfair, but it would be nice to see people struggling with hair roller armies, or trying to create pipe cleaner cavalry for pipe cleaner infantry. I can do both 😉.

My main inspiration in those early years came from films, comics and Commando books. Of course, I was reading ‘proper’ history books and building my library (courtesy of Bryan Forbes’ bookshop) but who wants to do a ‘Dark Age Infantry Slog’ when you can be Gregory Peck and David Niven? This game was a mix of all those influences.

Sadly, the music which powered me through all my experimentation up to September rapidly went downhill, UB40 being the catalyst (can’t stand them!) and the excruciating Flying Pickets giving the year a musical coup de grace. There were a few honourable exceptions - Lionel Richie, Simple Minds, Assembly - but even groups that had come up with earlier belters were scraping the barrel. Compare Let’s Dance to Modern Love: even Bowie was letting us down! Little did I know Queen were limbering up to save the world…

However, worth a mention was the late, great Bonnie Tyler, whose Total Eclipse of the Heart video was filmed up the road from me in what was Holloway Sanitorium! I actually visited there on a skool trip once. Yes, St Ann’s Heath Middle Skool thought a great day out for the kids was a trip to a functioning mental hospital. Mind you, it’s where most of the teachers should have been.

1984 would see an improvement musically, academically and financially over the final months of 1983, and I mostly enjoyed my Friday nights at Staines, although it was clear I was not part of the ‘in crowd’ and I would not make any friendships, lasting or otherwise. From a gaming perspective it did introduce me to different periods and scales but I’m not sure if I spent my years there just going through the motions and doing what I thought was expected of me, because no matter what I played there was always something missing…

It was the smell of French Marigolds as you rummage around to find a paratrooper with a broken leg.

Anyway, a quick visit to the loft and I found these survivors from the raid. Enjoy!

Lloyd, Ravenwood, Marion & Doctor Jones

Written in 1978!

German mobility!

If I look harder I may find some more bits. Note my WSS generals are being prepped…. 

For men of a certain age…

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…

Has the Officers Call Been Silenced?

 Can’t help noticing the Sound Officers Call blog is kaput. I know Steve has posted irregularly over the past few months (I may not play, but I’m still a nosey bugger) so hopefully it is just a glitch and all is still well in the mess.

So what better way to invite a red-blooded male back to the fold than a photo of Kim Wilde? Yes, it is just an excuse to post more totty.

EDIT: more Heligan.

FFS….