Mdieval Mysteries

I get through a fair amount of murder mystery stories in my leisure reading, and recently came across a series new to me, though the number of titles available show it must have been going for some time. While most titles involve the same couple of protagonists, a naive monk and a peddler of pornographic tapestries, a few are more specific. The first is The Domesday Book (No Not That  One).

 Set in the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings, Wiilam finds out that the body he has been told is Harold is not. Harald has been wounded, not in the eye, but somewhere more personal, and spirited away by a group of supporters. William sends a mismatched group of retainers to find, and 'remove' Harold for good. They are to pretend to be doing a tax survey of the country to disguise their true intent. 

Odd and comic adventures follow, with an ending that leaves Harold in a situation open for the second book.

There is also a volume on the Magne Carta, where the original, sent by John to be copied, is lost, and the shenanigans following to get a 'true' copy written in time. Barons, King and others trying to get their own version produced as the official one.

History as it could have been written by Terry Pratchett, these titles can be found under the name of Howard of Warwick, and I can reccomend them.

I had hoped to put up a picture, but can't seem to get one donloaded, so you will have to google it for yourselves.

Nostalgia, a disease that hits the old folk.

 As I'm getting on a bit and have a house, shed and garage full of a lifetime clutter my wife recently suggested I might like to have a clear out. "After all," she said "it will be no use to you after you've gone, and the children are unlikely to want any of it". She is right, of course, and we are mostly all in the same boat. What is to happen to our collections when we have shuffled off to wherever we belive we are going? To this end I am taking a good look at what there is, and making lists with appropriate reccomendations (charity shop, auction, local club, whatever) of disposal. 

As it happens, on top of the wardrobe in our bedroom, among the boxes of family tree ephemera and memerabilia (including my dad's little diary of his trips across the Atlantic and back aboard a corvette during WW2) is a large box of old fashioned negatives from the late 1950s onwards. Most of which are torlly unimportant, but were obviously thought worth keeping at the time. A cursory glance through these threw up the negatives for the following picture. 

This photo was taken by me in the early 1960s, with my dad's camera and guidance, on our kitchen table. It was taken for sending in to the old Airfix magazine when they ran a monthly reader's photo competition. I didn't even get a consideration, not surprising when you look at the photo. Mind you, the negative has suffered over the years. Here is the story behind it.

Back in the War of 1812 the British navy had a number of actions against the American ships, one of which was that between H.M.S.Shannon and the U.S.S.Chesepeake in June 1813.

Airfix had issued their waterline model of H.M.S.Shannon some time ago and using the picture as inspiration I took two of these models, did some small conversion by removing sails, thinning yards, and different paint jobs to make both participants. A quick painting on hardboard of a blue ground and white streaks gave a background, while some kitchen tin foil gave a sea. Dad's pipe produced a slight smoke, aided by teased out cotton wool. This was the result.

Bearing in mind, I'd only be about 14/15 at the time I was quite proud of the result. Especially as it was my first real conversion attempt. I'd love to have a go now, but the Airfix model is going for silly money on the internet.

Alternative History Magazine

Out shopping with MrsJ earlier today (someone has to push the trolley or pop back for items she's missed in an aisle we've passed) I came across this one off title in the magazine shelves. Full of alternative history scenarios, some more outlandish than others.

Three pages of index listing the articles, one of which I show here.

Each article starts with a brief synopsis, and then takes the form of a question and answer session with an appropriate author.

Some subjects are more interesting than others. Most are of the usual things ,Napoleon winning Waterloo, JFK not assasinated, Hitler winning Battle of Britain; while others are less thought of, Vikings colonising America, Aztecs beating Spanish, Queen Victoria being assasinated (there were several failed attempts) and so on.

An interesting read that could give rise to some different ideas for games. 

 

Presenting The Colours

 Well, I've finally completed my little vignette begun back in January. Unfortunately, just after starting it both MrsJ and myself caught some sort of virus which laid us both out for a number of weeks. After three courses of antibiotics and a couple of weeks on steroids we are nearly back to normal but still a bit under the weather. I find that extended excercise tires me out easily so don't get much done.

The figures were mastered some years ago by Kieth Over of Whittlesey miniatures (anyone remember his Waterloo range?) but I've only just dug them out of the pile. I feel that my painting has definitely deteriorated, probably because of weaker eyes and more wobbly fingers, but I'm reasonably satisfied with the result. Apart from the Union Flag, which definitely needs a retouch, though it's not going to get it.

Next on the table, a couple of units of the Eureka 'Toy Town Soldiers' range, just to get back in practice and continue another project that got sidelined.

Seen on e-bay, business proposition.

Every now and then, about once a month, I have a trawl through e-bay to see if I can find anything of interest towards my various interests. While rooting through todays offerings I came across item number 225956576570 - described as follows;- Large lot Traditional Toy Soldier metal castings moulds business, 60 plus moulds plus 100s (742 in total) of castings, price £12,000. 

I did a quick search for the name in the advert, but though it seems familiar I could not track him down. I can only assume that this is an estate sale from someone who had a large range at one time. I hope it finds a buyer soon, as knowing the cost of moulds and metal the price seems reasonable.  If I were younger I could have been tempted.

Presenting the colours - begun

This is what I use as a painting table when working in the lounge. It's a replica campaign desk from a now defunct furniture company called Mulityork. Looks like a normal table when closed

but when the top is lifted it has a couple of work surfaces. It sits in the corner of the room with a light behind it, and back to the telly. I work on the front surface with paints, brushes etc. on the top. It only gets folded away when we have visitors. Grandchildren have been trained not to touch anything, though they do like to look at what I'm doing.

First up this year is a little 5 figure set from my hoard. This is based on a photo from one of the books on my shelves, showing Queen Mary presenting colours to the West Surrey Regiment. The master figures were made for me by the late (?) Kieth Over of Whittlesey Miniatures some 20 odd years ago. For various reasons I never got round to introducing the set into my range, so there are not many

 around. I see that I only have one standard (Langley) so I'll have to invest in a second before I finish.

 

 

All Change for 2024 - perhaps

 Since MrsJ and I moved to our little bungalow a couple of years ago I have been very lethargic on my hobby front. Most of my toy and wargaming stuff is still in the boxes they moved in, nothing at all has happened with my plans for small warships (50ft = 1in) of which I have a large selection of plans filed away, and the main, shed based, model railway has ground to a halt after initial enthusiasm.

The reason for the last is easy to spot. We now 'babysit' our 3 year old grandson one day a week, and he likes to spend the afternoon in the shed playing trains. He's not allowed access to locos yet, but faffs around with wagons and coaches, having come to terms with how points work, but this isn't restricted to the rails. So I plan to put a hiatus on construction until he starts full time school at the end of next year. 

I'm also going to dispose of some of the larger machine tools I used in my woodworking adventures, thus letting up space in the garage for easier activities.  I have plenty of thinner timber to use as hulls and superstructures, so the ships should be no problem. I've still got a couple of vessels started way back when, that don't seem to have progressed far beyond the hulls.

The other change will be that I have no storage space for a lot of the metal mountain tucked away in a spare wardrobe. To this effect I intend to dispose of my 18th century castings, an assortment of Minden figures, Fife and Drum, Eureka and other makers. I'll be putting these on e-bay over the next few months, so keep an eye out.

This leaves me to concentrate on the 54mm figures I have. Some date way back some 20 years, and It's time they were painted. Among them is a ful Langley Horse Artillery team, horses. limber, gun and gunners. Definitely time this was brought out and put together. I'm thinking that it should be mounted on a display plinth as a decoration once it is finished. But first, I think, practice on something a little smaller! I may have to invest in one of these magnifying spectacle type gadgets, we'll see.

I've joined a number of Facebook groups on Toy Soldiers, to see is this helps, but am finding that thw FB runners do seem to send me an awful lot of unsolicited rubbish they "think you might like". So my membership may be shorter than I expected.

Rant over for today. I promise to try do better with my blog entries over the next twelve months, keeping you abreast with progress, or lack of it. Thank you to all of you out there who do post regularly, letting me in on your activities. It does help and can be very insiprational.

Now, let's get this painting table back into the corner of the lounge.