Better Gaming Through Psychomancy

 

I'm just a few days away from my annual month-long break, which traditionally sees me visit galleries, a couple of wargames shows, some decent eateries and generally mucking about, soaking up culture, here, there and indeed everywhere, with the memsahib.

This year, the shows are a no-no until October, so I plan to also take a few little jaunts to try and conjure up as it were the ghosts of gaming days past, to indulge in pop culture psychomancy.

I sometimes think that if you can connect with a place, be right there on the spot, you can, if you stare hard enough see the past. Such is my connection to the site of the original Games Workshop here in Sheffield, with memories sweet and bitter, that I can, actually re-live moments in my life as clearly as if they were now. I can taste and smell the place, I can see the lights of the store, the austere and earthy tones of the decor and hear the chatter of the staff and my friends.

It's a powerful experience. The building has been swept away, but the rubble of that building forms the foundations of the new market area, located on the site. I think that much like the 'stone tape theory', the past is recorded on that spot and others to where we have a primal connection.

To stand there in the afternoon, in the late autumnal gloom and to have that clear, succinct sense of a 'waking dream' is wonderful. I hear the soundtrack to that part of my life in the Sony Walkman of my mind, and feel the sharpness of the cool air on my face and imagine the draw of the warmth of that place, like the ghost of a lover caressing my neck. 

To walk certain streets on a bright early summer morning, retracing the route taken to meet friends at the amusement arcade, Beatties, Redgates, with no real purpose or destination, is to travel in time.

To pass a fish & chip shop where we dined heartily so many times, look into the stairwell of the car park where we sat on the open top deck to eat, chat and just look out on the city, when life was so much simpler. At the time it seemed so serious and with our inter-tribal conflicts, dalliances with the opposite sex and the everyday problems of being a teenager against the back drop of a threatened nuclear apocalypse. But it wasn't... It was a time to be experienced and savoured like a good wine.

But back then we were bingers, not not oenophiles. We took in the spirit of the moment, and reeled from the effects, but never did we stop and savour those moments.

To this day, whenever we visit Doncaster and drie through the Town Moor district, alongside the park, I will comment to the memsahib about all the times that Roger, Darren and I used it as a shortcut to Athena Books and the welcoming, fuggy warmth of the little room above the store which functioned as Terry Wise's 'Wargamer's Attic'. May I never forget those days, as long as I draw breath.

So, this holiday I am going to take a few walks down backstreets of no regard to anyone but a few who 'were there'. I'm going to try and abjure the shades of youth, maybe even lay a few ghosts to rest and in doing so, continue my search for the essence of what drew me in and kept me involved with this great hobby for over 4 decades.

Maybe I'll find inspiration for my next army, maybe not, but it will be interesting to find out...

TTFN