Did You Know You Can Get 42 Slices From A Small Banana? And Other Reflections On The Meaning Of (Gaming) Life

 It's an odd feeling to be able to once again sit quietly with a coffee and a few Ryvitas (topped with a heady melange of thinly sliced banana and peanut butter) enjoying the early morning. I keep expecting a builder to tap me on the shoulder and pass me his plate for another bacon butty or mug of over sweet tea.

 

That said, the whole simplicity of it all has me reflecting on the days of my youth when I had few cares and even less responsibilities. This was a golden age of gaming indeed.

There can have been few kids as dedicated to the hedonistic gaming life as your correspondent, and it's ni hyperbole to say that many times, the staff of the Sheffield Games Workshop, walked from the back entrance, into the shop proper, to find a young Hides, literally stuck to the window, straining to see what was new, lest I miss the release of something by even a second.

In fact, it was one of these 'limpet' days which first had me zeroing in on Warhammer 1st edition. Ahead of the launch of the game, the store had a painting competition for fantasy units. The entries were all placed in the window with tantalising glimpses of the upcoming rules release. As a tabletop gamer I was totally sold on the concept, but with the promise of an integral roleplaying system, I was doubly enthusiastic.

Anyway, time would reveal that all the entries were painted by staff members and moreover, there were no 'real' prize winners that time. How could there be? We had no idea what a fantasy regiment looked like in Warhammer. AT the time, I fumed about this, but now it gives me a good feeling and makes me smile.

I know that some of you will be thinking I am looking back through rose tinted glasses, but I'm not. I loved and indeed still love gaming as much as life itself, and I an blessed, truly blessed to be able to make my living in the hobby. I have enough money, a pleasant house and a great wife who shares a love (developed over the 36 years of our relationship) of gaming. How many men can say their wife has 10 times as many Undead as they do?

Speaking of the memsahib, She Who Will Be Obeyed is down in Westminster again today, so I have high hopes of a small token from Furtnum & Mason in recognition of my rising with her at 04:30 and sending her on her way with a slection of healthy nibbles as she is travelling by standard rather than first class again today due to the vagaries of the service at that time of day. 

But as usual, I digress...

A while ago, I took the decision that I would be my own person, in regards to what I did with my life. My parents had despaired when I quit the Civil Service on the spot and declared that I would make my living in wargaming. In fact my father literally wrote me out of his will as you may recall, leaving me a very hurtful letter when he died. I showed that letter to some old friends the other week and they could not believe it, but I draw strength from it, and it makes me even more determined to succeed and moreover to do so on my own terms.

So, if I want to have a room filled with the best scenery and 6000 fantasy figures (not to mention the historical stuff) I jolly well shall and and if anyone wishes to judge me, off they can jolly well fuck.

I suppose that I can trace a slightly non-conformist streak back to my first days at Comprehensive school.

Historically, I come from a  non-conformist religious background for starters, and spent 4 years at Limpsfield school which in the 70s was a model for liberal education, delivered thoughtfully and moreover aimed at kids from a working class background. It was a method which really made pupils stand out from other schools in the area, to the point that when we all went to comprehensive, we could be instantly picked out as 'being from Limpsfield'.  It was only a year before I started at Limpsfiled that the practice of calling teachers by their given names rather than 'sir' or 'miss' had been discontinued, bevcause it was realised that when our liberated little souls did so at comprehensive, we got more than our fair share of canings for perceived disrespect to staff.

Back then I had no heavy Yorkshire accent as witnessed by those of you who may have listened to me on Ken Reilly's 'Yarkshire Gamer' podcast. When I started at comp' I was seen as 'posh' and for the first few weeks got some really good kickings, leading me to develop what is now an incurably broad Yarkshire accent.

My parents were not happy, but even being grounded couldn't undo the damage to my accent. 

I lived in a world of games by 1982. I carried games related ephemera everywhere, wrote to every kid's show where I could possible see a gaming angle (I even had a badge from the 'Madabout' show with that bearded lunatic Lancastrian Matthew Kelly).

I sent sketches to Citadel Miniatures and asked if they had 'A figure that looks like this...' and requesting autographs. I did get a lot of mail order stuff and a nice letter which the mail order 'Trolls' had covered in finger prints made with an ink pad - because trolls can't write you see - which, looking back was really nice of them because they didn't have to do any of that, but to a 13 year old lad it was pure experiential gold.

TSR UK sent me reams of posters and adverts and catalogues too, and Flying Buffalo sent copies of the much lamented Flying Buffalo News. Some 16 years later I would be working for that same company in what was the best time of my life, running the pirate ship that was Dungeons & Starships, Sheffield store, along the way nearly bankrupting myself, but at the same time never slowing down my breakneck journey in the gaming world.

My parents never encouraged me nor financed my hobby so, I turned my hand to painting and at 15 was able to earn £50 per week painting after school (and in class - but that is another story) which could get you 160 figures in 25mm, back then.

It was this financial freedom which allowed me to amass stupid amounts of figures and which led to the previously covered instances of simply blindly emptying a rack of figures at GW into my own shopping basket, and being able to travel all over the country to what were then distant places in search of more gaming goodness.

To gaze upon the delights of Games Of Liverpool, with what is to this day the best dice counter I have ever seen, is to imagine how it must have been to enter the legendary Xanadu.

Still, my parents did not care for my obsession, although my mum did do a little painting with me and stayed up with a few times when I painted from 8PM through to 5AM non-stop, so the lack of approval for my hobby does seem at odds, but that's my family for you. They never gave a positive comment on my work, so you will understand why I cherish one or two words from Andy Ritson or the late Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong to this day.

Despite this, and through several really dark times in my existence, here I am, finding my second wind in the autumn of my time on this planet.

And I am happy in a way that is actually dificult to articulate. I guess you'd need to see the smile and twinkle in my eyes as I type this post. But of course, you can't, and so with that I will sign off and finish the last of my coffee and that spot of peanut butter on the side of my plate.

TTFN