It's Still Wednesday - Well, The Days Were Longer Back Then.

 It's Wednesday - yes, it's still Wednesday because as the title suggests, the days were longer and besides, I loved Wednesdays.

It didn't take me long at all to get into the hobby up to my neck. I'd been playing fantasy stuff - I was an early adopter of Warhammer in it's first edition, and also converted a set of D&D mass combat rules in White Dwarf, and having joined SWS, I was finding my ways in ghistorical gaming quite nicely with older member trying to get me interested in sundry periods. 

Now, understand back then, there was none of the talk of factions and stupidly fluffed-out rule books, with special dice, battle boards and other such absolute fuckwittery. No, this was a time of good honest, manly rule sets which did not have to pander to a snowflake generation in order to get sales.

You bought a set of rules to play a ganme within a given period. You didn't have to find rules that catered for the fact that someone believed they were a unicorn trapped in the body of an insecure, unpopular 14 year-old.

And my god, a teenager in this adult world had to learn to stand up for themself or find another hobby such as golf.

Now, I was a sensitive kid - no, I mean it - and quite shy, but this exposure to older gamers made me the fine example of humanity I am today. Bullies at school suddenly looked pretty fucking stupid. True, they could still injure me, but they didn't frighten me anymore. 

I learned to hold my own with adults and to laugh at myself , making me that little bit less brittle. And I was committed to the hobby in a way a junkie is to their drug of choice.

What's more, I was in pubs and as long as I wasn't drinking under age, I was accepted by the adults therein, meaning that the allure of such ale houses was not the same as it was for my 'normie' friends at school.

By 1984, the junior membership of SWS was probably the highest in it's illustrious history. We were roleplaying down there, although - and those responsible deny it now - RPGs were banned unless figures were used. That was OK, because we loved the visual impact of models, and what's more we were playing military based RPGs such as Twilight 2000 and the skirmish/RPG Bodycount.

I found an abiding interest in the ECW and Italian Wars as did several friends, so we were ticking all the boxes and getting a wide spectrum education in gaming.

I was building my first 15mm ECW army using Mike's Models and JAcobite Miniatures, peppered with some Gallia and given that I was also getting into ECW reenactment, everything was swimming along nicely in that regard.

We played a hell of a lot Warhammer as well as Laserburn, and a group of us were on the cutting edge of the anime wave, writing rules to allow us to fight battles with 1/72 scale Macross mecha, which we bought at Beatties, Redgates, Hopkinsons and Marcway. When we were on holiday we'd scour models shops in sleepy seaside towns, often coming across a new or rare kit.

 There was an arms race as we all tried to buy the nastiest looking model, adding new weapons systems to our rules (this was before Battletech) as we read the technical specs on the boxes. Darren is a professor, directly due to this early interest in anime/manga, but that's another story. He's often a talking head now on Netflix shows about Japan... Look out for him.

Darren and I could often be found trying to get to Redgates after school on days when we thought the other person would not be going in. It got quite dirty and low down in terms of the methods we'd use. We would emp[loy rudimentary tradecraft, such as using the side doors to Redgates, heading to an elevator, followed by our opponent , then while they waited for the next lift, would rund down the back stairs or escalators to the models section o to grab the latest kit. PRICELESS MEMORIES.

We ended up using at one point 3 6x4 tables to stage our weekly games, much to the consternation of our elders.

What was great was that whilst we all had our favourites we would play pretty much anything. We got a taste for the Encounter One and Encounter Two sci-fi rules, written by members of the club, and were buying starship models from Citadel but mostly the excellent Q.T Models ranges, and being taught how to take an industrial fuse and some airgun pellets, to, with a snazzy paint job, create passable interstellar tankers and freighters.

AT 6:30 every Wednesday, whatever the weather, you'd find a dozen or more kids stood outside The Wellington on Langsett Rd in Sheffield, determined to be first in at 7PM to claim the tables befor ethe older and less nippy adults could get their toolboxes and pints up the stairs. 

It was at SWS that I learned about so many different periods, many of which you rarely if ever see these days, and this is why I will argue to the death that this was truly the Golden Age. Companies thrived without the cutthroat, big-box mentality we have today and the hobby was richer and more varied as a result.

When you found a new company, you sent them a letter and they sent you a catalogue and maybe a sample. These catalogues were guarded jealously and read to the point of destruction. To this day, I would rather look at a catalogue whilst stetched on the bed or sofa, a light breeze on my skin and cup of coffee close at hand. 

Remember we were 14 and 15 year old kids, trusted by our parents to make sometimes quite risky trips across an 80s city to play games in pubs with adults. Those adults took their responsibilities to our parents seriously and whilst we got a lot of rope to hang ourselves and some, shall we diplomatically say 'educational' experiences, they would keep a firm hand on us if we went too wild. No need for CRB checks here...

At 7 years old, my brother could walk around a show on his own - as he did at Birmingham - perfectly safe and be recognised as my kid brother and treated with respect and even affection. My Mum never knew he did that, but I knew he was safe as long as he followed the one rule 'DO NOT GO PAST THE ENTRANCE DESK, OR YOU'RE DEAD!'

He never did, and always came back to me clutching bags of freebies given to him by traders, sometimes just damaged or mismatched models, but they were his to own and paint, and it encouraged him to get into the hobby himself.

I became involved in the Triples show in about 1982 and never missed a single show until 2015 when quite frankly the High Comman got their heads stuck up their arses and killed one of the best events in the wargames calendar, probably second only to Salute. One day I hope that the North will rise again, but unless those who fucked up Triples learn to listen to people who make their livings in the hobby, they are I fear doomed.

In the school holidays, I would travel to various cities across the UK with my Dad who was an auditor for various companies, and spend my time seeking out the stores which I saw advertising in the press, and if it was Wednesday, I'd often leap from the car, run inside, grab my bag and toolbox full of figures and get my arse to the club to brag about where I'd been and what I'd bought. If it was a repeat visit as was often the case with Games Of Liverpool, I'd take a shopping list for friends and deliver unto them magical and wondrous treasures that even in Sheffield, with it's over saturation of gaming stores, you could not get.

I could have been uo since 4AM and would not get to bed until 11PM and even then would be reading something hobby related until Morpheus took me in his tender embrace for 5 or 6 hours.

Even now, when insomnia strikes as it has done several times this week, I head out to my games room and just potter about, in the ambience.

I'll no doubt come back to stories about SWSdown the line, but for now, I ought to go and fire up the lighting rigs and reach for the brushes as I spend another day at the coal face of creativity.

TTFN