Memory Lane Part 6: Toy Shops Of The Steel City Part 5

 And so, we head towards the end of the primer on the toy stores which directly and indirectly led to my entry into gaming, in all it's forms.

Leaving Redgates, we head now to the Moorfoot, the location of the current Games Workshop, but we are disregarding the Johnny-Come-Lately because it's not my Games Workshop, neither is it where we are heading.

We are instead heading to Marcway Models, a compact two floor model shop where many good things can be found. 

Now, Marcway was very much at the extremes of the Hides zone of control, but it had some great stuff. I still preferred Beatties for most of my stuff but it would be Marcways where I would find, in the mid-80s a stash of Macross kits, during...

Well, let me jump the Shark a little and tell you what the situation was with regards to Macross kits.

 

The Macross range of anime themed giant robot kits were new in the mid 80s, and Darren Ashmore (now a tenured Pofessor of Giant Robots and Puppets at ICLA in Japan, no less) had been pulled into the whole mecha thing by the late (and responsible for so much of what we both became - for better or worse) Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong, who was drip feeding us a diet of giant mecha-protein, and tomake it worse GW was stocking mecha kits, in a time before even the first 'Battlemechs' game was released.

Of course, we wanted games with these things, which depending on scale could be 6-12 inches tall, and of course, had to be built and painted, which we did. In fact we entered into an arms race of sorts.

Redgates and Beatties were the primary battlegrounds, but Marcway started to stock them too, and we have of course already mentiond the GW influence. We also both holidayed on the East Coast, and both knew all of the toy and model shops in Skegness. Oddly, we would help each other out if one of us was there on a jolly, but at home it was war!

Darren and I were the ringleaders of the mecha-invasion at Sheffield Wargames society and turned them out at a prodigious rate because we'd written a rudimentary set of rules that meant we could put them on a table at the club and play games with them. Thi in itself became a bit of a problem, as before long, at the worst stage of the fetish, we raced in at 7PM, ran upstairs and laid out 1 12x4 table. Shortly after that we were sanctioned and had to make do with 6x4 like any normal club members.

Now, we both set out some rules for the fair and open acquisition of weapons systems - and immediately both broke them. We could be seen at weekends and even after school, lurking and scoping out the various shops, as we both broke the rules we had sworn to adhere to.

One day, I had popped into Redgates after school and bought a rather nice Valkyrie in Battroid mode, and when I showed Darren, he showed me his armoured Valkyrie in Battroid mode, which he - the sneaky low down bastard - had got earlier the same day. Of course, I the wounded - but equally sneaky, low down bastard - party threw up my arms and had a good rant and blarted about how Darren had broken the rules, in an early practical lesson in plausible deniability.

But, I found out about Marcways stocking Macross first, and for a while, I ran amok, aided by the girl - a couple of years older than me, but who was sweet on your correspondent, (because let's face it, she was only human after all) who, stashed stuff away for me, which was a noble thing to do nbecause the owner was - and still is - a bit of a grumpy git.

It was good whilst it lasted, but Darren with his similarity to a youthful John Candy, was also a charmer and so my advantage was lost not long after.

Marcways eventually moved from the city centre to Attercliffe Common, where it remains to this day despite the opressures of the modern retail trends, the last of the Sheffield model shops. You can still get some great stuff there, but I always preferred the Moorfoot store.

I understand there was also another model and wargames store in the area between the cathedral and West Street, possibly called Gordons. 

I think it may be where John Steele, a later GW Sheffield manager worked , but he is sadly no longer with us. If you have any more info, please let me know.

I am also looking for the recollections of those who shopped at The New Model Soldier Shop .

Well, if you will excuse me, I better go and start another day at the coalface of creativity.

NEXT TIME ON 'ANORAKSIA NERDOSA':  Origin Stories!