MEMORY LANE PART 18A: A Bookish Youth Who Never Lived In The Real World - And Still Tries Not To. OR: Have You Got These Models?:

As you will know, if you were a seasoned reader, before 'The Great Post Purge', I have always pretty much been an 'all rounder' in the hobby, being firstly a roleplayer, then swiftly after that, both a historicial and sci-fi wargamer, and latterly in the wake of the release of Warhammer, a fantasy wargamer too.

True, I'd played some games with the AD&D mass battle system on an early White Dwarf issue, so I guess I really did hit the ground running with too many camps to have a foot in, under normal circumstances. But, I was used to having 7 comics per week, all differently themed, and I balanced those well, and so, being that particular type of dreamy kid of the 70s and 80s who did not have the distractions of today's pampered poppets, who try to recreate the 'authentic' gaming experience and generally fail to make more than a pastische effort, an 'Eton Mess' of the hobby, mixing up the metaphorical fruit, meringue and cream into something tasty but lacking the nuance and individual flavours of the compnent parts.

Still, we must be kind to these little lost unicorns, because if not, they have a nasty tendency to try and bite your fucking hand off. So, let's leave them here in the candyfloss meadows to graze, and take a step back in time.

It's true that I have basically given up on large scale projects, being 57 and wanting to rediscover the simple pleasures of the hobby again, and perhaps even take up another to fill the void that not constantly planning, learning about and ordering armies has left after 4 and a half decades.

I am the obsessive type and I think this is true of many of us, and I always have been. When I was at school, I actually had a desk with paints and models in, and a lock on it (more on this, soon) such was my dedication to wargaming...

I soaked up material for gaming, even if only tangentally connected, like a sponge and was constantly looking for a new 'inroad' to the worlds imaginary. I was obsessed with the war films of the 60s, television sci-fi and, as they emerged, sword and sorcery films like The Beastmaster and those dodgy ones from Italy and Argentina with lots of khol-rimmed eyes and tits bouncing in every frame (Watch for the ever shrinking loin cloth in the snake pit scene in Conan - it's very 'of it's time' - and will probably/hopefully have those poppets in a froth when they see it) although I have never quite had the mettle to watch 'The Barbarians' to this day...

Anyway, in the autumn of 1981, my parents had actually got me to go to a large Sunday market at Thoresby Hall (still on to this day), a vast outdoor bazaar where one may meet the Sinbads and Ali Babba's of the East Midlands, and maybe score some cheap toys. However, on this day I was drawn to a stall selling publishers' remainder books where for £1.99 (about the equivalent of 60% of my weekly pocket money at the time) and in one of the rare acts of pity which my parents sometimes showed to their useless dreamer of an eldest son, I acquired a copy of the fisrt of what would become a large collection of sci-fi and fantasy art books, 'Tour Of The Universe' by Malcolm Edwards and maestro of folk horror, Robert Holdstock (at the time the name meant nothing to me, and it would be another decade and a half before I would lose myself in 'Mythago Wood' and my wife would go wild over 'The Fetch'.

What caught my eye, were the 'on point' sci-fi paintings, something I'd only seen on the shelves of places like Exit Books and the original Sheffield Space Centre, (a shop so dark in it's original location on Heeley Bottom in Sheffield that you literally could not see into the corners or onto the higher shelves, being much darker than even the Savile Suite at Fiasco, but where we saw our first Elfquest miniatures, rather than in GW) with £10 price tags which made them pipe dreams or at the very least a month of forgoing all other pleasure of the weekly pocket money dole, to save for just one.

And yet, here I was, with a copy of what to this day ranks in the top 3 memory-inducing items in my possession:

The book was not just a series of amazing sci-fi paintings, by some of the big guns in the field, but was also a narrative telling a once in a lifetime 'Tour Of The Universe' by a young and attractive (are there any other types) of couple, the illustrations being woven into the narrative, with loads of facsimile documents too (this was never going to end well, once I found sci-fi RPGs was it?) - and there was a twist in the tale, which I will not relate here, but if you can find a copy, and are a fan of sci-fi art, grab it and read it, and learn the secret. The penis-shaped alien is a winner every time!

From there, it's been a lifelong search for interesting art books, culminating in a chance meeting with legendary fantasy artist Patrick Woodroffe, (chance happenings have always been a feature in my life - more of this anon) whilst on a family holiday in Cornwall and a night we'll never forget (more of this anon, too).

I still have a few to find, including Terran Trade Authority Handbooks after I sold my entire collection to pay bills when Dungeons & Starships was going under in the 90s - (Indeed, if you have any unwanted/unused sci-fi and fantasy art books, and want to sell them, reach out to me through the Satanic Panic Miniatures page on Facebook).

That book coloured how I saw sci-fi RPGs and even skirmish games. Shortly after acquiring it, my journey into gaming began, and so it was a sort of primer, combined with 2000AD, Starlord and Starblazer comics (memo to self: start collecting the latter) and when I saw the 'Spacefarers' miniatures from Citadel and the stunning paint jobs that the late Pete Armstrong (yes, him again - he keeps coming back like an over seasoned mo-mo) the die was cast for some serious adventures.

Oh how I painstakingly tried (and failed) to copy those paint jobs). I got close with the Dark Disciples, (which my sister swiped in the 90s and never returned) which were painted in the then new, Humbrol 'Bobcat' acrylics... Water based paints? It'll never catch on...) and now, as a hobby aside from my hobby, I'm collecting the Spacefarers range again, with the hipe of some narrative skirmish gaming.

Pulling on both my wallet and connections, I've made a good start, acquiring about 80 in the first week from varios sources, with only two or three damaged (and therefore nit going in the games room):

In fact, in the last few minutes, as I typed this sub-memoir, a lovely copy of the Spacefarers rules were delivered - a mere 14 hours after buying them - to my door:

And so, I continue to reconnect with gaming and indeed a time before I became a gamer, ploughing my own metaphorical furrow, and refusing to engage with the whole crappy world outside.

Can I ask you all to have a look in your collections and, if you have them doing nothing, I would like to buy any old scifi figures, particularly the Spacefarers range, along with more rulebooks and indeed the Combat 3000 rules, please let me know.

I'm interested in any of the models, but I am desperately looking for these models:

I will pay £5-£6 each and and may a bit more if you have multiples. I need the right arm for the S53 Giant Robot Sentinel and will pay £15 for just the arm or £40=£50 for the whole figure, with or without the base

2-3 of S9

1 of S40

2-4 of S39

1-2 of S27

2 of S26

3 of S25

1-2 'Jump Scooters' with undamaged autolaser

2-3 S15 with undamaged (IE not like the one in the pic) Boltgun