It's January, A New Year, A Bright Future... So Let's Hop In The De Lorean And F**k Off Back In Time.

It's January, a time when I used to begin another 'campaign season' in the hobby by planning what I would like to buy at Triples in March. Alas, Triples no longer exists, but I do still plan a January to October 'campaign season' every year, for what it's worth, and I often begin with reflecting on how it was when I had £3 per week spending money and a head full of white mey=tal dreams and printed paper aspirations.

I had some excellent times in the early 80s, along with some awful times, but the latter took place in the real world, so I wasn't really that bothered, because when life got shitty, I simply grabbed my denim jacket, hairbrush and whatever money I could scrape together, and went on a rampage in the world imaginary.

Now, when I refer to Games Workshop in an 80s context, if you don't know what it looked like or that Warhammer was but a glint in a Nottingham accountant's beady eye back then, then go out an get a hold of 'The Dice Men' the authorative history of the first ten years of Games Workshop.

Games Workshop sold pretty much everything back then. This was a time before Warhammer (just) and Fighting Fantasy was going to come around the corner at speed, like a runaway bus bearing down an a granny on a Zimmer frame.

Every mention of Dungeons & Dragons or RPGs was watched, recorded discussed and dissected in the same way theologians must have done at the First Council of Nicea, as we sought to establish a solid doctrine for this new hobby, or for some a new reality.

Oh man but it was fun...

I wrote to Citadel Miniatures with a sketch of a figure I had imagined on my Dad's best note paper (it was a lovely quality cream coloured paper I can still see in my mind's eye today, 44 years later) and asked if I could have some autographs of 'anyone famous'.

I got a reply on my own letter, saying that they had no figure like the Norse looking Half-Orc I drew, and a lovely little note saying that they could not find anyone 'famous' but the Trolls in the factory had signed it for me. And here were inky fingerprints all over the letter.

Laugh f you will, but also think for a moment... Somebody took the time to reply to a 13 year old nerd, and get a few mates to stick their fingers on an ink pad and 'sign' the response. THAT is engagement with your customers.

I was let down, but also elated that I had received a response from what was still a place of mystery.

Like many of my generation, I'd been a model builder and had a ludicrous collection of  1/72 or H0/00 scale plastic toys soldiers from Airfix, Revell, Matchbox and the excellent Atlantic, and painted them with the only model paints available, the humble enamel paint, a smelly oil-based paint which could, in skilled hands (something which evaded me until 1983/84) produce some seriously good results.

So it was, that apart from the few new fangled and expensive Poly S range, my first jar being 'Cave Fisher Magenta' followed by a cheeky ochre (the exact name of which escapes me but which was a brilliant shade), and the little paints that came with the two Heritage RPG sets I got from GW before it opened (see my book Real Life's A Bu**er - A Tale Of Sex, Dragons & Rock 'n' Roll' ) I set about 'painting' these exquisite little models of wizards and spacemen that were popping up all over the place like zits around the mouth of a glue sniffing Skinhead.

To be fair, despite my artistic abilities, painting these figures took a little time to master - around a year - but, there was some serious satisfaction to be had making enamel paints do what I wanted them to and go where I desired on a model.

It was excellent training and I often wonder what I would be capable of now with those tiny tins of joy. I don't know why I haven't bought a load, other than after a week of painting for others, I am unwilling to spend a weekend at my desk. Perhaps one day, I'll try my skills with them once again

My Mum was a natural crafter and she showed me how to detail a face using felt tip pens. When I let her loose with the permanent pens I was using for art lessons at school, she was in her element and could do impressionist style faces which brought my flat and unshaded figures to life with a dot or a swish.

Oddly, my mat Alan's brother was a gifted artist and a professional graphic artist at that. His first motorcycle was a little Honda, which he lavished much love upon with a blue metal flake finish and artwork from the 'Wheels Of Steel' album by Barnsley Rockers 'Saxon' - This was the very early 80s people, and even Barnsley was on the Rock's cutting edge - which I believe went a a long way when sold on, to covering his purchase of a spanking new Yamaha RD250 which looked much better against his mate Rob's Suzuki Katana. But Dave, whilst way better than Alan or I, was no Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong or Andy Ritson as we were going to find out.

Now, I am in no way dismissing Dave's artistic skills... He was good, but 25mm high plastic figures were not his ouvre, in the same way as the petrol tank of a motorcycle or a logo for a business would be way out of my depth.

I remember dreaming of getting a job like Dave had, in a place like Dave worked, where a passing flying insect, ruining the concentration of a hard at work artist, could be rendered into a living collage element with a deft shot of 'Spray Mount'. For ages I wanted to be a 'Dave'.

I often look back on those formative times and I can smell the turpentine, enamel and some other seriously toxic artist materials never intended for throwing at little lead dollies, but which we were experimenting with and spending sums of money on that, allowing for inflation, would make me pale today. 'But Mum/Dad, I need this for Art at school...' was a powerful way to get the funds required for the art varnish that Andy Ritson had said he used - you know, that one that had to be warmed over a candle before you brushed it on thinly and deftly, and which, the first time I used it, I applied like wallpaper paste, thinking that 'morer was matterer' and then having to ask Andy the following Monday night at the Runelords why, instead of an exquisitely varnished miniature, I had a model which looked like it had been enthusiastically wanked over by an Orc.

As some of you know, I have a few models painted over 40 years ago by Andy, in my collection and they still thrill me as much as they did when I was 14. His scratchbuilt Triceratops is fucking awesome and will be the centrepiece of my vintage Dwarf army:

 Remember, that this was built and painted over 40 years ago, with 'old school' materials. Some of those colours were not even available in ranges of 'model' paints.

Now, getting back to my 'hobby' of mithering game companies, Citadel also sent me A3 sized catalogue sheets, over which I poured with Alan and Craig 'Stav' Stainrod, carefully refolding it and putting it back in that sacred, totemic envelope - no different to any other - but it was from Citadel Miniatures and thereby had voodoo powers, or what I today call 'mojo'.

I wrote to TSR UK and they sent we wondrous things... Massive colour posters, catalogues, pages from The Dragon magazine advertising or promoting gorgeous looking D&D products. My god, one delivery was so thick that you could cull seals with it (although I never had the opportunity, and wish I had it still, so that I could twat a few people in this hobby with it instead of cute little seal pups).

And I literally took these everywhere with me, I mean everywhere... I was a weird and wired kid.

I lived in an imaginary world and guess that I still do. My eldest grandson is autistic and I see similarities between the two of us as he reaches the age I was when I got bitten by gaming, and I do wonder if I have gone through my life without it being diagnosed. But that is now and we are looking then...

Anywhere, any time, I could lay my hands on my beloved 'holy books'. At school, where it was brutal and wnere I was subject to some serious bullying, I worked out that my Adidas holdall had a reinforced base, held in place by 6 rivets to the main bag. This created two 'secret pockets' where I could - fortuitously - fit two A5 sized envelopes full of gaming stuff, so that even when my bag was 'raided' and it's contents  spread around a classroom for public examination, the much more valuable hidden content was safe and secure. Down the line, I modified this arrangement so that I could fit an A4 sized rulebook into it by making two of the rivets into mere 'props' to fool the passing eyes of the troglodyte host.

And so this went on for 4 years at school and slowly, but a little faster after I was attacked by an older friend and retaliated in a manner which saw me -  the bloodied 'victim' - charged with assault, I was left alone, not being seen as fun anymore. After all, this long haired kid (not long in the true sense, but enough that the epithet 'Fucking Hippy' was applied liberally) who played this weird game that summoned the Devil was not going to change his ways despite constant bullying and the making of his life hell, so where was the fun? How jolly fucking unreasonable of him...

And so it was, that on the day of my last exam, I spent the morning before painting a figure form the Aly Morrisson 'Oriental Heroes' set, and doing do very nively, with soft blue clothing with geometric floral pattern, gently shaded flesh and exquisitely rendered almond eyes and shape eyebrows. I can see it clearly, even as I type this, some 42 years later. Oh and it had green cord work and tasteful deep red fringing... It's that memorable.

But, it's not doing this lifestyle I was discovering any justice to merely scan over 4 years  which led to thet crystal moment, so I promise that I'll tell more of what I think has being a unique and wonderful life so far, from the perspective of literally having spent more time indulging in wargaming and roleplaying than anything else, including simply going through the everyday motions of existence. And still, I've not had or have enough time for all the things I want to do. I still can't for instance, conquer that waste of life that is sleep... 

Anyway, I think that's enough for now, as it's 9AM on Sunday and I have to get 25 kilos of plastic Romans and Celts packed for shipping to my figure painter. No, that was not a typo, I really do have 25 kilos of little plastic chaps to pack, with another 15 kilos of plastic Baron's Wars stuff to send down right behind them, before around 1000 Footsore Late Romans & Picts hopefully arrive this week.

Thanks for sticking with me in 2026, and please feel free to point friends to this epistle of a life led disgracefully but enjoyably.

If you are seeing ad, then please click on them because once I hit the threshold for drawing the funds, I will turn them off FOREVER, and use the proceeds to take my long suffering wife out for lunch somewhere nice.

You can find my book 'Real Life's A Bu**er' on Amazon, or Kindle, or even order it at your local bricks and mortar book store. It's almost 400 pages long, and I hope to write a secondvolume, covering some years and topics I did not feel mentally ready to back in 2011.

For some reason, quite a few sold over December... 

 

TTFN