Memory Lane: Part 22 What Did The Runelords Ever Do For Us?

 So, we've reached that point that saw me now a member of Sheffield Wargames Society and most recently the Sheffield Runelords, the rub being that I now had to choose between the Runleords and my Monday night 'closed sessions;' with my friends at the 'after school' club run by Steve Roberts.

I'd played a lot of tabletop stuff and even more D&D on Monday nights, and I was getting pretty slick as a DM, but Runequest and the 'glittering prize' of finding that imagined 'inside track' to the secret worlds that I'm sure all early 80s kids believed existed,.

That hidden gaming session with the staff of the local games store, whose sage-like words were sure to reveal arcane secrets and I would be able to learn them, to become an acolyte of thes fell lords of die rolling.

What actually happened was that I did indeed get to meet these people and many, many more. 

Back then, it seemed that every connection you made opened a new gaming related pathway. 

I met kids down there whom I'd seen in Games Workshop, and now there were grounds to insinuate myself into their midst on a Saturday morning, from there connections and tentative friendships were formed, which, evolved into more opportunities to game, or at the very least hang out for a few hours each weekend. 

It turned out that several of Sheffield Wargames Society were also veterans of the 70s 'first flush' of the hobby, and they were interesting because they thought more tactically than other roleplayers, because they also played tabletop games and were used to having to strategise. 

Of course there was a diownside to this, in that they also understood and appreciated the chain of command idea.

For example, Bob Cooper whom some grognards will know for his ACW wargames rules back in the day, was a a Humakti Runelord in RQ, whilst I was a Humakti Initiate and thereby subordinate to Bob. However, I'd been playing D&D handn't I? 

This meant that I was used to the subterranean free-for-all approach, so, when Bob (in character - or was that just Bob?) gave me an order, and I disregarded it, I received a sharp kick to my shins (my real fucking shins!) from a pair of leather soled, industrial grade brogues, which let me tell you, hurt the skinny legs (well turned skinny legs, of course) of the teenage way and taught me in a mere 5 or 6 bruises, the cult hierachy in Runequest. It's a lesson I have never forgotten.

What was interesting was how many of the Runelords were also former members of SWS, but whom I'd never met. They were a goldmine of information, both about gaming in all of it's incarnations, but also about history and Progressive Rock. 

They were probably only a decade older than I was, but they had 'come up' during the era of the counterculture and introduced me to the music of Yes and Gong, to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Ogri and R. Crumb, as well as Heavy Metal, the pinnacle of comic culture at the time.

Some of them, including the manager and assistant manager of GW were also reenactors, specialising in the ECW. This got me watching the latest TV drama, 'By The Sword Divided' and ignited in me a lifelong interest in the ECW.

I also met the Man-God who was/is Andy Ritson. A bout three weeks into the Runelords, I arrived a few minutes later than usual, to find Andy selling his stunningly painted Broo. Andy was, along with Pete Armstrong the 'state of the art' when it came to painting back then, and could take Pete to the cleaner' (no mean feat) when it came to modelling. Exhibit A M'lud...

Anyway, he was selling the last of those gorgeous models at £2 each, when I arrived, and I missed out.

Then, 40 years later, I saw that second hand figure dealer, Gary Westwell had picked these up in a job lot. I bagged a few, which were in a sorry state when I got them:

 

 

These were superior to anything in White Dwarf at the time, painted with tube acrylics. I've now lovingly repaired and restored them, leaving them with the original basing (something that even my figures from the Joe Dever collection didn't achieve) and are serving as leaders for the 160 or so Broo, dioing service in my Chaos hordes. The Dwarf on Triceratops is also in my games room.

It was about this time that the weekly 'ritual' as outlined in Part 21, began to vary somewhat as I began to turn away from the company of Alan. I can't pin it exactly, because we were friends right the way through school, leaving together in 1984, and I know that we were definitely still hanging out after school, but I seemed to be morphing and mutating in a way you rarely saw back then.

I was not the only one, but back then, you made friends in your local area and, rarely found friends in another part of the city, let alone the country. But here I was, talking to kids - and adults -  that 12 months earlier I would never have even knew existed. 

There was a post-code pecking order, that was for sure, but trust me, some of my friends in the more 'elite' postcodes, lived there because their parents had bought their homes in the post war 'gentrification' of the 70s, so at the end of the day, that didn't last long. 

We were gamers, readers of 2000AD - close to a national religion for the dreaming classes - and well, misfits and nerds. Those facts made us natural allies, but still, a few of the ever groing 'horde' still wanted to be 'King Prat' in the manner they couldn't be at school, which at times meant that there were little spats of 'normal' behaviour which even today, are remarked upon when we get together for a coffee and bitching session.

What it did mean for me (and I guess others - I need to ask them I suppose) was that no matter how bad things got at school and the depths of the blackboard jungle, at weekends and evenings, I could escape to spend time, quality time, with my true tribe, a tribe which transcended postcodes, teenage feuds and all that went with growing up in the early 1980s.

That broadening of my social base, no doubt opened up new possibilities to me as a nervous, shy 14 year old, and probably contributed to making me the brash, in your face person I am today. It taught me how to interact with adulkts beyond the parental and educational constraints and for that I am eternally thankful. 

Of course, when something went a bit awry, it was at a time when I was emotionally underdeveloped, with the downside that some things affected me to a degree that I am still 'reactive' to certain people and themes, some 45 years down the line. My wife thinks it's because I am 'On The Spectrum' and undiagnosed, but I don't know... It would explain a few things, that's for sure.

But on the whole, I'm not complaining. I was introduced to some amazing people for whom I have more respect than I would care to admit to their face and which, they'd not believe if I did, but there you are...

I'm really glad that I went the way I did.

So what the Runelords did for us, was to bring together a disparate band of kids with unique traits and undoubted talents, mix us up, spit us out and I think, give us all a more interesting future than we would have had if, we'd just remained within the confines of our own small school allegiances.

Well, the clock is showing me it's time to go to work...

 

TTFN