Ta, da da ta da da Taaaaa! It is my One Thousandth Post!

 Yes, rather amazingly, in just over a decade of this blogging malarky, I have reached the milestone of my one thousandth post!

Having just seen another blogger mark a similar event with a retrospective on his wargaming "career". I am going to pinch this idea and try something similar.

As long as I can remember, I loved toy soldiers, and scale models in general, be it my dad's various model railway layouts, Action Man "soldier dolls (as Val on Blue Peter was wont to call them!) or even the dolls house my dad made for my younger sister!

I had all of these, plus a HEAP more, even had a Scorpion tank at one stage!

Growing up in the late sixties and early seventies, toy soldiers seemed to be a ubiquitous toy for all boys. Many a time I have gone to a seventh or eighth or ninth birthday party with a box of Britain's soldiers as a present! I definitely remember giving a friend Colin Farquharson a box of 8 or 12 of these Trojans (this image is from an auction house where these six figures are offered for sale at US$240!!)

A couple more examples of these toys of yesteryear that I can recall having as a lad:

This was a great favourite - Cowboys and Indians (sic) being de rigeur in my childhood, even in the UK!

In addition to the large 1/32nd or 54mm toy soldiers, there were of course also the enormous range of Airfix 1/72 soft plastic figures - and I had LOTS of 'em!

I remember my mum and dad in our kitchen, running a production line of these highlanders - red jackets, black hats and boots, brown muskets, dark green kilts and the flesh areas all painted up while I waited impatiently to get my hands on them!

I had all these (and more) - I doubt there was an Airfix set I DIDNT have at some point!

I also had a decent number of the larger Airfix figures - I think the very first one may have been the US Marines set,,,,

And not forgetting the hard plastic "terrain" pieces like this one - although I had fewer of these from what I recall in fact, this was possibly the only one I ever managed to get my hands on!

And then there were the soft plastic military vehicles such as these ones

The first organised, "proper" wargaming I ever did was at the local scout hall around the age of ten or eleven. One of the senior scouts, a boy of all of 14 or 15, asked at the end of one evening if anyone was interested in coming along to the hall on the Sunday to try a "wargame". A few of the weirder boys duly turned up, including your truly, and we had fun crawling around on the dusty, wooden floorboards, moving around hundreds of unbased, unpainted Airfix WW2 figures and vehicles - I was hooked!

As best as I can tell from Google Earth, this is the current incarnation of the scout hall in Montrose, Angus, Scotland, where my lifelong obsession with wargaming began!

I cannot remember the exact sequence of events, but over the next few years, I acquired a number of wargaming related books, and through the magic of the internet, here are a few examples.

This was a great favourite - I remember there was a picture of one of Santa Annas Mexican infantrymen's uniforms that I convinced my mum to attempt to copy for me to wear to a fancy dress party around the age of 10!

This, I think, was my first ever specific wargaming book, I didn't follow the usual path described by many of requesting "the classics" via the local public library - not sure why, it just didn't occur to me I guess - I had never heard of Donald Featherstone or Peter Young etc at that time - I only became aware of them as an adult

These are some others I remember having in my teens

I might even still have the next one somewhere!

Here is the scene of the next incremental advance in my wargaming journey, the local high school I attended form 1974-1980 - Montrose Academy. (Built in 1815)

In about the third year, a music teacher, Mr Cargill, started up a wargaming club, which I immediately joined, along with maybe half a dozen other strange boys

And again, courtesy of the web, here is an image of the said Mr Cargill, albeit from 1962, the year I was born! He was near retirement age when I knew him - I remember he actually did retire when I was around 16 or 17.

Mr Cargill had a number of classic old school metal figures - Hinton Hunt I believe, and this inspired the club members to invest our very limited resources in emulating him, and slowly adding some metal figures of our won to the larger numbers of badly painted Airfix armies we used at the school

When I was first buying Minifigs, the 25mm infantry figures were 8p each!

How I remember poring over these pages and planning how to invest my meagre resources - ah, the list and lists and lists we all wrote out!

Several old friends in the images above - and I still have a very few of my figures from that time - one French Napoleonic artillery piece and crew, a French caisson and a few officers

It was also in my early teens that my parents kindly set up a monthly subscription at the local newsagents for that staple of the day, "Military Modelling" To be honest, I mostly just looked at the pictures and the adverts for all the figures I could not afford to buy, but it kept the embers burning!

Around the age of 15 or 16, I was lucky enough to go by train from Montrose down to Edinburgh (twice) and once to Glasgow, to attend a real live wargames show, with a couple of mates and my good old dad in tow to make sure we got there and back safely! I have never been to a real show again, perhaps I will manage to be in the UK at the right time and get in one more visit one day?

From around this time, I dropped out of wargaming for about a decade. I went to university at Aberdeen in 1980 for four years but oddly didn't seek out a wargaming club, I think I was too busy practising my drinking skills! 

I really only got back into it by very circuitous, and I would say fortuitous, route. 

After meeting my NZ wife in the UK, and moving out here in 1988, we bought our first house in Auckland around 1991. We attended a Neighbourhood Watch meeting in our new area and met another couple, Jane and Andy, who were around the same age - and in a similar position, as Jane was an Aucklander who had met Andy in London. We had a bit in common and used to socialise quite regularly. In around 1993, we had a trip to the UK, and when we got back, caught up with our friends for a drink. Andy quite excitedly told me that while I was away, he had happened to find a shop in an industrial area of Auckland, Marua Road in Panmure, where some guys played a game using model soldiers and it looked really cool. Ah yes, wargaming, I answered - I used to do that when I was a teenager - I still have some of the figures my parents sent out here with all my other stuff when I emigrated a few years ago. Oh, says Andy - well, I am going over there on Friday to have a look, do you want to come? And the rest, as they say, is history! The shop was Military Miniatures, run by Mark of 1866 and All That, and with most of my current gaming mates involved as directors and/or shareholders in the business. They had a license to produce Front Rank miniatures, as well as a couple of other ranges, plus they had a small range of their own figures. There was large area at the back of the premises where there was room for a huge gaming table - something like 18 feet by 6 feet, and we had many a great game there over the next few years. Andy and I both bought some Front Rank Napoleonic figures and painted them up, then we bought some more, then some more! (you know how it goes) Andy lost interest at some stage and then we moved house, and we lost touch - but I didn't lose touch with wargaming or the bunch of guys I met thanks to Andys intervention, so cheers mate, I really owe you for getting me back into this wonderful hobby!