WITH PIKE & SHOT TO FOREIGN FIELDS

"When did you last see your father"

W.F.Yeames

                                                 I vividly remember as a seven year old lad being given a gorgeous book called "The history of the British People in pictures". It was filled not with the graphic delights we see today but with wonderful black and white reproductions of works of art, relative to the period it was describing. At sometime during the many hours spent exploring it's pages, I discovered this wonderfully evocative painting. I still have the book today cherished and seldom opened. The Yeames painting began a love affair with the English Civil War period that has stayed with me all my life. It's vision of a country torn by war, separating friends and  family and setting (in my youthful eyes) master against servant, king against country defined my conceptions of constitutional struggle. It all seemed so clear cut to my childish perceptions. Evil money grubbing rebels pitting might and main against a much loved king & country.. I became an instant Royalist.

                                                 As I grew older and my interest in history grew into a passion, I, of course, realised that my simplistic boyhood vision had been simple fantasy. All that was good did not wear a crown and anti-royalists were not necessarily disciples of evil!! The interest remained however but my view became an unbiased one. When I began to purchase wargames armies the combatants of that terrible war were a natural choice.

                                                  Later as my interests grew to encompass wider ideas, it was quite natural to me to contain my P&S wargaming to the same period. So it was that Germanic and Imperial Thirty Years wars armies joined the serried ranks on my shelves. The curtailment of my gaming when I moved to Spain has meant that my beloved figures seldom explore a table nowadays but many are the hours I spend examining that still so alluring cabinet...?=0)  I suppose no more armies in lace and frills will join them, I have too many things I still want to explore but then a Swedish army would be nice...  HHHMMMmmmmm!!  

THE REALM WE FIGHT FOR