Memories, Tangents and the Power of the Pastoral

 Charles Stadden 30mm BEF released fifty(ish) years ago

It occurs to me that wargaming the Great War is not going to be a straight forward thing. 

 

Let me elaborate. If  decide I would like a nice new unit  for the Peninsular War then I can choose a regiment and some figures and just paint them. I may have visited the Regimental Museum, or read a few histories or even had a drink on the Battlefield, but its not going to awaken much in the way of personal memories or provoke thoughts on art or music.

 

 

But so far almost every bit of pondering and background reading that I have done has set me thinking and remembering.  Even the figures take one back fifty years in a second. I vividly remember getting a flyer from Norman Newton of London drawing my attention to the new release of Stadden 30mm WW1 for 1914.  They were sure I would be as impressed with them as they were.  Well they were right and I still am but I still haven't bought any,is now the time?  But no machine guns or cavalry, perhaps better stick to 20mm.

 



Always something new in Woolworths!

I started my reading reading with Max Hastings new book on the first months of the war, 'Catastrophe'.  Quite good, I certainly enjoyed it though I have no very firm views on who wasto blame for the war itself.  One change I certainly noted was that the Serbs are rather less popular than they were 50 years ago. 

Next to an old favourite.

The Penguin edition I read then,
 now I have a first edition with an annotated cast list. Plus la Change

I enjoyed it as much as ever, though once again it reminded me of how close we are to the events. Robert Graves was still very much alive and living in Majorca in the late seventies when I used to walk around the beautiful mountains of Deya were he lived.  Of course, although his house was pointed out I would never have dreamt of bothering him, we are both British after all.

 

I hope Graves achieved the peace that he sought in his remote rural isolation. Which got me thinking about the way in the twenties and thirties many ex soldiers sought a return to the countryside in some form or other. Whether as tramps or living Rogue Male style in isolated shelters the most damaged withdrew from contact.  For others a study of ornithology, fishing or folk music connected to some  link in nature that gave comfort, and led to expressions as diverse as   A G MacDonald's 'England their England'  or Vaughan Williams 5th symphony.

 

First printed 1933 and read to destruction by me

 

 Sadly, I notice that once more their are ex servicemen  unable to cope with return to family and the 'normal' world living rough in the mountains around here. Often only noticed after their eventual suicide.  Only a very few, but far too many.

The Complete Angler 1653

 

 

Which made me check some rough figures, in WW1, counting the Spanish flu epidemic 2.6% of the population died.  During the English Civil Wars 3.6%  are guessed to have perished. Now I am not interested enough to research the numbers of homeless and vagrant persons recorded in the restoration. But I do remember that greatest of all nature books Izaak Waltons 'Complete Angler' written by an ex soldier and published in 1653.   As they say in Faltenland, "Plus la Change".

 

All that and still no real choices about rules and type of game. But lots of ideas and next time I shall get down to some wargaming nitty gritty.