B is for Bristol Bloody Missile Crew!

It's not often I get that excited about a figure or bunch of figure's rarity, all this stuff was mass produced, and even these do tent to turn-up from time to time, not just loose; but in unmade or part-made kits, so even they . . . aren't that rare, but still it's nice to find three together, which happen to be the 'missing three'!

I thought we looked at their officer - as an ersatz boat/landing-craft commander - way back at the start of the Blog (but can't find the post/image), these are the other three, issued with a large, box scale (approximately 60mm/1:30?) polystyrene model kit of the RAF's air[field]-defence Bristol (BAC) Bloodhound missile by Frog-Penguin (Triang-Lines subsidiary) and apparently manufactured for them by Poplar Playthings.

I don't know if there is any empirical evidence for the link, but PW have interviewed some of those concerned and they certainly have some of the same 'hallmarks', the flat, baseless feet being an obvious link with the Thomas/Poplar Spacemen, Cowboys & Indians and Romans, the large size and clumsily-casual, or laid-back posing being another link with the latter charioteers, although these guys are chunkier.

Described as being "Accurately detailed from official prints" - referring, presumably, to the missile - the crew figures actually look more like members of Dan Dare's space police than any RAF 'erks I've met.

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bristol_Bloodhound_missile.jpg

I remember coming into RAF Wildenrath half a lifetime ago and seeing dozens of Bloodhounds out of the window in batteries of maybe 6, arranged all around the end of the runway and out through the fields to the tree-line, not white, or silver or any of the colour-schemes you see them wearing in both old books and modern museums, but matt green and black, like squat little Dalek combat-stations!