E is for Eye-Candy - Gem Cadets

Adrian Little gave me these OBE's the other day, when I was passing, and I realised, looking for something else the other day, it's not a 'new feature', I started using E is for Eye Candy, a couple of years ago! Hay-ho, I'm a danger to myself sometimes!

 

Three of the Gemodels sea-cadet cake decorations, given heavy bases and painted in the 'Old Toy Solder' style of gloss paint or varnish, but without the pink cheek dots!

BMSS is for British Model Soldier Show!

As I mentioned earlier, I popped-over to the BMSS (Society!) show in Reading on Saturday, for support really, I wasn't buying, and while I got there a bit late, the entry-fee was collected against future show organising, and I took a few shots of the competition entries while I was there.

Junior effort, I couldn't have done something this good at 9

I know, because I tried!

Old School!

This was beautiful!

Fantasy, winged witches!

Beautifully executed fun!

Tommy Atkins, 'Dusty' Miller and 'Snowy' White!

These might be Airfix Multipose?

Cold! General Winter!

Northamptonshire's BMSS branch table.

 

Aldershot's table, I think there had been a modelling/painting display, but it was getting toward home-time. They used to organise their own show, in February, but it went the way of all flesh some time ago, one of my first big-purchases was from that show back in 1991 when it was still held in Fleet Library, or the adjoining Hartington centre, if I recall correctly?

You wouldn't want it up you, Captain Mainwaring!

You really wouldn't want it up you!

The Oxford branch, I was tickled by the St Trinian's flats

I can't find them on Google, but definitely fun!

Despite knowing Reading all my life, and managing to find the venue (and a free, legal car parking space) without trouble, I managed to take the wrong exit off the roundabout, going home, and got lost in a town-centre I no longer recognise, before taking the wrong road out of town (Early/Mortimer, not Swallowfield/Heckfield!), a road I also barely recognised!

The amount of development, in just the last fifteen or twenty years is staggering, the flight of industry, the population explosion (nationwide - 10-million, since the Tories came to power, most of it 'legal' migration), makes you realise how insignificant your 60/80-years here, actually are. When I was born in '64, Reading was already in the midst of a major post-war development boom, with new factories springing-up everywhere, but they've all gone, replaced by housing, and the centre has been rebuilt three-times?

Yet, once you get out of the city-proper, the old lanes have hardly changed at all in my whole lifetime, the same daftly tight-bends, narrow passing and overhanging foliage seem timeless, as you pootle through the old villages and hamlets, but a lot of the pubs are boarded-up or already converted to homes, as are most of the village shops!

The point this slightly-sad reminiscing is getting to, is that the show is best described as quiet, gentile, unhurried, and one wonders how many more there may be, from the heady days of filling the Royal National, so next year, try to get over if you missed it this year, like parents, pets or a favourite T-shirt (yes, I just listed them together!), you'll miss it when it's gone.

P is for Perfectly Planned Paint Patterns for Plastic Premiums

As seen elsewhere, the colour sheet for collectors who were collecting the French Mokarex coffee premium, medieval chess set. I don't know whether you got it at your coffee supplier, it was included with early issues of the coffee, or you had to mail away for it?

 

Not that rare, nor are their similar competitor next door, Café Storm (Mouscron, Belgium), but often over-priced, using the 'Polystyrene is brittle' argument, but lots of people collected them straight into display cabinets, 'granny drawers' or biscuit tins/cigar boxes, and they do turn up all the time, in good to mint condition . . . the thing to do is look out for bulk lots going cheap.

B is for Berline - Historex No. 30306 Plus Various Other Pre-configured Sets

A Berlin is a type of fully-sprung 'luxury' carriage, usually enclosed (Preiser do a number of both closed and open configurations, in HO-gauge compatible 1:87th scale), originally a German design, add an 'e' and you have a French one!

I couldn't be arsed to add all the catalogue numbers to the title track, so they are in the above images, I think the 30306 is a later code? I don't know what l'Emperor's original code was?

V is for Vivandiere - Historex No's 761, 762, 763 and 744

I think the closest translation is 'provisioner' or 'provender'. and it doesn't seem that the British army had quite the same role, there were hanger's on, women and children with some connection to the soldiery helping out at camp, and following the army, but not the semi-formal, vaguely uniformed women who served the French army, a concept which was passed to the American army during the War of Independence.

There's also some 'camp' stuff in there, but we can tell from the catalogue codes they are all expected or intended to be used together. And obviously, this cart was not within the Gribeauval System, and while of a common cart design, probably differed between Vivadieres?

M is for Medical Corps - Historex No's 771, 772 (1), (1)a, (1)b, (2) & (3) , 773, 774 (1), (2) & B, and 775 (1), (2) & (3)

There was no way to separate the figures and the wagon here, or not without tons of cropping and touching-up, so they're all in a bit of a huddle and you'll have to take what you want from them if you can find it!

The Boss!

The Wagon; I assume the wagons have the Gribeauval System at the front end, but the rear seems very different, it's fully sprung for comfort, for starters!

The uniforms . . .

There seems to be a cross fertilisation between human and veterinary medicine in the Corps, however I'm no expert and haven't read the blurb, I don't really follow the period, although I may be reading-up on it in the future, but I know some horse ambulances are open, so a conversion job/potential there?

G is for Gribeauval System - Regimental Wagon - Historex No's 784(i), (ii) & (iii), 785 & 786

A real quickie as I don't have the colour sheet if there ever was one, but for completion's sake here the little I did get from the catalogues (five catalogues have come in since the original scans, but I haven't started trying to make sense of them, just take the odd page!); the Regimental Wagon, which I assume is like our General Service (GS) wagons, or filling the same niche - a standardised design for ammunition, troops, other stores, cargo or casualties?

Just a thought, but one wonders if the Gribeauval System wouldn't have produced a weak-point in these, over the more sturdy British one, by dint of having a diss- or 'de-'mountable system (the limber/bogie set up between the horses and wagon-body) meaning a natural weakness at the join over rough ground or under fire . . . nothing jingoistic, just a curious thought? My thanks to Tony, and we're looking at the sheets for the ambulance next.