T is for TAG

Which may or may not have stood for something longer like 'Toby and Garry' or 'Turner and Griswold' but nobody seems to know? The general acceptance being that it just refers to the tags they came with, but I feel it may be a chicken-and-egg conundrum, especially with the capitalisation of the TAG, on the tags!?

 

RAF Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, Infantry (with a camouflaged beret!), and the Parachute Regiment, done in what is almost a Belgian (Durso) style, the same sculpt being used with different paint on the berets to represent several of the main protagonists of the British Army in the then, just finished, World War.

 

The reverse of the tags have a small thumbnail sketch or written vignette of the unit/figure represented. Their post-war issue being revealed in the text - 'served', and 'earned', in the past tense.

 

 

 

The officer corps were also represented, and here we see a standard Army officer, and RAF 'wallah' and their corresponding tags, the arms of the flyboy are uncomfortably wrong, in that the left arm should be slightly forwards, in time with the right foot.

Our Allies were also modelled, and here we see two GI's, and it's nice to see them in both 'white' and African American skin-tone paint-jobs, because we appreciated everyone who helped. Although without the tags, the black soldier may have been representing Brazil, who sent troops to the Italian campaign?

 

This seems to be a better rendition of an Infantry beret, but again, might be representing Canada or something like that, I don't know how large the series was, or how many nations were represented?
 

A comparison between the two shows a marked size discrepancy between the different mouldings, and is that a fledgling (at the time) UN flash on the GI's shoulder, maybe he's the Brazilian?

Ceremonial uniforms of both our own and allied armies, with a 'Highlander' (no specific regiment given) and a Cossack. I have one in another colourway somewhere (seen on the blog years ago) and have seen others, there may be as may as four different treatments of the decoration on this sculpt, even six - black, red, and white coats, with reverse versions?

 

A difficult subject, the Cossacks, as they fought in large numbers on both sides, mounted troops being very useful in winter snow, and for covering distance over the steppes in summer. Those fighting with us, were of Russian descent, those fighting agin' us, were fighting for Ukrainian Independence rather than in support of Nazism, while atrocities were committed by both sides.

 

The Women's Royal Army Corps weren't forgotten . . .

 

. . . and both the Monkeys and Snowdrops got a look-in!

Quality of finish varies, my Cossack is so tough or dense, and so smooth I thought he was resin, for years! While the figure on the left is a much rougher moulding, almost as lumpy as the worst examples of wood/linseed composition figures.

 

The first four again, showing the berets a bit better, the Para's is far too dark, as well as the odd Infantryman's two-tone headdress! Also showing the identical obverse of the tags through this sample, I don't know how many series' there were, or even if they ever got round to a Series 2?

 

     

T is for Thunderbirds Are Gone!

In fact they went just over a year after they started, I'm referring to Thunderbirds Are Go, a magazine which became, quite quickly, a subscription 'partwork', but which failed at the first hurdle - lasting a year!

Blogged by Moonbase at the time, so I held-off on my own purchases, but I'd got in at the start and predicted in a comment over there that it would peter-out after a while, with lower-value gifts and/or Thunderbirds-stickered (or printed) generic novelties, which is pretty much what happened, with a secret-code message booklet, Parker's 'cockney phrase book' "Shall I do the Berkeley, Mairy Pop'uns?!" or a tuppence-worth of vac-form mask, of the Hood's face!

 

But the early issues ran through the vessels in a '1:no constant scale' size model, I think there was a larger T4, but I missed it, and it'll turn-up loose at some point, if there was, I'm absolutely sure about that!

 

Probably the nicest was the T5, Space Station for onanists, which came as a kit of pre-coloured parts with a small sticker-sheet and therefore had a lot of inbuilt value-for-money, easy to build, it would be useful for all that micro-space wargaming some indulge in? "That's not a moon, it's a pocket-money trap!"

The flying Stalwart! Based on the TV reboot, the vehicles aren't quite as bad as the execrable movie, but nevertheless, they ain't the originals either, so not sad to see them die, a story which was told at the time over on Down The Tubes;

 

https://downthetubes.net/dc-thomson-cancels-thunderbirds-are-go-magazine/
 

What I managed by way of a collection, the T1 and T3 are relatively unchanged so why fuck-about with T2, which was everybody's favourite? Except for the big girl's blouses, who liked FAB1! I don't know if there was a FAB1 in the . . . 14 (?) issues!

S is for Sandown Park - May 2023 -

Welp, it seems to be Rack Toy Month already! But I've the Sandown sequence to finish first, just a few composition figures I picked up as samples or to compare with those in my existing collection.

 

Three - in khaki - marked NB for Nazaire Beeusaert, the Belgian composition maker and a fourth - sailor - who may be from the same maker, but is unmarked and a little smaller, so he may be another Belgian maker, they had several manufacturers who shared a certain style?

A Zang to check against the existing sample behind, and in front two which I was told were TAG, and may have shown here as TAG? Except I don't think they are, any more, TAG's seem to be larger, better detailed models, so these two are probably one of the other early British composition makers?

An unknown prisoner (who probably doesn't go with the Mountie, but 'goes' with him quite well here!), with his hands tied behind his back (possibly Italian?), and, errr, a Mountie! The Mountie is Durolin, from Germany, and I'd happily accept any help with ID on the seated Westerner?

He's quite rough and looks cheap, his paint a water-soluble thing, which has soaked and spread into it's not very dense composition, which almost has the feel of old egg-boxes, but isn't papier-mâché as far as I can tell?

 

And a few close-ups of the RCMP figure and his base mark, in the best traditions of learning something new every day, or whenever you can (life-long learning!), I was today-years-old when I learnt that in French they are the Gendarmerie Royale du Canada or G.R.C., which may be the 'R' on the left side of the saddle-cloth, with MP on the other side for Mounted Police, but a quick google-search only confused, with various saddle-cloth marks including a badge, but MP on both sides seeming commonest?