W is for Where to Start?

At the deep-end, I suppose! I had a massive Heart Attack on Thursday gone, and when I say massive, I was fighting the fucker for an hour before I agreed with my friend Julie (who almost certainly saved my life) that an ambulance probably did need to be called!

 

And this is not to paint me as the macho hero, valiantly fighting death with the sword of survival and the shield of unfinished projects, but rather that I thought I was having an allergy attack of some kind, and kept telling Julie it would "...pass with a couple of decent deep breaths,, it always does"! Which requires going back further . . .

 

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About six or seven years ago, I can't remember if it was in Lockdown, or the year before, but certainly while Mum was still alive, I had an attack of hives, in the early hours of the morning, not something I was familiar with, but similar to a post-sun attack I'd had as a teenager, so I had a quick cold bath and rubbed some camomile lotion in and that seemed to deal with it.

 

After wondering if it was sweat related, as it was a humid night, I gave no more thought to it, for a year or two, until, sometime after Mum had died, I had another, when I got home from work, and again, cold shower seemed to surface. They then started to come quite frequently, sometimes a mild rash, confined to the soft inners of the lower arms, or thighs, sometimes getting to the waistband, which tended to exacerbate them into a full blown attack, which could be quite debilitating, some even coming with nausea, or trouble breathing, and other stuff, you can guess at.

 

Now, the typical human response is to Google hives, and start looking for patterns which make sense, and while all the hive pages make the point that the main/underlying fault is stress, I was trying to identify the foodstuff or environmental effect that was triggering the attacks, as there wasn't much I could do about the stress (three years of a lazy brother and dodgy step-mother [in my own personal opinion, of course], HMRC, court service, and venal estate-agents, lawyers, auctioneers and antiques dealers), and it was the hive attacks which were the pain in the arse!

 

New game - geological-demerara-layers!

Of course I'm juvenile - I blog infants' playthings!

 

I tried cutting a few things out, and because I knew I'd lost some of my fitness since Lockdown, I was doing practical things like switching-out white, 'ultra-processed' sugar, and I had some limited success, first with a few red-herrings (cheap sandwiches, mini-Melton Mowbray’s, certain snack-foods), then with what I decided must be McDonald's and Burger King (assuming some kind of dodgy mineral oil or E-number?)! And I had succeed in cutting-down on the number and severity of the attacks, so, food allergy - problem semi-solved!

 

Anyway, I noticed last autumn ('25), that I'd get a tight chest if I took a staircase too fast, but as a lifetime smoker (albeit vaping the last 12 years), who was getting the same feeling during these hive attacks, I didn't think much more of it, and it faded through the winter, and wasn't a problem, until the other week, when it returned, in the autumn, again, so the logical human, goes 'Oh well, some seasonal phenomena, we don't have to worry about!'. you know . . . pollution, hives, stress, fitness, whatever!

 

Now, first week of September, I was getting the tight chest, going to the car to drive to work, and it was sticking with me though the shift, fair-enough, we're climbing stairs or banks or steep paths to get the crates to peoples houses, that fat git in [redacted to keep my job] having six crates of 4lt drinks bottles to the six floor of flats with no lift - you expect it!

 

I'd get back to the van, have a few deep breaths (and a bit of a vape!), and be off to the next drop, fully recovered, and this 'routine' continued into last week with my shifts on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, all following the same pattern, but a few deep breaths seemed to sort it out each time!

 

One of the managers, Tuesday evening, asked if I was OK, as he caught me catching my breath at the Hub desk after my shift, and I said, "Yeah, fine", then Paul (who I had a row with, a few months ago, but we now get on well), had a similar conversation with me on Wednesday, as he finished his route and I was loading mine, and he made me promise to go over to the Health Centre/drop-in thing at Bracknell, which I said I would, and I'm a man of my word, only, I thought I'd cut a hedge on the way over, on Thursday, my day off!

 

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That little orange-pink spot, by the wrist knuckle, is where the stents went in.

The rest is bruising from the anti-clotting pressure pads.

  

So, there I was, up a ladder, hacking-away with the sheers when I started to feel a bit woozy, for the umpteenth time in recent years, climbed down, claiming the need for a breather, sat on the wall, until the wall started to feel less than substantial, slumped to the pavement, where various neighbours and passers-by asked it I was OK, to which I kept saying "Yeah, fine, it keeps happening, I'll be OK in a minute, thanks!", only for a fair few minutes to go by without me feeling any finer!

 

In the end, Julie, whose hedge it was, suggested a sit-down and bottle of water, which I accepted, and it all gets a bit hazy! I know that by the time she talked me into allowing her to call for an ambulance, I had deteriorated to the point of not talking sense; I was convinced I was trying to get a four word phrase out to her, and while I had the first two words, I couldn't remember the other two - I now realise the first two were also gibberish, anyway!

 

Now, this had all taken over an hour (seemed like minutes, mind), and the ambulance guys decided I was having a heart attack over the 'phone, so when they arrive about four minutes later, they just fired liquid morphine under my tongue, which sent me off to Happy-Planet, and dragged me into the ambulance, and off we went to Frimley Park!

 

They had already prep'ed a theatre, and the ambulance went past A&E, down a side ally to some steel blast-doors, and I was wheeled into the op'. Next thing it's 9PM? Seemed like 20 minutes, but a whole afternoon and half the evening had gone by, and while I seemed to be lucid, and remember various aspects of the surgery, equally I lost several hours!

 

I do remember the surgeon started before the local aesthetic had kicked-in, and I screamed and leaped off the table, only for him to shout "Shut-up and keep still, we're trying to save your life!", although to be fair, he then said in a quieter voice "More local here please" to someone, and it stopped hurting!

 

I also recall more than one stent, and conversations around that, and a balloon, and self-inflating O-rings, or something, but 24-hours later, everyone was assuring me only one artery was treated, so I don’t know if I imagined some stuff, or if one stent (1.8mm?) wasn't big enough, and they had to replace it with another (2.5mm?), but given that my own four-to-nine-PM seemed to have taken about an hour-and-a-quarter, who am I to trust on the narrative of events!

 

They have a special bin for Trumps, angry Pepperami's and Jim Davidsons,

which is nice!

 

Anyway, and this may surprise you, but I'm rather glad it happened, I mean I'm not glad I'll have life-long health issues now (which I will/which I have), nor am I glad I nearly died, which I sort of did, but that I experienced something most people never experience, and which some who do, don't survive. As someone who's always lived life with a 'Try everything once' philosophy, it was an amazing experience, although, ultimately, slightly underwhelming?

 

And that's part of the reason for writing this, when I know others have kept such things private.

 

We are taught that a heart attack is presaged with numbness or tingling in one arm/hand, or droopiness in one side of the face, and 'chest pain' is mentioned, but - as far as I can recall - nowhere does it say hives or breathing? Equally all the pages on hives, UK or US, official or amateur/charity based, talk of stress, and allergies or reactants, but not about the fact you might be having a heart attack.

 

However, in fact, it's about a tightness of the chest (more like a stitch in athletics,, but higher-up) and (in my case) a fatigue in BOTH upper arms, as if I'd overdone some chainsaw work, or weight-training, along with the deep breathing of oxygen starvation (why I was talking nonsense . . . more like a stroke, which is completely different), and maybe, hives, or similar anaphylactic type symptoms, which might have been occurring for years, prior to the main event?

 

♫♪♪♫ We are the Robots! ♪♫♪♪

 

Indeed, 'angry doctor' on the Friday said she thought most of my 'hive attacks' had actually been heart attacks, and it looks like I had been having heart attacks on seven of the previous ten days, and maybe more than fifteen or twenty, over the previous two years or so - I wasn't counting? But scaring, viewable on the ultra-sound scan, suggests a series of heart attacks, over some time.

 

So, if you have something which you can't explain, get it looked at. If you have got short of breath, get it looked at, if you are tired all the time, fatigued, not bothered, out-of-sorts for a prolonged period, have a check-up, if you've started getting hives, or what might be mistaken for allergy/immune-defence incidents, go to your doctor.

 

Because surviving a heart attack is pretty cool, not having one at all, is eminently more preferable, but not surviving one, is really, really shit. We're only here for 70 or 80-years of productive life, and there is nowhere to upload your memories or personality, and there probably never will be, so we owe it to ourselves to make the most of what we get.

 

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So, that explains what has been happening for the last few days (and years!), but, of course, it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, on Saturday, and technically, I was a much healthier person, on the Saturday, than I had been on the Thursday, but that cut no ice with the medics, who wouldn’t even let me go home, grab my laptop and return in a taxi, with gown and sticky-pads apparel!

 

Because I had gone in as an emergency-case, I had no laptop, no 'phone, and no reading glasses on me, and my car (and keys) were the other side of Farnborough! So, I was going spare, I literally had to stare at a magnolia wall for three days, buzzing stir-crazy, which did nothing for my stress! I kept schtum, to begin with, as there was a chance of a Saturday release, but some heart-related enzyme decided to spike, and suddenly, I was stuck there for another day!

 

Which means that while we've had a ten-year run of uninterrupted ITLAPD's, a heart attack did prevent this year's being observed properly. As it happens, I only had two posts lined-up for this year, a long, 20+image post of the usual round-up/catchup variety (with all the Chris/Peter/show figures), and a short dedicated subject post.

 

But I was pretty sure there'd also be something from New York, and there was, but I couldn't/didn't get to it until late on Sunday. However Brian thinks he might have enhanced the post'ability of it by 2027, so hopefully a bumper year, next year . . . Ah-haaar! Gotta get your priorities right!

 

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As to the hospital itself, I've had about seven interactions with Frimley Park, since I left the Army in '88, the first three, '89 (twice in one week, also cutting hedges!) and around 2000/2001 were good, the three more resent ones were anything but good - Mum's death and two trips to A&E, however, I can't fault my care or aftercare, over the last few days.

 

'Angry doctor' on Friday morning's ward-round, was a little unnecessary, announcing she didn’t know my story, in a tone of voice which also announced she had no intention of reading it up either! One suspects I was filling in for some other over-confident, middle-aged man, who may have recently departed her life? Her No.2 gave me a couple of conspirational grins later in the day, so she knew boss lady had overstepped the mark, but the two young lads who covered the weekend's rounds were very helpful . . . except they wouldn't let me pop-home!

 

All of which leaves me with a collection of drugs sufficient to open a small, and rather specialised pharmacy! As I write - Wednesday - I seem to have got the rhythm, even getting up early (more oxygen?) and taking the 2nd orange one a couple of hours (eight/nine'ish) before the fucking huge great torpedo one, at bedtime!

One of them is only for a year, it's designed to bed-in the stents, another is only there to protect my stomach from a third! Statins I know about, and Ramipril has had it's moments on Radio4, although I haven't noticed the dry-mouth thing yet?

 

And I dare say, I'll end up sourcing the aspirin as a generic, it'll be cheaper, and save the taxpayer a few quid, And, US readers - I haven't been charged a penny for any of this, first-aid, ambulance, surgery, three days in hospital with food, snacks, and a washroom kit, along with 28-days worth of seven drugs - you're really not as 'free' as you think you are.

 

And a huge bag!

 

The real negative was the food, the food was pretty awful, and I've already confirmed with people who've been at Frimley in the recent past, that it's been awful for a while. Bland, teeny portions of beige/grey food which left me constantly hungry; very odd. And I've had plenty of institutional food over the decades, school, army, collage, Uni', works canteens etc . . . this was up-front, above and away the worst! The staff were lovely, it was the food which failed.

 

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Which leaves me reappraising various things, and realising I really must get a home by the end of 2027, not an easy task with Asperger's, and it's the stress of the last four or five years which seem to have got me to this position, so, I guess, a deep girding of the loins and relying on the drugs to keep me going!

 

I've managed to negotiate a month off at work, with two weeks statutory sick-leave, on Frimley’s orders, one day off, and two weeks holiday, which I had in hand, and hopefully, I'll be ready for the Christmas period with a new energy?

 

I've not to drive this week . . .  

 

 . . . but when they let you go, they really let you go, so I had to get a bus, to pick--up my car! I was going to get a taxi, but there were none, except a guy picking-up, who wouldn't get his office to send another car, pointing out the phone near the main entrance, but the phone wasn't working, was it, for fucks-sake! 

 

Anyway, I knew Sunday was going to be sunny and free of pirate posts, so I had intended to go over to the storage unit and do some sorting, which - having lost all other plans over the three days - I still managed 'on the way home'!! Three boxes emptied and a couple of bits brought back here to photograph!

And next week, I'll have to finish the hedge . . . Doh!

 

If you've had a similar experience, and there were things you wish people had told you, or things you wanted to tell others, but didn't get round to, even anonymously chuck something in the comments, as it's the right kind of advice which saves lives.

W is for Who's Got The Shoot'ahs?!

I have! A couple of thematically linked purchases on the 5th of the month, and I think they came from two tables next to each other, in that Isaak had one, which he brought over to me, and his friend at the next table had the other when I managed to get over the other side of the hall!

 

Parashoot . . . geddit! Already added to the parachute page, this is one of the common blow-mould parachutists, given a bit of a prosthetic, up the jacksie! There was already a shot there, and this is a bit sun-faded, but it'll help with future comparisons or overviews elsewhere!

 

While this has no parachute, but neither does it have targets or an obvious scoring system, so it sits halfway between the other shooting sets. The tip of the blow-moulded rocket comes off, but there was no obvious place for "harmless caps", so I'm guessing the cap goes at the other end, and is fired by the launching plunger, but I didn't think to look, and it's now up an the storage unit.

 

The polystyrene gun is damaged and will need glueing one day, but it perfectly illustrates how frangible, and ephemeral some of this stuff was, and why Mum banned us from having it . . . 'No, why don't you get some more Airfix soldiers, not that rubbish!'

W is for World War Warriors

So, we come to the last of the PW show plunder posts, twenty posts I've got out of it, this year, and some fine loot was scurried back to Small Scale World's command centre here in North Hampshire, to be shared with the rest of you, and we're finishing with the khaki-clad chaps and their contemporaries.

 

OK, so Google hasn't just changed the graphic on the upload page, they've tripled the time it takes to do everything, great! Paratroops/parachute toys, all three were from the donation bags I think, everyone knows I like a good parachute toy!

 

On the right, another of the Mogul (Meccano) Germans originally sent to the Blog by Chris Smith, almost certainly designed by Stadden, and now with his rather fine MG34 'Spandau', it's a specific moulding with a truncated stock, and a small block which locates in his hand.

 

While another of the finds of the show is a composition figure similar to those of Zang, the 'similar to Zang' unknown and the V - Empire Forces guys, if only by dint of them all standing to attention at around 54mm, in Battle Dress . . . but a new pose/moulding, also unknown, so a lovely comparison heading this way, when I get them all together! I think the pink goop in the moulding recesses, is the result of someone trying to take a mould of him in silicon or Plasticine?

 

New to me/collection/Blog, although I was vaguely aware of them from previous research into Wizards of the Coast's larger figures, these are for the recent trend in out-of-the-box 1:144th scale war gaming, and the upper shot has the Germans in the middle with soviets to the left, pouring out of Silesia, and the Yanks to the right, advancing to the Elbe from Aachen! The lower shot has two Japs on the left, two Brits on the right, with a Chinese, French and Rumanian (I think) behind.

 

They are not impressive sculpts, and the paint makes things worse, trying to sort them by eye, I only guessed about six of them right, the moulding is poorly defined and blobby, weapons and - particularly - helmets, are inaccurate, and painting seems pretty arbitrary? I believe these are from the first tranche of Axis and Allies, and subsequent editions scaled up to 15mm (1:100th), nominally, from the 10/12mm (1:144th) of the original series?

 

Marx, grist to the mill, but quite a nostalgia hit, we all seemed to have a few of these in with our Airfix, Timpo and painted-odds, back in the day!

 

Cherilea, these are the interim ones between the first and third versions, with elements of both, and while missing their weapons, will make useful additions to the tub, where I'm slowly accruing decent samples of all three types.

 

Atlantic air force ground-crew figure, on the left. I don't prioritise Atlantic large-scale as I have them all in small scale, and, whatever scale, they tend to be priced/valued far too highly for what they are - recent'ish, mass-produced figures, which were piled-high in Beatties, Tangley and that place in Woking, from 1980 to the middle of the decade.

 

In the centre is a 40mm from Spain or Argentina, I can't remember off-hand, but I think we've seen a larger sample (trio?) here, with mounted figure, they are certainly in the collection, and will appear here eventually!

 

And another HO'ish Zang pilot, for years I used to treasure my lone example, but I think I have about 15 now, and most shows seem to throw-up another one, which doesn't mean I'm complaining, or showing off, but rather I look forward to getting them all together and shooting them as a group, with any obvious variations..

 

Smart Toys on the right, I think he may be a new pose, and three of the Pioneer for Realtoy (et al), the Smart being a copy of a larger Pioneer figure, and the two on the left being of the six poses I still needed, complete, I had the blue-chap, mucked about with!

 

This show's lemon! Someone came over to me and asked if I could ID this for their mate. to which I replied ". . . looks like Marty/M-Toy, but I've never seen it with Australian heads . . .", the owner then came over, and we had a chat, he was looking for a fiver, which I'd happily give for the GI version, so I went off with it.

 

And I was quite pleased with it, showed it to one or two people with some enthusiasm, but started to wonder if the heads were right? Now I've mentioned before, the lighting at the venue can be a bit confusing, not as confusing as it used to be at Dave McKenna's show in the Mason's lodge in Birmingham - the number of colour variations I took home from there over the years, which were normal colour when unpacked at the other end! But nevertheless, confusing enough!

 

And, as you can see, as clearly as me, when I got it home and into normal daylight, they are Aussie [cowboy] heads from Timpo! But, I may leave it for a while, as is, it's quite a clever, if simple conversion, and I have the US one, I just need to sort the belts out!

 

Monogram clones to the left, other bits to the right, the baseless chap is interesting, but I think we may have seen him a decade or so ago, during the heyday of Poundland/99P Store stuff, which has almost dried-up now?

 

Ackerman (et al) to the left, New Ray clone, Marx mini and a larger 60mm 'pod-foot' GI.

 

Soma, biggies, similar to the weird set of HO sci-fi/pilots, so probably the same sculptor, but more irregular types, and I'm guessing here, but almost certainly to be from a set of ten, possibly in two colourways?

 

Picked-up four more Trojan, in two plastic colours, an olive drab, wounded, and three in a richer olive-green. Until I've got them all together, and sorted, I can never remember which ones I have, and which ones I need, so tend to grab them when I see them, although I'm pretty sure it's the sand-plastic ones I'm short-of now!

 

Incomplete set of Marx medical group, probably re-issues in this silver? The nurse thinks there's a chance, with her blood/plasma bag, but the priest's given-up and is administering the Last Rites, morbid phuquer! The doctor's gone off to have a brandy by himself, and I suspect the poles are replacements?

 

More bloody metal! What sort of a plastics show is it?! SAE WWI 'Doughboy' from South Africa on the left, an interesting figure (with lead rot) next to him, in the style of the composition figures described above, a nice semi-flat who appears to be similar to the 25mm metals, ascribed to Fantasyland (from Hong Kong), so possibly from the same stable?

 

And two Skybirds, one an obvious copy/home-cast (on the right), the other more original, but not right, so either stripped and re-painted, or one of the Douglas Miniatures re-issues, home-painted?

 

And finally . . . on the left a bag of small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but there were some interesting figures in there to sort into the collection, the WHW machine-gun team, seen before here, and a huge bag of kit figures, which need a serious sorting, being not the usual 50-70mm early or box-scale stuff from Pyro, Adams, UPC, Revell, Monogram, SNAP etcetera, but rather 25-50mm smaller stuff, although some of the same names may be responsible - all for another day!

 

So, many thanks again to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for everything they did or contributed on the day, additional thanks to those also mentioned in the text of the various posts, including Andreas Dittmann, Brian Berke, Chris Smith, Micheal Mordant-Smith, and Tony H, John Begg, Gareth, Steve V. Peter Cole at Replicants, Graham, Mike, Theo and Glen, the Poles and Russians, and everyone else, for everything, over the years. In fact, it's time I did an acknowledgements page!

 

But also, special thanks to Paul Morehead, Brian Carrick and Peter Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine, for organising another brilliant day, where we could all get together, buy plastic shite to our hearts or needs content, and catch-up. I hope you had a good show, if you were there, and it's gotta' be only 11-mothns to the next one!

 

I'm actually off to London today, to pick up eighty-quidsworth of stuff I haven't even seen yet, so we'll get Rack Toy Month out of the way, and then there'll be more like this in September, with any luck, some Dime Store spaceships are coming from the US, and it's back to Sandown in a month's time!

W is for Wild West Warriors - 2 of 2

I shot these first, of the two post's worth, but they ended-up as the second post for reasons I've already forgotten, half the bagged/carded stuff, and a bit of detritus at the end, but all good stuff!

 

Sorpresa . . . Italian for Sobre, Spanish for surprise! And Natale Luigi (NL) is a new one for the Tag list. I remember ten lira being about half-a-p in 1977, so it's not going to break the bank, not even the piggy-bank, pocket-money being the target of very small 'lucky bags'!

 

Apologies to Peter Burgner, I was chatting to him about this find, which he'd observed at a distance, and I said they were the same figures as the Lucky Clover sets, but they're not. The foot figures are larger, while the mounted are the standard 'Giant' size.

 

Still a useful find. I suspect two sets of mounted are missing from the top of the card, and while you could do without the shop-keepers stickers, they do at least date the thing to the mid/late-1970's, the sort of thing which was sixpence in d-money, and became 5-new-p, briefly, before the oil crisis 'invented' modern inflation! Who remembers when 1st class post was 3p!

 

While we had the Sorpresa/Sobre equivalent in Lucky Bags, at the larger end, here in the UK, these were the equivalent of the smaller ones, cheap polymer stuff, sourced in Hong Kong, or occasionally, especially with tin-plate, Japan.

 

A painted figure, marked Hong Kong, of the same size, against the unmarked bases of the figures in the bags, which came-in the same day. All Britains copies, and these 35mm's were cracker fodder, too.

 

Alkastep; a scruffy card, and a ripped bag, but a sample is better than no sample, and it means we can look at the figures. All marked 'France', on the rear-edge of the deep bases, these are to be found as other premiums I think, or were supplied as such to third parties, without rebranding?

 

Post-Giant wagons, the buggy was branded National and others, the small gun-team a cracker prize, while the larger gun and limber combo' was issued with unmarked copies of Giant's ACW and Napoleonics. The other three are more generic.

 

The Poplar-Quaker Foods-Tudor Rose wild west set, really just looking for colour variations or gap-filers now, they aren't rare, and most mixed lots/donations, or show plunder has a few! They could mostly use a god clean, common with these, that obviously got a lot of play back in the day.

 

Likewise, the Crescent hollow-cast and Bergan/Beton copies, these are two Airfix late type (back right, the Indian has been given black, fabric-tape chaps!), and the rest hard styrenes which may also be Tudor Rose, in the case of the mounted certainly, the foot figures seem to have been carried issued by several unknowns, at some point.

 

Thanks again go to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for stuff at this years show.

W is for Wild West Warriors - 1 of 2

I split the Wild West relatively randomly into two plunder posts, these are the ones shot with the same background, it was a pretty basic dividing system! But lots of useful bits here, and some new horses which are intriguing me!

 

The two bags of Hong Kong 'hollow horses' and a few of their associated foot figures, one from Trevor, the other from the vendor of the TNT submarine. Neither of them are 'clean' samples, so they will need future sorting, and for now, will be joining a pile of such bags, some mixed, some clean, some semi-sorted already, and then, every few years, I have a big sorting session, matching horses, riders and marks to sets, foot figures or accessories.

 

Papo Totem Pole which seems to have - thus far - escaped me, no longer, and a nice thing it is too, but with ten colours, I wonder at the four shades of blue, Mesoamericans and the Mesopotamian/Egyptians, managed blue from crushed lapis lazuli, and valued it as rare, as did, millennia later, the artists of the renaissance, but I'm not so sure the forest Indians of Canada, Alaska and the arctic circle would have had access to quantities of such a colour?

 

A huge horse fitted for wagon bars, is it Tudor Rose or one of the others, the accompanying mounted figures were discussed a few years ago! A Budgie wagon in good nick, but missing its barrels, which always get die-cast disease and break-off!

 

And a wagon team which could be a minor British make, or Japanese, they made a fair bit of that kind of stuff, along with some of the unknown coronation coaches, which turn up in a similar size.

 

American Civil War didn't feature heavily this year, with an MPC and diminutive post-Giant (unmarked) copy tag-teaming a couple of wounded Confederate officers from the Blue Box regiment!

 

In my attempt to find all these, I seem to have ended up with 8-10 figures in the last three or four years, hopefully, these are the ones I need to produce a set of 6 in decent to near-mint condition, with a few duplicates, one or two of which are a bit scruffy - Crescent's 60mm Mohicans.

 

Marx, each from a different set, and are, from the left;

• 45mm Indian
• 60mm Camp Indian
• 60mm Pioneer
• 54mm Alamo/Fort Apache Pioneer (missing sword but still usable as a US cavalry figure), and not the first one I've encountered in this paint scheme, did someone (Swansea?) do a painted set?

Small scale/novelty figures with two from the Lucky Bags, same pose but nicely marbled, the Betterwear cannoneer completes my sample in yellow plastic, a cracker mini (blue), the soft plastic semi-flat (red) I think may have replaced the 'styrene figures in Lucky Bags, and a teeny-tiny tee-pee!

 

Initial thought was "Four French", but I think the red geezer is probably a Reisler, from Denmark, he seems to be complete, but threatening/calling someone out, and isn't it funny how it's always the smallest guy in the bar who starts the fight? Still to ID the other three.

 

Small-scale bits include parts for a log-cabin, we've seen it once or twice now, but there's a post in the long-queue, a few Airfix bits and a some Atlantic pioneer types, all real grist to the mill!

 

A few bits, Kinder, front centre, and Hong Kong, but of real interest to me is the pair of horses in the middle, what I've dubbed 'Mexican', now known to have been the Texas horse, but the one on the right is a pose-variant, and while they could be French, Italian, Spanish or even Portuguese, they might be HK? I have a fair few of the standard pose, from various sources, but these a real mystery, and I like mysteries, as it means there's more to find!

 

Does the white mounted figure belong on one of the 'new' horses? He may be a sobre/sorpresa - see part 2. Pocahontas is probably Phidal Publishing, a broken Britains, Lido 45mm, HK copy and an unpainted version of the chromed-plastic copies of Metallions. The figure lacking a base is interesting, as, while you find many copies of them in similar paint, not usually with a separate base - another of those canoe crew!

 

Finally, a pair of Safari Westerners, and it's funny, but I got the two 54mm Indians a year or two ago, the tee-pee and wagon were given to me by Paul Morehead as 'small scale' a couple of decades ago, Peter Evans gave me the mounted chap a few years ago, and the buffalo came in at some point, possibly from Jon or Chris, so I only need the Indian woman & child vignette, and a Texas long-horn cow, to complete the set, the best way, by collecting it! The woman here is described as Annie Oakley.

 

Go-on then, here's the Internet image!

 

Thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, along with the others, above named, for help at the show, and over the years.