They say your getting old when you say “do you remember when…?”

No I am not feeling old…although parts of my body dispute that at times, but we were talking during our game on Sunday about the excitement and enthusiasm we had for our hobby back in the 1970s and 1980s when there wasn’t the choice of figures and information that we take for granted today. We had to make do with the figures that were available even if they were only a passing resemblance of the unit you were trying to build and if you couldn’t find the details of the facings of the 3rd Wierdistan Uhlans you simply made it up because no one knew any better anyway.

This sent me spiralling down memory lane.

Like many others my wargaming experience started with Airfix. They were cheap (although an old boss of mine would have scolded me “we don’t say they are cheap,” he would say, “they are effectively priced”) and as a schoolboy I could buy a box of 48 figures for 50c. For many years they were the only figures readily available to us in the Antipodes. And I bought many boxes. I had vast American Civil War armies. 

Magazines like Military Modelling were readily available and filled with advertisements for companies like Greenwood & Ball, Hinton Hunt, Edward Suren, Charles Stadden, Hinchliffe and Minifigs, all promoting that Holy Grail of wargames - metal figures. But I have to admit that I wasn’t overly taken by metals at first because I didn’t think the detail was  quite as good as the plastic figures. That said, I do recall attending meetings of the Auckland Wargames Society back around 1974 and there were two guys who had beautifully painted metal Napoleonic armies that we all drooled over. And we were all jealous since these guys, because they had metal armies, got to use the big, heavy green mat that belonged to the indoor bowls club that shared the premises with us…mind you the bowls club would probably have had a fit if they had known what their very expensive mat was being used for. The big difference with metals, of course, was that you could buy the figures you wanted in useful poses and not have to find a use for the five crawling figures that were in every Airfix box. 

I left school at the end of 1976 and got my first job that I saw advertised in the newspaper one morning, phoned the employer at 8:30, was asked to go in for a 10:30 interview at the end of which I was asked “can you start now” - compare that to my recent experience of an almost 90 day process to onboard a new staff member. My pay was $70 a week, $60 after tax (sure wish I had that tax rate now) and although it seems a small amount of money now it was good for the times (as a comparative measure a one quart jug of beer cost  45c whereas the cost is around $28 today - if only my salary had risen at the same pace with the price of beer). Finally I had the funds to invest in metal figures. 

My first metal figures were for a Hinchliffe 25mm Russian Napoleonic army for use under the WRG 1685-1845 rules. I am sure that Lawrence remembers this army and is probably still in therapy from the damage that bloody big Russian battery did to his Scot’s Greys (I suspect that the unfortunate chap who faced that battery in the first game at the 1983 Nationals when in the first round of the game I rolled six sixes and literally wiped out his elite cuirassier regiment, that he had foolishly deployed directly in front of the guns, with that one salvo would have similar issues). 

Buying figures from overseas in those days was a complex process. Without the internet printed catalogues without photographs were all that was available - although if you were really lucky you might get a pen and ink sketch of the figure. Credit cards were rare and not readily accepted by wargames retailers anyway, so payment had to be made by buying British Postal Orders that you had to purchase at the Post Office. Under New Zealand’s draconian foreign exchange rules of the time they could only sell you one £2.00 postal order at a time. Figures only cost 7p, but unless you wanted to wait twelve weeks for them to arrive by sea post (which was far beyond my level of patience), you had to pay 50% for airmail postage, so the true cost was a little more than10p a figure. Thus, for your £2:00 postal order you could only get 19 figures, or just over one WRG infantry battalion. If you wanted to place any sort of decent sized order you either needed to make several trips to the post office in a week during your lunch hour, waiting in the queue every time, or, as I did, made a wide circuit on the way home past as many post offices as possible, buying one in each location. My best effort was five post offices in one day.

I’m sure this will bring back memories (or nightmares) for NZ wargamers of a certain age

As much of a hassle as all this was the arrival of the parcel is where the excitement and enthusiasm that I mentioned at the start of this post came into play. Those new figures would be taken excitedly taken along to “show and tell” sessions at our Friday night games or on club days, whether painted or as raw castings, and this would stir the enthusiasm for projects new and old. 

But here is the thought that brought me to this point. In the late 70s I could type my order, on my manual typewriter, and post it off by airmail to England, with my postal orders. That letter would  take a week to get to Huddersfield, but pretty much exactly three weeks after dropping that letter in the post box a little grey/brown box would arrive in my mail box filled with shiny soldiers. Forty-five years later, with vast improvements to communications, logistics and transport systems,  I fill in an online form and submit it with an electronic payment that is instantly received by the seller, but it takes anywhere from three to six weeks (longer in some instances) to appear on my doorstep.

My lead pile is still flat and I am bored with nothing to paint… can you tell?