New fire engine and its operating crew in their display box
At the same time that I acquired the Elastolin pieces, my friend mentioned a nice fire engine, that had been an incidental acquisition in one of the auction lots. Upon seeing it, I made a cash offer which he was happy to accept and I was equally happy to make. This quintessential British fire engine and crew were coming home to my miniature worlds at Apperley Towers.
On closer inspection I ascertained this was a set made by the inventive Giles Brown at Dorset Soldiers back in the 90's or early 2000's. It comprises the engine plus seven firemen. There is a driver and three seated firemen for when the engine is in transit. In addition, there is a detachable ladder with a climbing fireman, a fireman with an axe and a fireman using a hosepipe which attaches to the engine. A beautiful set which I hope to feature in a game at some point.
Where's the fire?
There is no fire!
Its Mr Tiddles stuck on the church roof again!
Shall I get the hose on him? Cats don't like water!
The Vicar wouldn't like that ! Just get up that ladder and get him down!
Mission accomplished in front of a gathering crowd
So we now have two fire engines and crew here at Apperley Towers to serve the residents of the villages and towns featured. The newest recruits are as English as fish and chips, whilst the original fire engine and crew have a definite French look to them. That should work out quite nicely when the action moves from the English countryside to foreign climes.
A civilian census - preparations
My civilian collection has been growing quite fast over the past three years as I've enjoyed populating the table top worlds that I've created. As I finished painting a group of approximately 50 figures, many of which are duplicates, I realised I need to slow down and rationalise this part of my overall collection. I decided a census was the ideal way forward. I would review all of the non military figures and decide what needed to be added (or possibly removed!). For as much as these unassuming figures give me a huge amount of pleasure, they now outnumber my feau French armed forces and aren't far behind my feau British!
As part of this process I decided to remove the buildings from the civilian cabinet and create an English village on the table top. This could then be used as a stage for my census, new acquisitions and finally a game. So here we have a collection of photos of the village on a normal weekday, with a reasonable number of figures populating the scene. This left more behind in the cabinet than are on the table and only served to reinforce my concern that I may have accumulated too many of these figures!
Four photos of the local farm with the farmer welcoming a cart delivery onto the property
Allotments, horses and the ubiquitous carts and wagons!
Craftsmen, tradesmen, publicans and servants of the Crown!
An ariel view, rural views and village views
That would be an ecclesiastical matter ! Church views and the graveyard
A bridge a river and a mill!
I hope you have enjoyed the snapshots of village life which literally sprung up overnight! This was great fun and enabled me to look at my non civilian collection in more detail. At the risk of boring you my valued readers, I shall illustrate the census results in my next post.
On a final note, I was walking round the local garden centre with the lady of the manor and saw these......is it just me that immediately starts to visualise fighting men taking cover and house to house fighting?
Tara a bit!
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