Tricornes and lashings of rococo gilt – Austrian staff

This photo shows my entire 18th century Austrian army.  Yep, these three generals are my Austrian army – all of it!  There is not one solitary Austrian infantryman or cavalry trooper amongst my miniature armies for them to command. Yet I have these three – so what’s the story?  

Why I bought these Minden Miniatures figures, I’m not entirely sure.  Whilst my ‘Barryat of Lyndonia‘ imagi-nation army is fictional, it is still based on the movie Barry Lyndon, and that movie isn’t exactly known for containing Austrians.  British, yes – French and Prussians too.  But Austrians, nary a one.

The answer is that Minden Miniatures don’t make any French generals (yet, I hope!).  They make a lovely set of Prussian general staff, which I’ve featured in an earlier post.  But they have no leaders for their French range to oppose the Prussians – only Austrians.   So, that means if I want some leadership on hand should I wish to split my Barryat army into two halves to fight each other for a game, Austrian generals it’ll have to be.

Of course, I could’ve gone for another maker, of whom plenty make French general staff figures.  But Minden Miniatures are so individual, being true 1/56th scale replicas of the human anatomical proportions, rather than the more caricatured (albeit charming) look of most other 28mm/30mm ranges.

Don’t get me wrong, I love other makes – after all, I own and treasure entire armies of them.  But for me, no other makers’ figures match in with Minden figures.  So for this particular part of my collection, it has to all be Minden or nothing.

So, there it is.

Now, imagine some strains of Mozart in the background, and meet my Austrian A-team:

• General Franz Leopold Nádasdy
• Field-Marshal Prince Charles of Lorraine
• General Gideon Ernst Loudon

Military review in the Barryat of Lyndonia

A military parade of the entire army of my ‘imagi-nation’, the Barryat of Lyndonia, has been long overdue.  But today a combination of being on childcare duty at home whilst my wife works, and some lovely autumn light for picture-taking, inspired me to set out all the 1/56th scale Minden Minatures figures I’ve painted so far.

To fill in those who don’t know about the Barrayat of Lyndonia (ie nearly everybody in the world), it is an imaginary nation – or ‘imagi-nation’ – I’ve created for my wargaming army, based on the Stanley Kubrick movie, Barry Lyndon.  

The Barryat does not recruit its own army, but instead contracts regiments from other states in Europe – which provides the backstory to allow me to mix and match whatever real-life nations’ units I wish.

Instead of pursuing historical accuracy when painting my figures, I’ve attempted as much as I can to depict my soldiers as they appear in the movie, historical inaccuracies and all.  Therefore when some expert in military history tells me that the turn-backs on my Prussians should  be red, not white, or that they can’t possibly have those three flags together in one regiment, I can point out my figures aren’t representing real Prussians, but rather Kubrick’s take on them.  

So, for your delectation, on with the photos of the military review (don’t forget to click on the pics to see them in their full glory):

The guests of honour are some famous personalities from nearby real-life countries, including the Prussian King Frederick the Great and the Austrian Prince Charles of Lorraine.   Also present are a number of the local gentry and their ladies.

A long line of red emerges from the trees, as Gale’s Regiment of Foot, a fictional regiment from the movie, approaches the parade ground.  By the way, I think that the above picture is especially cool when clicked on to bring it up to full size.

After having marched onto the parade ground in line, they’ve now deployed into column of companies (my infantry regiments have three companies per regiment). Headed by Lt Colonel Charles Gale, the officers include the Irish adventurer Captain Grogan, the foppish Lieutenant Jonathon Fakenham and his ‘particular friend’ Lieutenant Freddie, whose surname is not disclosed in the movie.

The movie depicts the drummers wearing tricornes instead of mitre caps, but I’ve kept to the latter because I like their mitres so much – and because that is the way the Minden drummers come.

In the movie, the regiment has no grenadiers, but I have added these, again simply because I like their colourful and intricate mitres so much – and what better reason could there be than that?!  They were tricky to paint, but I think the final effect is worth the effort, and they’re my favourite figures in the whole army.

Somewhere in the ranks will be Private  Redmond Barry, the main character in Barry Lyndon.  He joined Gale’s Regiment of Foot after being tricked into a duel back home in Ireland. Captain Grogan has now taken young Barry under his wing, and Lieutenants Jonathon and Freddie will later provide him with an intriguing opportunity for Barry to improve his status in life (you’ll need to see the movie to find out exactly how this happens!).

Following Gale’s Regiment of Foot,  the Régiment de Royal-Cravates enters the field.  In the movie, this is the French regiment that Barry faces in his first taste of battle, “only a skirmish against a rearguard of Frenchmen who occupied an orchard beside a road down which the English main force wish to pass”.  The narrator in the movie goes on to say that though this encounter is not recorded in any history book, it was memorable enough for those who took part.  

The drummers in their royal livery were tricky to paint, with all that red and white lace.  But I’m pleased how they came out in the end.

Whilst un-named in the movie, in the original 1844 William Makepeace Thackeray novel, the French regiment that Barry marches against is called the Régiment de Royal-Cravates, so that is who they are in the Barrayat of Lyndonia.

The Barryat of Lyndonia’s French regiment replicates the incorrect facings and flags as per the movie.  The flags are actually those of two real French regiments, the Grenadiers Royaux and the Régiment de Flandre, yet the uniform facing colours are incorrect for both.

The last foot battalion onto the parade ground is the Kubrick Infanterie Regiment, led by Captain Potzdorf on his distinctive white horse.  The movie doesn’t name this Prussian regiment, which Barry is forced to join after being captured as a deserter.  So in the Barryat army it is named in honour of the movie’s famous director, Stanley Kubrick.  I hope he looks down on this with approval! 

OK, so the movie doesn’t have any grenadiers in mitre caps.  But, like Gale’s Regiment of Foot, I really wanted some of those smart-looking guys, so I’ve conjectured how Kubrick would have shown them, had he wanted to.  Basically, they’re the same as his somewhat inaccurate Prussian musketeers, but wearing mitre caps instead of tricornes.

 The movie’s inaccuracies are all faithfully recreated!  The soldiers’ coats have the wrong coloured turnbacks, they wear incorrectly coloured straps, and carry mismatched flags (the orange, black and white flags in the movie are actually from three different real-life Prussian regiments).

The sound of jingling bridles and trotting hooves announce the arrival of the only cavalry regiment in the Lyndonian army, the  Truchseß Dragoons. This regiment is the first unit that veers away from the movie.  While there were some small numbers of rather plainly-dressed Prussian cavalrymen in some scenes in Barry Lyndon, I went for the real-life Prussian Truchseß Dragoons merely because of their splendid light blue and pink uniforms.  Another perfectly good reason!

In the finale, the whole army masses behind the two guns of the Barryat of Lyndonia army as they prepare to fire a salute.  The French gun in the foreground is modelled on one that appears briefly in the  movie.

The gunners in the movie wear the standard white infantry coats rather than the blue and red French artillery uniforms.  This is actually correct, because small battalion guns such as these were manned by men assigned from the regiment, not Royal Artillery gunners.  I’ve done the same with the British gun, manning it with crew assigned from Gale’s Regiment of Foot.

The visiting Prussian king, Frederick the Great, is so impressed with the turnout of the Barryat of Lyndonia army that he has instructed his hussar general, von Zeithen, to write a note of congratulations, which the latter is now handing to a courier to convey post-haste to the Lyndonian palace.

Minden Miniatures and the end of the hobby?

Just to prove I haven’t been doing absolutely nothing of late, here is a quick progress shot on some general staff figures I’ve been (verrrry slowly) painting.

These are some more of the fabulous Minden Miniatures range of 28mm figures, depicting some of the real-life military leaders from 18th century Prussia and Austria.

On the left are the two Austrians –  Field Marshall Prince Charles of Lorraine and General von Loudon, in their spiffy white and gold uniforms with acres of gold rococo trim.

On the right are their Prussian opponents, in somewhat more muted uniforms – Major-General von Seydlitz and (most recognisable of all) King Frederick II ‘the Great’.

I now only have a couple of other staff figures from these two sets to finish painting, and then that is it – I’ll have reached the bottom of my lead mountain!  (For those visitors to this blog who aren’t wargamers, ‘lead mountain’ is the common nickname for the backlog of figures waiting to be painted, in many cases quite huge.)

True, I do still have a box of various miscellaneous bare-metal figures stashed away, but none of them are particularly required for any project.  And so with no desire on my part to get them done, they’ll no doubt languish forever in the bottom of my cupboard.

So, what now?  Well, to keep me from the reputed consequence for a wargamer getting to the bottom of his lead mountain (ie dying), I do currently have two Renadra plastic buildings on their way from the UK for my colonial New Zealand Wars armies.  These are their brand new ramshackle barn kit (isn’t “brand new ramshackle” an oxymoron?) and their wooden church.  OK, not lead, I know – but they’re still wargaming projects, so hopefully should count …

After that?  Well, truth to tell, I have lost my painting mojo so much of late that, truly, I am not really keen to start anything else at all.  I’m actually enjoying life without feeling the pressure of a painting queue.  

Plus in recent years I don’t feel I’ve been painting as well as I used to.  I’m not sure why – maybe aging eyes?  But overall I don’t feel as satisfied with my painting results as I used to.

Hmmm, does that mean I’m coming to the end of my tenure in the hobby?  After all, the other hobbies I’ve had during my life have generally lasted ten years before I got itchy feet – and I’ve been wargaming several years beyond a decade now.  

Anyway, let’s see what happens.  Maybe Empress Miniatures might come out with another release of figures for their superb New Zealand Wars range, and that’ll probably save me …  

 

Old Stuff Day

March 2 is Old Stuff Day.  OK, so I’m a day late here in New Zealand, but as it is still March 2 in some parts of the world (I’m looking at you, America!), I think I’m still alright to post this.

So, what is Old Stuff Day?

“On this day, each blogger can go through their history and find posts that they’d like to shake the dust off and present again to the community at large. Some suggestions for content that would be good to post: 

- Posts that you considered special that didn’t receive as much attention as you thought they deserved

- Content that people liked in the past, but haven’t seen recently

- Posts you might have created before your site received much traffic, and now deserve to be reshown

- Or any content you’re particularly proud of!”

So here’s some of the old stuff on my blog that I’m particularly proud of:

Trumpeting on about my forebear

This was the first in a series of posts that I did on my family history. While reading other people’s family histories can sometimes be a little boring, I thought this particular character in my lineage would be fascinating to others besides myself – especially on a military history/wargaming site – as he was a trumpeter in Napoleon’s army.

More on my father’s Dutch war service

As the title suggests, this was the second of a couple of postings about my dad. I thought this might be of interest to my mainly Anglo-centic readers, as my Dad’s war service was in one of the smaller European players of WW2.

A fantastic landscape diorama – and I do mean fantastic

This posting constantly sits in the list of my most visited postings.   It features an amazing diorama in the Netherlands.  I think it is particularly inspirational in showing the effectiveness of the dimension of height in a diorama – so often they are very flat.

One of the nicest wargames terrains I’ve ever seen

This is another much-visited posting, again on terrain.  It was instrumental in starting one the most popular wargaming blogs around. My posting featured Joe’s amazing Old West town, and it got so many hits that Joe realised he was missing out on something not having his own blog, and thus Colonel O’Truth’s Miniature Issues was born.

My Minden miniatures finally based

This posting was one of quite a number about my ongoing project to paint 18th century army along the lines of the movie Barry Lyndon. The pictures in this posting came out rather well, I thought, despite just being posed on my old painting board in the garden.

My Barry Lyndon armies

And this is the post in which I first established my Barry Lyndon ‘imagi-nation’. I refer to this posting quite often to remind myself what I had in mind for this project, and to re-inspire myself with the magic of the movie.

Photos of finished colonial New Zealand wars figures and terrain

This posting includes some of my favourite shots of my New Zealand Wars armies.  The model kiwi terrain in the background of some of the shots also caught people’s interest.

A pirate’s life for me

This posting features a niche period I’ve dabbled in, and that has been a lot of fun. Many visitors to my blog obviously also share my delight with pirates (however nasty they might have been in real life!), as this remains a very popular posting.

My favourite battle painting

Another really popular posting. I’m really pleased with the way this one turned out, particularly with the clarity of the detail pictures I took from the painting.

Is history important?

An under-rated posting?  Well, this posting was my attempt to be a bit controversial. While it caused a little bit of interest at the time, overall it slipped under he radar for most visitors.

Rococo cavalcade -18th century dragoons on parade

A parade of the newly reinforced Truchseß Dragoons took place recently in my 18th century imagi-nation, the Barryat of Lyndonia.    

Invited guest to the parade included Mr Redmond Barry (a man on the way up – and possibly down again) and Miss Nora Brady (Redmond Barry’s seductive older cousin).

Also on hand to watch the parade were the Chevalier de Balibari (professional gambler and suspected spy), and the Countess of Lyndon (the beautiful, wealthy and recently bereaved widow of the late Sir Charles Lyndon).

I painted the main bulk of this regiment some time ago.  But I always felt I didn’t have quite enough of them, as having only 20 troopers made them hard to split into symmetrical squadrons and troops.  I’ve therefore painted another four tro0pers, so that the regiment is now made up of 24 troopers, 2 officers, 1 standard bearer and 1 drummer.

The dragoons can now easily form into two squadrons of 12 figures each, or four troops of 6 men each, as seen here in column.

The command figures are all individually based so that they can be arranged as non-combatant figures around the unit.

The figures are all 28mm Minden Minaitures

Rococo riders, briney sailors and a incapacitated capacitator

What with a computer melt-down, a blast of hot fine weather, and a slew of overseas guests, slipping away into my study to do a spot of painting has been quite difficult so far this year.    But that doesn’t mean I haven’t progressed just a little on at least a couple of projects.

Firstly, I picked up a few sets of Minden Miniatures figures last year.    These included a couple of sets of general officers (Prussian, and – for some odd reason, as I don’t have any such army – Austrians).  But best of all,  I also got the lovely mounted civilians, the ladies riding sidesaddle.  Exquisite figures, that I couldn’t resist painting straight away.  

I decided to paint them up as two separate pairs. The first pair (seen on the left below) are  ornately attired, and so I could let my rococo urge  go wild. The other two (seen below on the right) are somewhat more plainly dressed.  The young man, in fact, could be young Barry Lyndon himself.  Note that they are still waiting to be based.

Moving forward 100 years, my most recent purchase has been a naval landing party by Empress Miniatures, the latest in installment in their New Zealand Wars range.  You can see them below, undercoated using my usual technique of black automotive primer, dry-brushed with light grey to make the detail pop for easier painting.

They are absolutely exquisite, as expected. Fantastic animation and facial expressions. Lovely clean castings (so clean that when I did my usual filing and cleaning prior to their detergent bath, there was nothing to remove apart from one mould-line across the top of one hat!).

The figures depict some cool and unusual subjects. There is an officer (or is it a mate) blowing a bosun’s whistle (top right in the above picture). He wears a Napoleonic-looking long tailed coat and a peaked cap.

I also like the top-hatted officer in the picture above.  Here you can see his long coat very well.

Another character is the bare-headed guy in shirt-sleeves, running forward waving a cutlass (centre right in the above pic).  Maybe it is Lieutenant Philpotts, who famously ditched most of his naval clothing when charging into his last battle at Ohaeawai Pa?  Though his features look a bit too negroid, so maybe he is an ordinary sailor.

The 32-pounder gun is immense. To think this massive piece of equipment really  was dragged miles through the rugged New Zealand bush.

I was initially puzzled by the two man rammer crew – I’d never before heard of two men ramming at once, as photographed on the Empress Miniatures website.   But it turns out the second rammer figure was actually designed to be handing the ramrod to the first rammer in readiness, and not both of them jointly ramming the gun as the photo on the Empress site.  I’ve set them up correctly in my photos, though the second rammer is bit obscured.

My problem now is how to paint these sailors. Should they have the light blue neck-cloths with white border that we associate with sailors today, or were the 1840s a smidgen early for such uniforms?

Looking closely at the models, the collar appears to be that of the shirt folded over the jacket, not of the jacket itself.  You can see at the front neck of the figures how the collar disappears under the knotted neckscarf and inside the jacket lapels.

The paintings of the New Zealand Northern Wars of this period appear to show collars the same dark blue colour as the jacket – though the figures in he paintings are not particularly detailed, so one can’t be too sure.  So if the collar is a shirt collar, but looks in these paintings to be dark blue like the jacket, does that mean the guys in shirtsleeves will have blue collars on their white or grey shirts?

But other period photos of the mid 1840s I’ve seen (not in New Zealand settings, though) show a light blue collar, presumably the colour of the shirt collar over the jacket, or maybe an early form of the traditional detachable sailor collar.   An intriguing puzzle for me to solve …

Finally, what was it that happened with my computer?  Well, a strong smell of burning plastic led us to find one dead computer in the study.  The local repair shop said a capacitator had failed catastrophically,  taking out quite a few other components at the same time.  Luckily they got my data of the hard drive.

So off to the shop to buy a brand new laptop as a replacement for our old bulky desktop.  Much joy and happiness to have a modern, up-to-date beastie – until we found out that its Windows 8 operating system is indeed a beast – a bad beast!  I just couldn’t figure out how to work it.  For week I soldiered on with it, getting more and more disillusioned

Then luckily a friend told me about a freeware program called Classic Shell.  It downloaded and installed simply, and – hey presto! – has given me back the capability I’m used to from previous Windows versions.

So now all is well.  And my study desk is a lot less cluttered!  Here is the new beastie in place – compare it with the photo of the old one above.

Back to the eighteenth century

After a bit of hiatus in my painting, I’m finally back at it. The first figures that have arrived on my painting desk this year are some wonderful Minden eighteenth century generals, dragoons and civilians. My progress to date can be seen in the pic above – some are partly painted, but most are still in their resplendent black undercoats!  (click on the picture to examine more closely)

Firstly, I’ve bought two sets of generals. The first (front centre) are Prussians, and include a lovely rendition of Frederick the Great himself.

The other Minden generals I impulse-bought were Austrians (left rear) – and this has left me now scratching my head, as I have no Austrian troops in my army, and they don’t even appear in the movie Barry Lyndon that my army is loosely based on. However, they’ll look splendid once painted in their white coats and red breeches, so that is probably as much reason as I need!

There are also two pairs of civilians. I’m painting one pair (front right)  in somewhat muted tones of grey, brown and black – maybe Barry Lyndon and a lady-friend in his younger days.

The other pair (front left) will be much more colourful. I’ve already painted the gentleman in a purple coat with sky-blue cuffs – maybe Barry in his more flamboyant period.

Finally the dragoons (centre rear and right rear) are some additions to my existing Truchseß Dragoons.  I felt that the two squadrons needed upping to a dozen men each, bringing the whole regiment to 24 troopers and three officers/musicians.

I’ve already painted the horses’ coats using the rubbed oil-paint technique, and in the main they have come out well. The lighter coats may need some attention. And I have yet to add some white markings to a few of the horses to give some variety.

I’ve also done all the figures’ faces. I find painting faces a bit of a hit or miss operation that I can never keep consistent in quality. I’m quite happy with the way this lot have turned out, but they are still not my best efforts.

Truchseß dragoons join the Barryat of Lyndonia

“The dragoons will advance!”  The latest regiment to join my 18th century imagi-nation, the Barryat of Lyndonia, are these dragoons based on the real-life Prussian Truchseß dragoon regiment.  Click on the above picture to get the full effect.

The Barryat of Lyndonia is based on the movie Barry Lyndon, of course.  This new regiment is the first unit in the Lyndonian army that veers away from the movie, though.  I’ve mentioned in a previous posting the unscientific method I used when I chose to replicate the pink and light-blue uniform colours of the Truchseß dragoons:

Because when I met my wife back in the 80s, pink and light-blue were the ‘in’ colours – she not only wore (very attractively, I might add) pink and light-blue eye-shadow, but we painted our first house together with pink and light-blue trim.  Despite being well out of fashion now, I still have a fondness of that colour combination, so how could I resist a unit dressed in light-blue uniforms with pink facings?!

The regiment currently is made up of 24 figures –  two officers, one drummer and one standard bear (all based singly) and two squadrons of 10 troopers (based in pairs).  I plan to add a couple more troopers to each squadron, as I’m finding 10 an unsatifying number for arranging my regiment in symmetrical formations!  Note that I don’t organise my regiments  in any historical way – they are merely for playing fun wargames, not simulating history.

And before anyone asks, I don’t base to suit any particular set of rules.  Any rules I will use have to be able to cope with my basing, not the other way round!

The figures are all 28mm Minden Miniatures (the most exquisite 18th century figures around, in my opinion).  The standard is merely printed out from a lovely picture on the Kronosaf website.

The horses were under-coated with rust-coloured car primer, then rubbed with burnt umber or black oil paint.  This oil paint used to belong to my Dad, who passed away in 1984, so it imbues my figures with a touch of personal memories, and also shows you how long oil paint lasts!   Oh, and I had some expert help on painting horses, who is  seen inspecting the results in the picture below.

All the above photos were taken on my mobile phone, as our digital camera is presently on holiday in the United Kingdom with my wife and daughter.  While the picture quality isn’t as clear as with a camera, the photos have turned out adequate enough.

A haughty general officer of the Barryat of Lyndonia

Here’s a haughty general officer of the Barryat of Lyndonia, wearing the uniform of the Truchseß Dragoons (Minden Miniatures, 28mm).

This is a sneak preview of a project  I’ve been boxing along with in the background of my other painting over the last few months.  He is the first completed figure of a new fictitious unit for the army of the Barryat of Lyndonia, my 18th century  imagi-nation based on the movie Barry Lyndon.

As I’ve now completed infantry units based on all three British, Prussian and French infantry regiments that feature strongly in the movie, I’ve now turned my hand to cavalry.  While there are a few Prussian cavalrymen in the movie, they are basically in infantry uniforms with attached plumes, and don’t do anything for me.  So I decided to do a completely new unit, not from the movie at all.

I chose to loosely base my first cavalry unit for the Barryat of Lyndonia on the real-life Prussian Truchseß regiment of dragoons.  Why?  Because when I met my wife back in the 80s, pink and light-blue were the ‘in’ colours – she not only wore (very attractively, I might add) pink and light-blue eye-shadow, but we painted our first house together with pink and light-blue trim.  Despite being well out of fashion now, I still have a fondness of that colour combination, so how could I resist a unit dressed in light-blue uniforms with pink facings?!

As this figure was originally a Minden Hanovarian officer, and not a Prussian at all, he is wearing his sash incorrectly across his shoulder for a Prussian (who wore them around the waist).  Even though with an imagi-nation army I’m not bound by accuracy, I decided to paint the sash as a military decoration ribbon instead – the orange ribbon of the Order of the Black Eagle.  With such an important decoration, he has been duly promoted to a general officer.

My Truchseß Dragoons will eventually have 24 figures, divided into two squadrons of 12.

Oh, by the way, the photos were taken on my phone.  While not as crisp and clear as a camera, they are certainly quite adequate enough for blog pictures, don’t you think?  The background is our front paddock, on the last day of an absolutely beautiful Easter weekend here in Paraparaumu.

In police hands – my miniatures under arrest!

Displaying your miniatures in a police museum might seem an odd venue, but that is what happened to me recently when I was asked to take part in a police hobbies exhibition at the New Zealand Police Museum.

While I do actually have quite a large collection of police badges and miniature police vehicles (maybe the subject of another posting sometime, if anyone is interested), the event was intended to also show off other hobbies enjoyed by police staff.  So I was asked to exhibit my model soldiers.

I decided my display would be based on the adage that “few is more”.  Rather than ladening down a table with huge amounts of figures, I would put out only a few units to give give a taster of several different periods.  This also helped with transport and setting up, as I only had a very limited time.

But I wish I had pulled that tablecloth straight!

The main part of my display featured my New Zealand Wars collection, made up of the wonderful 28mm Empress Miniatures figures.

This was quite an appropriate period for the police setting, as the history of the New Zealand Police is inextricably entwined with those wars.  The particular part of the wars that my miniatures portray is a decade or two earlier than when the Armed Constabulary (forerunners of our modern police) came on the scene.  But it was a talking point for the audience, nevertheless.

I also displayed one of my 18th century battalions of Minden figures, painted as a British regiment from the movie Barry Lyndon.  This showed how impressive a large unit of figures could look.

In the background I set up one of my painting resources (in this case Mollo and McGregor’s Uniforms of the Seven Years War 1756-63). Many of the audience were very interested to see how detailed the research for our hobby could be … and laughed when I told them that I had painted my models to  faithfully replicate the inaccuracies from the movie!

The final exhibit was my entire American Civil War collection.  This is a period I’ve half-started, as you can see, but never really got anywhere with.  But those colourful zouaves certainly were show-stoppers at the display.  These, and the Confederates facing them, were all Redoubt figures.   Again, a colourful book in the background added interest.

Overall, it was great to be able to show off my figures to an audience who were more interested in them than most.  It was a evening function for the Friends of the Police Museum organisation, so everyone there had a natural inclination towards history anyway.

Oh, and one other thing.  Browsing through the Police Museum itself, I came across a picture of my much younger self.  What a creepy 1980s police-issue moustache, aye?!