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The Poor Child’s City – E. Nesbit on teachers, schools and making Magic...
“There are no words to express half what I feel about the teachers in our Council Schools, their enthusiasm, their patience, their energy, their devotion. When we think of what the lives of poor...
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The Bronte Sisters and Brother’s ImagiNations – Isabel Greenberg’s Glass Town...
Annie Norman’s Votes for Famous Women! Baggy’s Cave – Facebook group 24 January 2021 Annie Norman at her Bad Squiddo official Facebook Group Baggy’s Cave is running an interesting poll about which...
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Ents, Tolkein and E. Nesbit’s Magic Cities Drawn by GB George Barraud 1913
Was Tolkein influenced by the work of E. Nesbit and her “Accidental Magic” stories? “A Tree Like a Man” by George Barraud, drawn for E. Nesbit’s Wings and The Child or the Building of Magic Cities,...
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“I never thought of building magic cities till the Indian soldiers came”
E. Nesbit: “They were very fine soldiers with turbans and swords and eyes that gleamed in quite a lifelike way, riding on horses of a violently active appearance: they came to my little son when he was...
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No Mixed Bathing (FEMbruary 2021)
Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog – a wash and brush up for the new 54mm BMC Plastic Army Women figures, prior to the FEMbruary believable female figure painting challenge (started...
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Three More Players of H.G. Wells’ Floor Game (Little Wars) 1913
Reading Mathilde Meyer’s memoir H.G. Wells and his Family (1955), about her time as Governess to Well’s two sons Frank and Gip, she makes occasional references to the ‘Floor Game’, which I take to mean...
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“Mr M. And his brother Captain, hot from The Great War in South Africa”...
In the early chapter of Little Wars, H.G. Wells identifies by initials some of the men who had helped in the development of his ‘Floor Game’ that became Little Wars. This material was published first...
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A Broken Man: Jerome K. Jerome, The War Game, Little Wars and his service in...
https://www.jeromekjerome.com One of the literary figures supporting H. G. Wells and his development of the Floor Game and Little Wars was the author Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) or J.K.J. as he is...
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Octagons are not Hexagons or my DIY Games Workshop Lost Patrol tiles
Alan Tradgardland Gruber’s post on Skirmish Kokoda Trail rules from Lone Warrior magazine reminded me of a failed experiment of mine last summer. Maths was never one of my strongpoints. I have often...
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Little Wars – some more from the memoir of Mathilde Meyer, Governess to H G...
There are tantalising glimpses of the Floor Game that became Little Wars in the memoir of Mathilde Meyer, H. G. Wells and his Family (1955). She arrived for work at teatime at the Wells’ seaside house,...
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The Battles of Hook’s Farm and St Martins Hill – H. G. Wells’ Experiment in...
H G Wells (1866-1946) in his lengthy Experiment in Autobiography (1934) mentions Little Wars (1913) only once:...
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The real Hook’s Farm on old maps
Following up my blog post about H.G. Wells’ childhood battles in his head in the late 1860s and early 1870s across the wild spaces of Bromley, recaptured in his Little Wars floor games and garden...
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FEMBruary female figure painting challenge, 54mm BMC Plastic Army Women...
54mm BMC Plastic Army Women figures as the Women’s Revolutionary Army of Parazuellia My final entry for the FEMBruary female figure painting challenge are these fine new plastic 54mm BMC Plastic Army...
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The dread broom and the swish of skirts: Jessie Allen Brooks, part of the...
My FEMBruary last post to mark International Women’s Day March 8th and Women’s History Month in the UK and USA. One of the background presences in Little Wars and Floor Games is the swish of skirts of...
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12 March 1912 – Juliette Daisy Gordon Low forms the Girl Scouts of America
Daisy’s biography and my 54mm pound store plastic soldier rough conversions to Girl Scouts Celebrate an amazing woman Juliette ‘Daisy’ Gordon Low (1860-1927) and the Girl Scouts of America that she...
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Wo-Manning the OP and Garden Wargames
Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog 14th March 2021:...
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The Hex Files – Thing are Getting Strange …
“Things are getting strange, I’m Starting To Worry, This could be a Case for Mulder and Scully …” (Catatonia) On the distractions or gaming riches of binge watching box sets during Lockdown … What...
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April – First Casting sessions 2021
Today’s Castings ready for trimming and filing … Today’s casting session outdoors in the garden sunshine worked much better than one last week late afternoon with a chill in the wind. These are mostly...
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Hing Fat 54mm Plastic WW2 Russian Infantry samples painted
Shiny toy soldier style painted Hing Fat 54mm Russians on the painting table awaiting the gloss varnish of victory … Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog – some more interesting Hing...
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Home casting figures – functional repairs and old toy soldier DNA
Useful tools of the repair trade – pin vice and file – to repair a miscast musket. Miscastings or half castings that are not too bad do not always go straight back in the ladle. To avoid fumes and...
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