Wednesday 30 March 2011

If Only


If only we could see into the future. As a child I enjoyed history at school, but at the time I could never work out why we were learning about English/European history when we lived in Africa. I think the assumption was that as a less civilised country they had no history – How wrong can one be. My mother, an author, loved words consequently found it easy to be a “stringer “ for various news agencies around the world and Africa being somewhere that had been less effected by the war was a rich picking ground. The house was always full of guests from England and guests, in a child’s eyes equal pressies.


It is only in hind sight that the one that brought a box of Napoleonic Soldiers may have had a profound effect on my future. I have been smitten ever since. Was it, the order and discipline as the regiments went into battle, or the colourful uniforms. As can be seen http://www.hobbyandleisure.co.uk/hlstore/catalog/napoleonic-c-319_29_116_129.html?osCsid=cd19bb2be3ddd31ede4b4853f530296b
It seems to have been a particularly turbulent time in the affairs of man. A new world to be subjugated. From Cowboys to Maharajas Three countries – all neighbours trying to dominate. The Spanish South America, The French Europe and the Brits India, Australia and Canada. A rich picking ground for any child's imagination. A case of a toy becoming a hobby; becoming a carrier; becoming a business.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting how hobbies can take over and develop. Our son has always been interested in WW11 history as a result of a set of soldiers someone bought him as a child. By the time he was in his teens his soldiers filled the house - and he was a real authority on the events of the War! Even now he reads massively around the subject.

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