Well, with over 26,000 hits on this blog last month, I suppose I better say a big thank you, and get cracking on September... Saturdays were always fun, once I hit my 14th year as I was given a key to my parent's home and was allowed into town on my own, without question. Of course, normally I would be with Alan  and latterly Alan & Craig 'Stav' Stainrod - more on this individual at a future time. I would sometimes bump into my parents in the city centre as they did their shopping, but generally I was in a world of my own, exploring what was a seriously interesting underbelly of what was, back then a great city.   In the very early 80s, we still had proper youth tribes. Whilst there was not the gang violence we see today, it was 'exhilarating' just getting around town as I have mentioned in previous posts in this series. Alan and I were finding our feet as 'Rockers' or as many of our school colleagues would have it 'Fuckin' Hippies'. Alan...

 So, we've seem so far, that I had a lot pf places to get my 'fix' of toys and models, and as you will recall from the first instalment, it was one of these lifelong (well I was only 12 going on 13  after all) haunts which gave forth my first whiff of wargaming models, and I was now buying the odd pack of figures (not blisters, but the baggies used by Citadel for trade stockists) and using my model paints - enamels back then - to give them rudimentary paint jobs. I was going into Beatties and Redgates and looking at the boxed games including War Of The Ring, D&D and Sarforce: Alpha Centauri (a scenario from which had of course, given the name to the Sheffield synthpop pioneers 'The Human League') but I could not make that link between the miniatures and these strange new products - and it was frankly a little fucking frustrating. I was looking everywhere, even in Sheffields 'Underground' book store 'Exit Books' just down from West Bar... I knew i...