(Hinde House School, upper half, taken from where would be built two mobile classrooms, where I would spend a LOT of time in 83 and 84) In 1981, totally against my will and without prior parental consultation, I had started the final four years of my compulsory education at Hinde House a sprawling comprehensive school. It had, I openly confess, being a dreamer, come as quite a shock to the system, not only because Hinde House was such a large establishment, divided into a lower and upper wing with nearly 1100 pupils, but because back in the early 1980s it still retained a ‘house’ system. The pupils across all four years were divided into four houses named Chantrey, Brearley, Hunter and Sorby after great local industrial tycoons who helped build Sheffield up to be the urban sprawl that it was before the nation’s beloved Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and her inner cabal allegedly decided to destroy the industrial wealth of the North of England. Personally, I ...

 This is a little temporal interlude, so to speak, which is fitted in before other events I'll no doubt relate, such as 'The .44 Magnum as laxative' or 'Toolboxes in self defence'. Perhaps even 'What have you got in that ammo box sunshine?' I was wandering around Fackham Hall this morning, when my eye fell upon two samll boxes on what is otherwise a book shelf. They were a sealed and opened copy of the 1981 Metagaming microgame 'Trailblazer'. In 1983 I purchased my original copy in a 50p bargain bin even which Games Workshop sometimes ran. I took it with me to Thornbridge Hall in the Peak District, on a week long residential with school in the summer of '84 where we generally spent the week, sketching the scenery or in the evening, simplyfucking about - well, most of the rabble did - unless like a small group of us, you locked yourself in your room (3 of us to a 6-person room - LUXURY) roleplaying and boardgaming. Thornbrisdge Hall is now private...