BB is for Nonsense!

The big disappointment with Oxford's die-cast range is the fact that they seem to have decided to pander to the worst of the combat-wombat fantasists usually found at Beltring or Wheels and Tracks at What's-it Hop Farm by providing a totally fictional series of Berlin Brigade urban camouflage schemes for various models in their Land Rover family.

They. Did. Not. Get. Urban. Camouflage. Ever! Bit of a rant today!

Worse, I think all three of the ones I'm looking at here weren't even service-vehicles in the brigade, so they are doubly fictional.

It's a long time ago. But I don't remember 1-Ton's in Berlin, at all. The Wombat platoon had old stripped-down series threes with a false floor to stow the Wombat's ramps, while the mortar platoon had series threes (replaced by defenders in 1986, maybe '87) with trailers for the base-plates. There was a Milan platoon, but I seem to recall they man-packed everywhere, broken down to one tube per infantry company? They ('Milan') had had Forward Control's in Tidworth though . . . I think!

The other uses for One-ton FC's was as 105mm Gun-tractors - we didn't have 105's in Berlin - and as ambulances, but in Berlin we had the old 'camper-van' overhanging-bodied' 3-series (as modelled by Corgi!), or - uniquely in the British Army - Unimogs.

So this vehicle wasn't in Berlin, and if it had been, it wouldn't have got the urban camouflage, which was confined to the larger AFV's - The Chieftains had it (for summer 1986?), the FV432 and 432B (Raden turret)'s had it first (they were wearing it for the Royal Hampshire's 'trooping of the colours' as senior battalion on parade for the Queen's Birthday Parade (QBP), so '84'ish?) and the Armoured squadron's Chieftain ARV's, Ferrets and FV438RE's had it, but our Fox's (bigger than a Ferret and armoured) were green and black.

This example also has far too much grey and not enough chocolate and white for the BB urban camouflage scheme's ratios which were closer to 40/30/30, but that’s going to be the obvious trouble with an invented paint-job!

This is comical, not only were 'lightweights' not service vehicles in Berlin Brigade, the camouflage on this has been copied from a combat-wombat's own civilianised Q-plate vehicle (Q568 GFV) which can be found on the internet; his mate had the most ridiculous aerials on a series-3 LWB and they spent their time worrying sheep between petrol-head events like those mentioned at the start!

Lightweights were considered 'special' vehicles, and while I seem to recall one FFR per company-HQ in Tidworth, it just wasn't a vehicle that the Berlin Brigade ever qualified for, there being no air-portability requirement for units written-off the strength of NATO, due to their low survivability 'forecast' in the event of the shit really hitting the fan!

Again, Land Rovers didn't get urban scheme, again; too much grey, not enough of the other two colours, but also, the series-3 safari's we had tended to window bodies with heavy, full-length (over-hanging) roof-racks (the CO had one I think), and while we did take delivery of the new 110 Defenders while I was there (ahead of both UKLF and BAOR), they were all green and black, and the hard-tops were fibre-glass pull-on's, windowed and all-green. But time's a bitch; and of the three, this is the one I'm not so sure of - as a service vehicle - and it could have arrived in the brigade after I left, but it didn't have the camouflage.

Again there's a combat-wombat one (soft-top Series-3) wearing military plates at shows (85 KB 80), but he's got both colours wrong, the chocolate being instead a camel-shit orange and the dark-grey; a pale ducks-egg colour!

He uses the scheme on the original experimental vehicle (01 GF 98?)'s scheme (from 1982?) which was placed on an old series-3 long before my time in the city, and which was only cleared for use with colour modifications, on the larger AFV's.

The thing is, the AFV's had a war-function of providing fire-support as rolling or emplaced 'bunkers' for ad-hoc battle-groups carrying out whatever task/s they had been given, within (holding actions) or through (breakout-infiltration-harassment) what was to be assumed would be a shattered or damaged city - if they had survived whatever indicated the beginning of hostilities! As such, they were painted to effectively disappear into the rubble.

Minutes 2.18 and 3.10 - 432's only, 1984 or '85

The soft-skins (and Fox) were primarily tasked with normal, day-to-day, 'peace-time' transport, patrolling the wire (foxes) and regular exercising 'down the zone' and therefore carried the standard NATO/UKLF scheme of broad black regions over an mid-olive drab-green (called 'Deep Bronze Green). The Fox'es were eventually painted 'urban' as well, but not until '88 or later.

They were not expected to survive the opening of hostilities, or be much use in the confines of rubble-strewn city streets, and would have been unlikely to have had time to be covered in a non-existing series of schemes. There was supposed to be a secondary function of the schemes - which were 'identikit' for each vehicle type - that of confusing the Russians into the exact numbers of armoured vehicles we had.

1987 - Chieftains now done - minute 13.30 - Striped-down brand-new

Defenders still NATO standard. 

Foxes (briefly visible extreme right at one point)

still NATO too - I'm in there somewhere!

However - given that A) each vehicle had a unique number-plate clearly visible, B) 'Soxmis' (the Soviet Military Mission) were allowed to roam freely over our sector; looking and counting, and C) the Russians knew exactly how many of what AFV-types had gone up and down the 'corridor' rail-lines over the previous 30-odd years - it was an excuse for playing with paint; which only the ruperts at MOD could come-up with!

And why don't the model manufacturers produce Bedford's or other larger soft-skins in the BB scheme? It's lazy, easy, pandering to vicarious combat-wombats! And if you've bought one - give it to your 'Nottingham' space-marines, for that is where it belongs . . . La-la Land!

La-la Land Rover's!

News, Views etc . . . Bits and Pieces.

Inflatable

A few bits not worth whole posts . . . starting with a few balloon related items from the recent press, as the previous post was also balloon-related!

I saw this in the other day and got to thinking how cool? Fully inflated it's the ultimate diorama base for space figures, robots, aliens and rocketry stuff! Indeed, one's gone on my lottery-win 'wants list', yes; I know my lottery-win wants list is quite long, but I'm planning on a triple-Euromillions rollover win, so I think there's still room on the shopping-list for a giant planetary satellite - and a stronger tether!

You could put it in a little house, like an observatory with a domed-roof and a spiral gantry-walkway )similar to Foster's Reichstag renovation), so you could lean over and glue things to the surface of the moon, you could have Hing Fat astronauts poking-about in the dust doing a little exploration, then, just over their horizon a vast alien battle could be raging between Games Workshop changelings painted different colours, further on maybe Buck Rogers and Dan Dare - taking turns to photograph dinosaurs from the relative safety of a Marx space base! Clangers, Trolls, Daleks, gun-toting apes, they could all have a sector?

Another story (actually a dry thing about investment company divests) with a balloon involved this library shot from Getty Images of a street-parade Sonic the Hedgehog; had me to thinking what would your favourite inflatable be if you had the choice, I'd probably go with the LP robotic cycle-cop?

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Picture - Dennis Mathies

Unusual

I mentioned the other day that someone, possibly the Royal Engineers or RCT had locally-purchased Mercedes 'Wagon & Drag' combinations in Berlin Brigade, the above is the set I was trying to explain, although I think ours had timbered drop-sides like the trailer and no cantilevered plate overhanging the cab, but it was a long time ago in a life now far away.

Obviously they would have been that particular sun-faded British Army green with broad swathes of black over-painted or over-sprayed and have been wearing the Berlin Brigade bumper sticker.

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Inimitable

Sticking with military vehicles; preparing the figures and photographs for the articles forthcoming on the Hong Kong Blog page and posts, I found these; well, I didn't find them - I knew exactly where they were - but I encountered them again, and noticed that their product code was one of the question marks in the Blue Box A-Z entry listing, so I'll sort that out!

Various military versions, presumably, as the number (7438) appears in the civil vehicle list there are more colourful versions out there? Or did they just stick with the green and grey to save money?

There are two versions of the bike (a Dinky Toy piracy) and both wear the number, one which stands up and another which doesn't! A block was cut into the mould tool to allow for an unsupported, upright stance on later production models.

Instructional

Speaking of Blue Box and further to my recent treatise on accuracy and fraudulent frauds, research reveals that Tai Sang Toys are still going (as Tai Sang Industrial Co. Ltd.), still own the company (BBI) that owns Blue Box Holdings, also own the company (RBI) that owns Redbox and own several other trademark/brand names such as Cheerful Toy, Hitech Electronic Manufacturing and Talentoy Ltd. remaining, in fact, the administrative vehicle and legal parent of the 'group of groups' which includes the Blue Box group and the Redbox group, and that therefore - yes - Blue Box (in a roundabout way) presumably now have access to the Zee Toys/Zylmex moulds.

Therefore Tai Sang weren't renamed Blue Box (the impression given by the owner of both companies in his interviews with Sarah Monks), but rather that Blue Box were created as a separate entity following the conversation with/visit to Cecil Coleman, with Redbox following a few years later - they first appear in the mid-1970's; allowing for the brief entry in Garratt, published 1980/1.

Tai Sang still occupy some offices in the old Blue Box HQ building in Aberdeen, the rest of the plant now given over to other tenants some of whom are toy companies, so Tai Sang are also landlords! Redbox now has four mainland factories, apparently (interestingly) in a different region to Blue Box's. Rivals? Mr. Sell couldn't have been more wrong about Redbox if he'd said they never existed or were called Green Box!

So the Blue Box entry in the A-Z already needs a 2nd edit, with fuller entries on Tai Sang and Redbox in the pipeline, indeed the history section of all will probably be transferred to the Tai Sang entry with links to the various other-brand's listings; a similar exercise of which is ongoing, with Giant/Arco/Sarco, the Rosenberg's and the Gardener's at the moment.

Also makes you wonder if Blue Box's die-casting works in Macau ever had a hand in Zyll's prolific production? Over the weekend Peter sent some interesting Blue Box 6" figures to Paul, because there's always more to find; have to add them to the listing too!

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Blogging

Overdue

I've spent the last few weeks sorting out the small scale Britains/Crescent khaki infantry copies to get the job finished on them, the page at the top of this blog may well go, or I might rush-finish it at some point with links to the Hong Kong blog, but on the Hong Kong Blog there will be a new page with a brief run-through linked by figure type and set to the individual posts which will appear at the same time.

Unthinkable

Having taken over 7 years to get the first million hits up (last June was it?), it seems we are racing to the 2-million! With a lot of help from Russian clik-bots it has to be said, but with 700+ as a daily average (I took this screen cap as I liked the round 1000 of the previous day!), I find I'm starting to consider biting the bullet and re-jigging the blog to a more conventional scheme; I've always been happy with it in black, all my favourite Big O and Dragons Dream books have black pages, and I did jig it to a dark purple-brown with grey text for those who were having problems with it.

However, not having Internet on my laptop for the last nine months has shown me how much the layout appearance varies from PC to PC, and even I find myself squinting at the hot-link lists on some machines, so when I have a day to play on a mate's Internet I think a planer layout will ensue . . . anyone got any strong ideas or real bugbears? Speak now or forever hold you piece.

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Advertorial

Other Media appearances for toys in the last few months have included . . .

. . . this little chap; called Wilbur . . . the Penguin (no shit Sherlock!) is the new face of British Gas's 'Planet Home' series of TV and print adverts, expect toys any day soon, remember Buzzby, the British Telecom brat? Still turns up on feebleBay like a bad penny from time to time! AND . . . Royal Fail's The Stamp Bug . . . Hahahahahah!

While this story on a market slowdown was accompanied by an arena of Kiddybrix decedents; people, aliens (that look like aliens), aliens from long ago and far away (Tunisia and Shepperton mostly!), a bloke made from sewn-together body parts and various other miscreants and ner'do'well's, including a few pirates, Harry Potter and Genghis Khan! Who's the monkey-man in the grey cloak?

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Seasonal

I don't know where this year's gone, but it went there so fast I barely noticed its passing! Been an odd year, and it could get odder in the next 48 hours huh?!!

I've 'so' tried to stay out of that one, but it begs a question - if he is . . . you know . . . if he does . . . what will it say to the Kennedy conspiracists? I mean, if Kennedy can be assassinated by any one of those groups , organisations or individuals placed in the frame over the years - other than the nutter in the book store - why is the wigless one still here, hinting that "She" should 'get it' from an NRA member or two?

Anyway, closer to home; this is my seasons stash of Sweet Chestnuts, so the war can come and the world can go to hell, I'm alright for roast dinners until at least the 4th Jan! Just call me . . . dadaa-dadaa dadaa-dadaa, dadaa-dadaa dadaa-dadaa . . . Squirrelman!

You may be thinking 'But they're only chestnuts?', you don't know that three years ago we had a poor harvest and while I was picking through the damp, wormy remains on the forest floor, several squirrels up in the trees started throwing the spiky husks at me, while chattering "Fuck-off human" in Squirrelish at me!

This year was perfect; wet spring, warm summer, dry autumn and they fell before the rain; the squirrels were busy elsewhere and before you could say "Holy Rodent Roulade Squirrelman!" I'd bagged a stash.

Equally Seasonal is the annual appearance of Christmas cake decorations, an advent which gives slimmer picking every year in my experience, but these are being sold in The Works as crafting accessories, six for a pound - that was about US-75¢ a few months ago, but thanks to the basket-case Brexiteers it'll be about 7¢ by the time you read this! Anyway, if you need winter coverage for your Panzerlarger, now's the time to invest!

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Follow-ups

Mentioning the possibility of NRA members shooting a President to retain the right to bear arms (beyond irony!), I see that Nigella Fáràgê (rhymes with c**t) was wishing urban violence, revolution and Mad Max on us this weekend; fantasist twat, but, after the fascist headlines of last week I think we all know where we're going here, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria, the UK (or at least England) and yes, even the 'States . . .

. . . although as I muttered warnings of burning cities on Dear Prime Minister a while back; none of this is surprising me, it's all just rather depressing, that we seem to be blindly marching off to war, to re-learn the lessons of the last two! The main lessons being 1) War is not nice and nobody's the winner; 2) It costs more than getting to the stars and 3) Liberal Democrats are eminently preferable to self-interested, brain-dead, flag-waving Nationalists.

This picture (from the tables in the background - sat in Picasa since 2011!) really needed to be in the Preiser/Elastolin band post the other day, but I forgot it! Home painted by one of those weird types who do such things "Ooh-yeah, ooooo, ooooh-yeah, Nazis, lots of lovely Nazis, just . . . just paint one more, yeah . . . oh yeah! Ooooh, ooooh, huh . . . fuck'yeaaaaaaaarrrrrrhh!"

Seriously; they are nice-enough figures as they come, and can be re-painted to any arm of the military, even Waffen-SS, but as black-clad 'bodyguard' thugs? Really? He's even painted-over a composition original - not just a sick Nazi but a bloody vandal! Still - guarenteed seller!

Safer ground with this one! A while back (January?), I did a post on the various cereal-premium kits, and there were a few mostly incomplete soft-plastic 'planes given away with UK comics at some point, this came via Gareth in the Spring and is an almost complete Messerschmitt Me.109, I posed the missing fuselage-half to show the 'whole' runner.

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Shouts-out

Repeating the call I made the other day, in case this post gets more/different traffic over time . . .

Someone stated that he wouldn't produce a complete list of Preiser as it would run to 100's of pages; actually it currently runs to less than 60 - with all or most of the blanks in place; and I am in the process of completing it for the A-Z entry.

However I have two gaps, one is the very early days (with any additions to the small 3xx series we looked at the other day), the other being the four-number codes from the 1970's/1980's.

Also while I have various lists of Aristo-craft, Bachmann, Faller, E-R, VIP, Vollmer and Walther's/Terminal Hobby Shop products as supplied by Preiser, I'm sure they are not all complete. If anyone can help supply scans of old catalogues (mine is PK 12 I think, but in storage now) or listings of early stuff or the mid-four number era, that would help, and all help will be acknowledged when I publish, also you will get my current draft by return.

The other call for help is: can anyone tell me anything about the two 'space-cars' in the picture? I am guessing they are from an early track-race game, as they have wings with rods that seem designed to follow a channel or stay within track-walls or something?

About OO-gauge compatible for size and with plastic bodies, heavy lead-wheels and clock-work mechanisms, this is the second pair of these I've picked-up, worse condition than the pair in storage, I have an idea there was a problem with one of them too, so I'm hoping that between the four I will cannibalise a decent pair, with all their bits intact.

The other pair is the same colour way, so I think that's it; 'a pair'; twice? I was thinking Chad Valley, Marx, early Lines/Mettoy or Rovex, but haven't the faintest idea, anyone know? Might they even be a Hornby or Hornby-Triang thing

The other items in the shot are an inter-war slush-cast Renault in need of tracks and a Japanese celluloid cart with blow-moulded figures and load.

Finally reader/follower Jacob Ndolu from Indonesia (Small Scale World dot com goes global!) asked me if I had any spare Wing Lung copies of Matchbox/Airfix, I don't; can anyone help him find some? I can pass details, just email me, or post links in the comments.

C is for Curate's Egg

It would be 'C is for Cautionary Tale, but we've already had one of them!

I don't know how many figures have been produced in plastic over the years, but the more you know of, the more - not less - likely you are to make a mistake occasionally (this allows those who take delight in spotting mistakes to make a point, hey CS? - still waiting for your erudite feedback!), and I made one at the Plastic Warrior show the other day...here it is!

I saw these and recognised the boxes, asked the dealer if they were really Merten (he's a well respected member of the hobby and made the same mistake so I won't name him!) as they seemed a little cramped...and he said yes, adding they seemed to be repaints, which I concurred with.

Because I use to be a small scale only collector I'm always on the lookout for new or interesting small scale (which in my mind always goes to 45/50mm 'ish!), we negotiated on the pair and I got a bargain (some will argue as they read on - a hell of a bargain...).

Because I'd already a bought a few bits these were perched a bit precariously on the top of the pile as I went on round the venue, and within minutes I was running into people I know who said the usual "Anything nice?" to which I pointed to these and said "Some nice Mertens in 40mm I haven't seen before"!

Well, those not blinded by the red mist of 'purchase frenzy' immediately identified them as WHW figures, repainted!

I should have seen it for myself as I have some undamaged originals, but in the 'heat of battle' failed to recognise them. They are actually KHW [Kreigshilfswerk] or War Relief rather than the earlier WHW [Winterhilfswerk] or Winter Relief and are from the set of Guard Corps figures issued by the Gau of Berlin in January 1942. Polystyrene flats, 45mm (50+ with headdress) originally painted in a simpler form. Because they were issued only in the Berlin area they tend to carry more value than the national issues, but do turn-up fairly regularly.

The figures are mostly paint or actual conversions of about 6 or 7 (mostly infantry) figures from a set of - I believe - ten original sculpts, missing is the lovely Imperial Kürassier sculpt with his eagle-helmet and the Hussar, along with the earlier Kürassier figure (all cavalry). There are head-swaps above, well done and some converting of full length muskets to Jaeger carbines, little metal strip bayonets have been added to a couple, pin-swords to others etc...

I am assuming they represent a specific group of uniforms from a specific time period sometime between the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and First World War (1914-18)?

So it really is a curate's egg...the actual value is questionable, the intrinsic value is questionable, the historical value is questionable, and without the correct paper inserts, I can't use the boxes for 40mm Mertens despite needing some, so they might as well stay in them for the time being...do I regret the purchase? No, they're a really nice group and will look good on a shelf somewhere!

R is for Reichssportfeldstraße...

...where some very smart houses used to sit in greenified splendor. A strange juxtaposition being Eva Braun's house sitting next to the Brigade Padre's! Indeed a quirk not lost on the Padre who pointed it out to me.

Still, in 1936 I'm sure the wide boulevard street that runs from the Heer Straße  (the western end of the main arterial route through Berlin that becomes Unter den Linden and eventually runs under the Brandenburg Gate) up to the Olympic Stadium, with its broad pavements (side-walks) and expansive central median (now used for the typically 'Berlin' herring-bone parking) would have been lined with little kiosks selling tourist trinkets and memorabilia of the 1936 Olympic Games.

Others stands would have been selling 'Bratties mitt pommes-frits und mayo'...but that's another story!

Straight from the workshops of Bavaria or the Black Forest or anywhere else that had a tradition of wooden toy/plaything production now usually erroneously titled 'Erzgebirge' came this little charmer. An SA Oompa Band in full cry, approximately 25mm, with only the boots painted or stained black.

This was just the sort of little inexpensive item you could carry away on the day, send back to relatives elsewhere or abroad and which with the odd glueing over the years and the acquisition of a fine layer of nicotine has lasted to this day.

M ist fur die Maur

It is 50 years since the wall went up, and as there are kids in their 20's who see it as an historic event of the likes of the Titanic or a World War, I get to feel very old!

I was there...and I'm still here, so it was yesterday for me, and gives one a sense of what it must have been like for veterans of earlier historic events, trying to explain to the next generation that it was real. Ever wondered as a kid why the old guy at the end of the street or village always got a bit shirty with you as you played 'war'...

One of the first things any troops did when starting an operational tour of Berlin was have a coached orientation-tour, which basically meant having a tourist-bus ride with a man from the Intelligence Corps shouting stuff to the back of an army white-bus.

While we were being shown the sites round the Brandenburg gate area, I managed - with my old Kodak 33 Instamatic (which I'd been bought for my first visit to Germany, a touring holiday in 1969) - to shoot a Soxmis or Stasi spy-type person in a red Volvo photographing me! [us]. They would then compare these photographs with any movement documents they'd copied from the convoys and military train that ran 'down the zone' to West Germany, along with any passport photographs, to build-up a picture of the new units as they moved in.

I think this was shot as we went round the Victory Column, which celebrates someone other than the British giving the French a good spanking!!!! They love it really...bend over and bite your baguette Frenchie!

Years later I'd have one of these red Volvo's (a 940) with a bit of chrome round the windows! The East German's also had a fleet of 6-door 'stretched' Volvo estates in a pumpkin purple/midnight blue, which were parked outside the town hall in East Berlin, I never understood why one of our Allies would be selling fleets of specially prepared cars to the 'Enemy', then I saw some documentary which tied the subsidiary of the subsidiary of a global drinks company to part ownership of a 'peoples' ball-bearing factory somewhere in the East, making parts for T62's and realised that the world is merely mad, and it's rulers madder still; madder than the rest of us that's for sure.

One of my most treasured possessions, this is a real bit of the 'Wall' chipped-out near the Brandenburg Gate in the early hours of the day it came down by my ex-Girlfriend who was a West Berliner (and not a doughnut like Kennedy) and which she then sent to me. My brother happened to have this piece of hex-bar left over from making hand-tools as an apprentice a few years before, and I can't remember if I found the steel block or if he did, but he drilled it and jammed the bar in.

The East German concrete set like metal so I couldn't drill it, or not without destroying the whole thing, so I propped it all on its side, super-glued the bar to the lump and then fully-married them with a wadge of Araldite!!If you have a piece of 'the wall' smaller than a finger-nail, in a little plastic box from one of the traders down at the Zoo or Ku'damm, with a thin layer of florescent orange or pink paint; I'm afraid you have a fragment of the scammers equivalent of toffee-crackle, probably broken up with a toffee hammer as they make it so thin!!

Genuine pieces of the 'Wall' have a many-layered 'plastic' coating, created by the endless re-painting and over painting of the artists, graffitists and (occasionally) East German boarder-guards, who would come over via ladders and paint sections out at night - until their bosses worked-out that they got more 'runners' among the guards than any corresponding 'worth' of some whitewashing of stuff their own people couldn't read anyway! [They supposedly had the meter 'our' side of the wall, and did grab the odd person, by leaning down from the same ladders, or so it was told??]

I think these were taken in the Summer of 1987, and this one is a favourite of mine, it also appears in some of the better books on Wall Art. Years ago I painted this on the back of a leather Jacket for some guy, I wonder if he's still got it?

Taken over the wall from one of the wooden viewing platforms, and looking at one of the 'killing zones'. Sandwiched between both 'our' Wall and an inner security wall (over to the right) is a tarmacked road for the vehicles used to change and feed the guards, patrol the barrier etc...the sand strip which is a minefield and then a clear area of grass covered by firing ports in the tower in the background.

I think this is part of the area cleared to allow Roger Waters to perform 'The Wall' in 1991 (? I was there so I should know!), a superb event spoiled only by the helicopter lent by the AAC flight down at RAF Gatow (the garrison hung around for a few years after unification) who flew in to do the "You! Yes YOU - Laddie, Stand Still Will YER!" bit, and then decided to hang around for most of the next number having a gander and drowning everything out until one of the lighting guys encouraged them to leave with a white-spotlight!!

Another favourite, if you find this one in a book it's usually missing the anarchist epithet! I have another book on the wall somewhere which is a combination of actual art and the results of a competition which included lots of these 'release' or 'through the key-hole' motifs.

A bit of a story, the long version I may tell one day...me and a chap called Maiden were a gun-team (GPMG) on a live-firing exercise in Sennelager 'up (or 'down') the zone', when we were accidentally shot at by our Platoon Commander! Nice chap, fresh out of Sandhurst and trying too hard! Anyway, being a 'Rodney' he got the weirdest punishment while he waited his real punishment...he was sent from the battalion up to Brigade (in the old '36 Olympic Village) and put in charge of a REME team building a scale model of the British sector of the Wall.

Knowing I had trained as a graphic designer in civi-street, and knowing I wasn't too bothered about the fact he's loosed-off a 7.62 full metal jacket in my general direction, he came and asked me if I could produce some drawings for the guy's to work from, which I duly did.

Being given - then - classified photographs (which any tourist could get with the right lens!), I took copies of the finished drawings before I handed them it. I don't know if the model was ever made, and if it was whether it survived the fall of the Wall and withdrawal of Berlin brigade? It may be in one of the Wall/German Division/Reunification museums, of which there are several in Berlin these days.

I actually got the dimensions of the later-style 'lollipop' tower wrong in my haste, making it oblong when it did in fact have a square floor-plan! I have visions of all the towers on this 18-meter model being wrong and can only hope some bright-spark in the REME spotted the 'grunts' cock-up...

Me photographing them photographing me again! I'm the shadow bottom right, and they are 'photo-guy', left, by the hut and 'I guard he guards I guy' next to him. I wonder if they are still out there somewhere...now 'just' Germans living normal lives like the rest of us?

This was shot down in the 'hippy'/alternative/goth/punk squatter area near Krautzfeld, and one suspects that the lorry is backed right up to the wall for a purpose. As can be seen, there is a maze of 'Wall', 'Wire' and various blockages as road, rail and internal border all meet badly up against one of the canals. I wonder if there wasn't a bit of late-night 'traffic' here than ignored both boarders and politics!

For every inch of the famous 'Wall' there was 10 kilometers of the less famous 'Wire', running along-side the main arterial road and rail links with West Germany, down the middle between the two Germany's' and round the outside of West Berlin.

From time to time we'd get the BMT (British Military Train) 'Down the Zone' and these two shots were taken covertly from the window. A sealed station somewhere between Magdeburg (a big grey soviet industrial town with a Tank Barracks right-up against the railway-line) and Braunsweig, where we re-entered the West.

I think there is an almost discernible 'ghost' of Taff Davis in the window sitting opposite me...

You have to wonder why the current government of the State of Israel are busy building walls, when they always fail...

Jericho, Troy, Mahenjo Daro, Siegfried, Maginot, Hadrian's, Bar Lev, Berlin, French Indo-China even the Great wall of China is in pieces and saw the Mongol hoards swarm across it. The night I got home to see it coming down, I shed a tear, I'm not ashamed to say, not because I was sad to see it go, but because it represented waste, wasted lives, wasted time and wasted money - foisted on all of us by those who would rule over us.

They were - in the mid-1990's - talking about giving us a medal, us 'Cold-war Warriors', or a Berlin bar to the GSM (we were written off the combat-ready strength of NATO due to our 10 minute survivability status if the 'balloon went up' - 99 red one's, who remembers that...and better heard in the original German, thanks Nena!), but then Phony Tony B.Liar took us to war in three new places and our young successors started really dying, while we just thought about it occasionally in the Irish Pub in the Europa Centre. So we - rightly - stop asking for a medal and go back to our memories and a little piece of concrete 'History' on stick!