Fixing Broken Britain(s) Part 1 – Three Charging Highlanders head out for a coffee

Recently toy soldier collector John Forman very kindly sent me a small box of “Broken Britain’s” from his family collection which were otherwise going for scrap.

Some had lost heads, bases, hooves, rifles and arms from being played with by John and his father before him, these were the battered toy soldier veterans of  battles going back from the 1960s into the 1930s.

Three Charging Highlanders 

One such casualty amongst John’s Broken Britain’s figures was this charging Highlander. He had come off his base and had previously also lost his head.

I love this pose and pick these figures up at reasonable price if I ever see them. In addition to these three new repaired ones, I have about ten to fifteen Highlanders  of this pose  in various regiments to repair to make a small mixed unit.

In some cases I was repairing previous repairs, such as the  traditional head repair of sticking the head onto a matchstick and glueing in place. This repair from many years before needed resticking.

Using a fine 1mm drill bit and hand drill (or pin vice) bought from Prince August, I drilled into the Highlander’s leg and inserted a short piece of 1mm stiff garden wire. If you run out, paper clip wire will do as well.

Drilling through the ankle right through to the base, it was then easy to fit leg to base, secured with a tiny drop of superglue.

The wire pin securing the leg to to the drilled foot or base on this attractive running  Highlander.

To secure the weak ankle join into place, as these figures will be fighting tabletop or garden battles again, at the risk of slightly thicker looking ankles, I wrapped a thin bandage of masking tape around the glued and pinned ankle.  A thin smear of superglue supports and seals the join. This masking tape ‘sock’ can later be painted in an off-white to match the other of the white spats or gaiters, worn over black shoes. The red tops to the white spats are tartan red socks

Two other Highlanders in John’s scrap pile had intact bases but broken rifles.

Moustaches on these Black Watch faces suggest they are prewar / pre 1940 figures.

Out came the 1mm drill again  and I drilled behind the rifle and hand into the body to secure a long piece of wire to make a new rifle barrel.

Alternatively you can clip or file the rifle back to the hand and drill carefully into this hand to anchor your wire rifle barrel, but there was enough rifle here on these two Highlanders not to want to lose this original  section.

Wrapping a small piece of masking tape tightly round and round the barrel bulks out the 1mm wire to the desired rifle thickness and also gives a rough base for painting. I usually put a very thin line of superglue on the wire first to secure the first fold / wrap and then to seal the final fold. This stops the masking tape unravelling later on.

Looking at the surviving paintwork, some of the Highlanders seem to have an all gold or bronze painted rifle. I continued this colour scheme but painted an undercoat of black on first before putting on the top  coat of  gold or bronze.

I usually use Revell Aquacolor  Gloss Acrylic paint  (the square tubs) as they are low odour, dry fast and any brushes wash out easily enough, especially with a spot of washing up liquid. Unlike enamels, I find a second coat of Acrylic is usually required for good deep colour. They colour mix well enough and can be thinned with water.  My current mixing palettes are plastic milk bottle tops.

The paint condition is playworn but reasonably good, with an attractive patina of past battles,  so apart from painting the feather bonnets and hackles again, as this is where a figure is usually picked up, I have left them much as they arrived.

Which Highlanders are which Highland Regiment?

The repaired broken ankled figure with yellow cuffs or facings is an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander, Britain’s Set 15 produced in this style from 1903 onwards. The dark green kilt has light green stripes, according to Andrew Rose in his excellent book The Collector’s Guide to Toy Soldiers.

Our broken example has yellow facings on collar and cuffs and red kilt stripes, suggesting a Seaforth Highlander (James Opie, Britain’s Toy Soldiers 1893-1932).

The Black Watch have black cuffs or facings, a red hackle or plume in their bonnets and dark green kilts with black hatching or stripes.

Three Charging Highlanders of the Composite (Camp Coffee) Highland Brigade restored, rearmed and returned to fighting fitness on their tuppeny bases. Ready for action, Ready Aye Ready! *

However to get them battle ready, I based them on tupenny (2p)  pieces. British 1p and 2p coins minted after 1992 are also slightly magnetic, handy if you use magnetic strip in your basing trays, travel or storage boxes.  I attached the figure base to the coin with hot glue gun adhesive. The tuppeny base gives good stability during a game, storage and transport.

To cover the coin colour, I painted any coin metal that was still showing in several thick coats of chrome or sap green acrylic to near match the original Britain’s green base paint. A simple bright green base easily gives that old toy soldier look as the pink cheek dot on a toy soldier face. The faces on these figures had survived well and were quite ruddy cheeked. Being pre-war  figure, they had the dapper dignity of a moustache painted on before Britain’s stopped this on routine figures postwar.

The repairs may not be pretty on parade but they are designed to be robust enough for handling in war games as H.G. Wells and Britain’s  intended.

More Broken Britain’s to be featured in future blogposts.

And now Mancraft mending time  over for the day, it’s time for coffee …

Having a mixture of Highlanders that I don’t want to repaint over the original facings (colours, cuffs) and mixed tartans, I have merged them all (“Royal Regiment of Scotland” style) into one Composite (Camp Coffee) Highland Brigade, following the inspired lead  of Bob Cordery as he did did cleverly on his blog with his The Works sourced Cordery’s Composite Cavalry Brigade: 

http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/corderys-composite-cavalry-corps-expands.html?m=0

Composite (Camp Coffee) Highland Brigade? 

* If you’re puzzled, Camp Coffee is not their Regimental Barracks, though it probably will become so. Camp Coffee is the Victorian liquid coffee essence, the one still with the Victorian style label Highlander and Indian seated drinking coffee together, although originally the Indian was a servant or batman. Their motto for this instant coffee and chicory blend? Ready, Aye  Ready!

According to Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Coffee

“Legend has it that Camp Coffee was originally developed as a means of brewing coffee quickly for military purposes. The label is classical in tone, drawing on the romance of Empire. It includes a drawing of a Gordon Highlander (allegedly Major General Sir Hector MacDonald) and a Sikh soldier sitting together outside a tent, from which flies a flag bearing the drink’s slogan, “Ready Aye Ready“. That was also the motto of the Frontier Force Rifles of the old British Indian Army, and the Frontier Force Rifles, now part of the Pakistan Army, still use the motto. In this context, the Scots word “aye” has the meaning of “always” rather than “yes”, and indicates, in the case of the drink, that it is “Ready Always Ready” to be made.”

The label has changed much over the years:

Robert Pool’s contribution to the BBC History of the World in 100 objects.

“The original label, by William Victor Wrigglesworth, depicted a Sikh servant waiting on a kilted Scots soldier. A later version of the label, introduced in the mid-20th century, removed the tray from the picture, and was seen as an attempt to avoid the connotation that the Sikh was a servant, although he was still shown waiting at attention while the Scottish soldier sipped his coffee.  The current version, introduced in 2006, depicts the Sikh as a soldier, now sitting beside his former boss, and with a cup and saucer of his own.” (Wikipedia)

http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2010/11/the-short-but-fascinating-history-of-camp-coffee/

I rather like the new equality logo of both soldiers sharing a cup of tea together, and rather like the taste of Camp Coffee too! It has fuelled many happy hours of  painting, this Victorian convenience product of Field Campaigns in the old Empire days.

The modern logo for Camp Coffee – still bright and colourful …

There is another form of equality at issue here as well, as the original Gordon Highlander depicted is said to be modelled on the interesting figure of Sir Hector Macdonald  or “Fighting Mac” –

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/a-colonial-legacy-an-officer-and-an-icon-415634.html

And the Polish military connection to coffee and the Cappucino?

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/18/of-winged-hussars-and-cappucinos/

Look through previous recent blogposts for more Broken Britains and figure mending.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN 12 / 13 May 2018.

 

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