Christmas gifts for my Arma-Dad’s Army project 2021 – Chintoys 54mm, llamas, vintage Monarch Spaniards and books from heavy hints to the family and centre a Cherilea Elizabethan gift and mounted Conquistador from Alan Gruber
Thanks to all my blog readers and friends for their support, comments and distractions in 2020.
Here is my look back at this disrupted year of 2020 and some New Gaming Year Irresolutions of things I may or may not do in 2021:
The new BMC Plastic Army Women have arrived from America – the first Kickstarter I have ever backed. A snowball fight breaks out at Camp Benjamin on the parade and assault course amongst the new female recruits, watched by their officers on the rope bridge …
Crossposted with other snowball fight links and rules (including by Alan Gruber) posted by Mark Man of TIN on his Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog, 26/27 December 2020
Reading Donald Featherstone’s War Games (1962) again, I came across references to the origin of H. G. Wells’ Little Wars when he demonstrated his ideas for the book in his publisher Frank Palmer’s office.
Little Wars was a seminal and special book for Featherstone as he often claimed to be the only British tanker or squaddie who went off to WW2 with a copy of it in his kitbag, leaving his lead figures behind to perish in the Blitz.
War Games 1962, p. 18
The recent reprint of Little Wars by Peter Dennis with beautiful print and cut out 54mm figures in his PaperBoys series (Helion) featured Peter’s own take on these early games in his house. It could almost be that scene in a Frank Palmer’s office! As a lovely touch by Peter Dennis, the gent on the left in the straw boater is the late Wargames magazine editor Stuart Asquith, champion of the revival of 54mm gaming and Little Wars.
An R. Thurston Hopkins is mentioned by Featherstone as being at this Little Wars event. I know G.K. Chesterton had also been around as part of this process towards publishing Little Wars.
John Curry at the History of Wargaming Project has recently reprinted Little Wars in his volume on the Early Wargaming Pioneers
Who was this R. Thurston Hopkins?
There is not much published information in him beyond his ghost hunting books, and I have found no photo so far, so I have done a little digging around,
Robert Thurston Hopkins was a bank cashier and English writer, who was born in 1884, lived mostly in London and Sussex and died in 1958.
He wrote mostly about the English countryside, ghosts and literary biographies of H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling. His son was the photojournalist (Godfrey) Thurston Hopkins (1913-2014).
The same year that Frank Palmer published Little Wars, Robert Thurston Hopkins published his first book, topically on Oscar Wilde (1913). He also published a book on Wilde in 1916. I wonder if this was the book he was discussing with Frank Palmer, although I believe it was eventually published by another publisher.
Wilde had died a few years earlier and would still have been a scandalous and controversial figure at the time.
This was the first of the literary biographies or commentaries that Thurston Hopkins published, eventually adding Kipling and H.G. Wells himself to the list.
In his 1922 book on H.G. Wells., Thurston Hopkins compares the ‘Peterpantheism’ or eternal boyhood of Wells with that of Robert Louis Stevenson, not always favourably I feel in RLS’ case. Like Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson was another early ‘War gamer’ with his toy soldiers.
A copy of his book H.G. Wells: Personalty, Character, Topography (1922) can be found free on Archive.Org:
Anyway, a little glimpse into the period that H.G. Wells created Little Wars.
Robert Thurston Hopkins was a passing player to the birth or publishing of Little Wars and the slow spread of wargaming beyond the Kriegspiel played by the military.
A little more about Robert Thurston Hopkins, bank clerk, author and ‘ghost hunter’
A literary man with some military experience was accidentally present at the birth of Little Wars.
Robert Thurston Hopkins was born on 12 July 1883 or early 1884 in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk (noted in 1911 Census as Thetford on the Norfolk / Suffolk border) into a family of Furniture Brokers. His father Frederick Hopkins was born in London c. 1848, his mother Mary in Norfolk in 1850.
In the 1901 Census his father appears to have died, his brothers running the Furniture business. Robert is listed as a bank clerk. However his WW1 records note that he had previously served in the 2nd County of London City Imperial Yeomanry, buying himself out (‘discharge by purchase’) c. 1904/5. (This may have covered the period of or immediate aftermath of the Boer War.)
Having continued work as a bank clerk, by the 1911 Census he is listed as a visitor on census night at the house of Robert Godfrey Bately, a surgeon in practice of Gorleston, Norfolk. This is not a surprise, as in 1912 he married the daughter of the family, Sybil Beatrice Bately (born c. 1887?). He was living at 21
1913 – The year Little Wars and Thurston Hopkins first book was published, Robert and Sybil had their only son.
Their son, Godfrey Thurston Hopkins (S. London, 16 April 1913 – 26 October 2014) became a press photographer before and after WW2. His photographs were used in some of his father’s books. He went on to serve in WW2 with the RAF Photographic Unit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurston_Hopkins
Thurston the son went to school near Burwash, Sussex near where Kipling lived, another literary figure from the Wells era that his father Robert Thurston Hopkins wrote about.
In 1915 Robert and his family were living at 21 Westdown Road, Catford, London. In December 1915 Robert Thurston Hopkins volunteered for the Army, joining the ASC Army Service Corps (Motor Transport) section. His service records note as the occupation the words ‘Bank Clerk’ but also ‘Motorcyclist’ and ‘Lorry’ (2). Having signed up he then spent December 1915 to March 1916 in the Army Reserve.
Presumably he had an interest in transport or a driving licence that helped his topographical or travel books about England.
His bank clerk and authorial skills led to him rising in WW1 from Private M2/167077 to Company Quarter Master Sergeant, Army Service Corps serving at home throughout 1916/17 and from October 1917 to September 1919 (theatre 4A) Egypt with 1010 M.T. Co. Here he ended up hospitalised and discharged from hospital in September 1919 for two months with a carbuncle, a condition aggravated by the climate of Cairo / Egypt.
As a CQMS his character was by his O/C (Officer Commanding) described as Sober, Very Reliable, Very Intelligent and Thoroughly Trustworthy and Conscientious.
He was demobilised on 18 January 1920 as a CQMS.
On 21 December 1920 he re-enlisted for 3 years service in the 28th Battalion County of London Regiment (Artists Rifles) Territorial Force until no longer needed on 29 November 1922.
After his WW1 service he returned to writing (and possibly his bank clerk role).
In the 1920s electoral registers, he and Sybil are living in (possible apartments in) No. 21, Sillwood Place, Brighton.
By the 1939 wartime census he is listed as Bank Clerk and author (retired), living with wife Sybil and son Godfrey (by then a photographer) near the sea at Portslade in Sussex, near Brighton and Hove. Unusually, despite his CQMS experience in WW1, the 55 year old Robert Thurston Hopkins is not listed at the time as involved in ARP or Civil Defence as is sometimes recorded in the 1939 Census.
He died on 23 May 1958, survived by his wife Sybil and son Thurston.
Brief Bibliography
His science fiction or supernatural works (books, articles, stories) are listed here with a gap during WW1 after 1916 to the early 1920s.
Like many others growing up playing with toy soldiers in the 1960s or 70s, Donald Featherstone’s wargaming books borrowed from the public branch library were a great source of ideas and inspiration to me as a youngster.Sadly I never got to meet Donald Featherstone before he died in 2013 but I do have a couple of books signed by him amongst my collection. Touched briefly by genius!Richard Tennant and the start of his mini biography on Miniature Minions blog post
I am pleased to have a signed Featherstone volume of Complete Wargaming, this one dedicated to Dick Tennant, obviously released as the result of downsizing a lifetime collection.
The inscription to Dick Tennant celebrating 30 years friendship (published 1988)
This is one of two signed Featherstone books I have acquired over the last few years.
Featherstone’s Complete Wargaming came from a second hand seller for only £15 even though it was pencilled in next to the price ‘signed’.
I had no idea who Dick Tennant was.
Aha! Thanks to David Crenshaw at the Miniature Minions website in the USA, who has acquired some of the Tennant Napoleonics collection of figures, I now know who Richard Tennant is.
R.J. Tennant is one of the surviving original Donald Featherstone wargames conference circle from Southampton from the early 1960s.
On the back of a David and Charles catalogue flyer for the book, someone has noted some proofreading errors and some photo reversal mistakes. Written by Richard Tennant?
Alongside the Featherstone signature are some pencilled notes that I take to be Richard Tennant’s corrections. The pencil handwriting appears different from Featherstone’s signature and dedication. It exactly matches the handwriting in Miniature Minions’ blogpost about Tennant’s figures and research notebook.
Reading the MiniatureMinions blog post, there is much mention of the Peninsular War and even a mention of this windmill made by George Erik.
See the fly leaf pencil note about the “model illustrated on page 197 custom made by G.Erik photographed with own figures” – written by Richard Tennant
The Peninsular War appears to be a particular interest of both Tennant and Featherstone; I recall reading some of Donald Featherstone’s later articles about the battlefields in modelling or gaming magazines in the 1980s.
See flyleaf note re Page 142 about an incorrect caption for Napoleonic Cavalry
One of Richard’s figures used in the book? See the pencil flyleaf note re. “Photographs p. 139”
Featherstone’s Complete Wargaming has been reissued in a revised and corrected paperback version by John Curry of the History of Wargaming Project, working to correct some of these original printing and photographic errors.
John Curry’s Foreword about the original Complete Wargaming and the revised version.
My other Featherstone signature is in At Them With The Bayonet!, Featherstone’s book on the Anglo Sikh Wars. Unusually it is signed by Featherstone in lurid pink felt-tip (maybe you sign with whatever you have to hand?) inscribed to A.S. Donald, whoever that is. Again, this signed copy was not expensive, not being one of his better known Wargames books and one on an obscure Victorian conflict.
That distinctive Featherstone signature – in pink felt tip.
As well as Richard Tennant, I have come across another of Featherstone’s early circle, one who is still blogging:
Rod’s Wargaming is by another still blogging member of this early wargames conference / community, Rod MacArthur has on his website some great pictures of 1960s Airfix conversions that sometimes involved Featherstone’s mould making help:
Peter Dennis’ Paper Boys civilian figures on my mocked up 54mm railway halt
Peter Dennis’ versatile PaperBoys 54mm card figures for Little Wars have some very versatile civilian figures which I think look like railway civilians.
Read and see more about them here on my Sidetracked toy soldiers and railway gaming blog:
Happy Centenary Rosemary – a small present for your Centenary. If any reader is not sure why I chose these, read more here, crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog:
As a follow up to my recent post about The Toy Theatre and my 54mm figures inspired by this Emily Dutton advent calendar toy theatre, I wanted to photograph on stage my own paper Soldiers. These were quickly produced for my roughed out Suffra Graffiti game, inspired by those Wellsian Little Wars figures of Peter Dennis.
Fans of the Toy Theatre read like a Who’s Who of early Wargamers. I am curious about this overlap and what it offers us in gaming today.
I have been rereading “Penny Plain and Tuppence Coloured“, a well known essay by Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS) about the influence of the toy theatre on him as a child. It is available free online via archive.org here at:
” [RLS] Louis and cousin Bob had mastered the art of toy theater as boys. As a married man, age 30, in 1881, RLS was doing it again in Switzerland, after his stepson Lloyd Osbourne, age 11, had come into possession of a toy theater — “a superb affair costing upwards of 20 pounds that had been given me on the death of the poor lad who had whiled away his dying hours with it at the Belvedere,” a hotel in the health resort town of Davos. Lloyd continues: “He painted scenery for my toy theatre and helped me to give performances and slide the actors in and out of their tin stands, as well as imitating galloping horses, or screaming screams for the heroine in distress.”
“Stevenson wasn’t Pollock’s only interesting customer. G.K. Chesterton’s passion for the hobby rivalled Stevenson’s. Chesterton saw the toy theater as a microcosm of the cosmos, where everything can be examined under the spotlight of a miniature stage, where good and evil are starkly contrasted in bright colors and dramatic scripts. Winston Churchill was a big fan of the little stage, too. He bought his stuff at H.J. Webb, an offshoot of Pollock’s …”
.
Churchill’s favourite, Pollock’s The Miller and his Men – Image from the Old Pen Shop (EBay)
Churchill’s favourite toy theatre play The Miller and His Men apparently had a stirring “No Surrender” speech that may have influenced his later speeches and attitude. I have recently bought a repro copy of this Pollock play, characters and scenery from the Old Pen Shop online and look forward to reading it.
Haha! Paper Soldiers Pollock style, suitable for wargaming? (From: The Old Pen Shop, EBay)
“The Miller and His Men” was mentioned by RLS along with another title which I also purchased, the uncoloured Waterloo scenes for the Toy Theatre or Juvenile Drama from the same source.
* Update: Derek Cooper pointed out in the comments that the Wargames / Toy Theatre link continues with Warrior Miniatures in Glasgow also producing toy theatres and plays including Waterloo, Inkerman, Balaklava and Alma battles and Skelt pieces that RLS would recognise https://www.toytheatregallery.com
Pollock’s shop, sited at Covent Garden for a hundred years, still remains and they do online sales / mail order.
My three Edwardian postcard inspired coppers quickly created for my Suffra-Graffiti game …
RLS was a fan of Pollock’s toy theatres and Benjamin Pollock was a fan of RLS. Another interesting overlap.
RLS had a sickly childhood which in time inspired the writer of ‘The Land of Counterpane’ and other such toy inspired poems (featured on this blog) in the Child’s Garden of Verses. RLS and his stepson Lloyd Osborne also collected and gamed theatrically with Toy Soldiers, some of which survive in America – https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/02/robert-louis-stevensons-toy-soldiers/
There is lots of interesting overlap between wargames and toy theatre. I also associate Toy Theatre with convalescence, probably due to E. Nesbit, author of The City in The Library with its toy soldiers, who was also the author of The Railway Children which has a great Toy Theatre scene in the 1970s film.
My paper Suffragists and American cousin on roller skates for SuffraGraffiti
Alan Gruber at the Duchy of Tradgardland blog has also been musing over this Toy Theatre idea of wargaming. I suggested in the comments that:
“There is an element of framing, set dressing, assembling the protagonists or characters, behaving in the beginning in preset ways to set plans (take the ridge, cover the bridge, advance and occupy the town) etc and then each of the scenes making up the acts (beginning, middle, end?)”
The link is very clear when you consider the changing backdrops and changing scenery between games (or acts).
One overlap or connection may be that The Toy Theatre, real live theatre, TV drama, fiction and gaming are all things which allow us to play out strategy and “what if”, changing the variables of a scenario to affect the outcomes, without anyone getting hurt.
Shifty looking opponents of Women’s Suffrage from my Suffrage-Graffiti game
As mentioned in my opening paragraph, the fans of the toy theatre read like a “Who’s Who” of early wargaming – RLS, Chesterton, Churchill. I wondered if H G Wells was involved? Certainly Floor Games and Little Wars have a charming theatrical invention of worlds and theatre sets.
A little research on Board Game Geek reveals that Chesterton and Wells both appear to have devised together satirical toy theatre plays on current or recent events. Chesterton’ auto biography in 1936 reveals this larkish attitude by Wells:
“What I have always liked about [H.G.] Wells is his vigorous and unaffected readiness for a lark. He was one of the best men in the world with whom to start a standing joke; though perhaps he did not like it to stand too long after it was started. I remember we worked a toy-theatre together with a pantomime about Sidney Webb.”
Chesterton’s biographer Masie Ward notes that the pair: “They built too a toy theatre at Easton and among other things dramatized the minority report of the Poor Law Commission. The play began by the Commissioners taking to pieces Bumble the Beadle, putting him into a huge cauldron and stewing him. Then out from the cauldron leaped a renewed rejuvenated Bumble several sizes larger than when he went in.”
“Three Little Maids from the WSPU are we …” My roller skating Suffragettes
Peter Cushing the actor was a known collector and maker of toy soldiers, a dandy proponent of Little Wars, but he also collected and made toy theatres with elaborate set designs.
Man of Tin blog 
