Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog 14th March 2021:
Category: Poetry
Shaxbeard, the Armada and War
Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog – enjoy! – by Mark Man of TIN
https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/10/26/shaxbeard-the-armada-and-war/
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Toy Soldiers
Reading again Robert Louis Stevenson’s toy soldier poem The Land of Counterpane on the Duchy of Tradgardland blog made me look again at some blog posts I had written about RLS’ toy soldier poems from A Child’s Garden of Verses.
I came across a link to these “old leaded soldiers” belonging to Robert Louis Stevenson at the RLS museum in California (currently closed due to Coronavirus):
https://stevensonmuseum.org/the-museum/collections/personal-objects/
Sounds a museum well worth a visit if you live nearby.
I wondered if there were pictures of these soldiers on their RLS Museum website or on the web of RLS’ “old leaded Soldiers”, RLS being a pioneer of early wargaming with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne, their battle or game reports written up stylishly in their “Yallobelly Times”.
I found this picture from the museum of these 19th Century (European? German manufactured?) tin flat toy soldiers with which RLS might have played these pioneer games.
Famous as the author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson was also an early war gamer.
His role as ” grandfather” or “great uncle” in the history of wargaming (depending where you place H G Wells) was acknowledged by “father of the modern wargame” Donald Featherstone in his book War Games (1962), a book that began the hobby careers of so many of us.
RLS mention from Donald Featherstone, War Games (1962)
Stevenson at Play, a magazine article describes a complex strategic wargame that the author and his 12 year old stepson, Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, played in the early 1880s which you can read reprinted here:
http://vintagewargaming.blogspot.com/2009/11/robert-louis-stevenson.html
Stevenson’s complex game does not seem to have had the attention that H G Wells‘ Little Wars has had, even though despite the popgun driven firing system, there are many surprisingly modern features: four man units, concealed movement, ammunition logistics … well worth rereading.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 2 October 2020
Blog Post Script – some RLS and others toy soldier poems that I have featured on my blog over the years
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/13/block-city-rls-and-
https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/more-dumb-soldiers-in-the-garden/
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/rls-martial-elegy-for-some-lead-soldiers/
The Warrior and Pacific August 1901 tiny handwritten magazine
Around the time in 2019 that Charlotte Bronte’s last surviving little book was saved by fundraising to be returned home to Haworth, I was lucky enough to spot this charming little handwritten book online. I bought it and asked its origins but the seller knew little about it, other than his father had picked it up somewhere.
Now The Warrior and Pacific August 1901 issue will be shared with the world to boost its tiny circulation and family readership.
The Bronte family wrote tiny book parodies of magazines and adverts of their early Nineteenth Century and Victorian times as part of their ImagiNations of Glasstown, Gondal, Angria and Gaaldine. These are housed at the Bronte Parsonage and have inspired my ImagiNations Games for many years.
Jump forward to the end of the Victorian era in 1901.
Entitled the Warrior and Pacific magazine, this tiny postcard sized ‘magazine’ appears to have been hand written and hand drawn around Maidstone in August 1901, possibly by a group of young boys or girls on summer holiday.
Some of the pen names are suitably grand – Montagu Fontenoy, John Fitzgerald, Major Pearl, Dick Iberville, Lady Sagasso …
Queen Victoria had died months earlier, this was written in the first Edwardian summer, August 1901.
Why was it written? It mimics and maybe mocks the thrilling, moralistic, mawkish and dull magazines of the day, based on the small sample that I have read. I have a few such random bound volumes of the Strand, Boys Own Paper and Girls Own Paper, Windsor Magazine etc. which make great Wellsian Little Wars hills.
Page 1 – Maidstone News Cs and B’s
“As the inhabitants of Maidstone seem to have left their native town to its solitary fate, Maidstone news is not flourishing. In fact about the newest thing about Maidstone is its emptiness.
The Creepers have joined the Boswells at Felixstowe where we hope the united forces will spend happy times.
This month saw two little Creepers born. Princess Winifred celebrates her eighth birthday on the twenty ninth and Princess Cecily her fifth on the nineteenth.
We congratulate them and wish them many happy returns on their respective birthdays.
We may expect in the near future to hear something definite about a certain Princess Eloise and a certain Earl Haynaught.”
Portraits of Cecily and Winifred appear on page Seven, alongside ‘Mary’ and a dog Maurice Bernard. The C’s and B’s are presumably the Creeper and Boswell families.
Are these real people?
A quick check on Ancestry and Find My Past on 1901 Census and elsewhere reveals no Winifred or Cecily Creeper born on those dates or at all anywhere, not just in Maidstone, although the Creeper surname does really exist. Similarly there is no R. Springfield in Maidstone but there were several Boswell families living in Maidstone in 1901 and 1911.
The main editor or illustrator appears to be one R. Springfield, ‘Warrior and Pacific, Maidstone.’
Page Ten and Eleven – A ‘Brothers Revenge’ and remedies for sunburn in the August issue 1901
Memories – “In the heart are many spots / sacred to Forget-Me-Nots”
Montagu Fontenoy? This may be an unconscious echo of “Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Montagu KB (died 1 August 1777) who was a British Army officer. He was the son of Brigadier-General Edward Montagu, colonel of the 11th Foot and Governor of Hull, nephew of George Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, and great-nephew to the celebrated minister Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax. He had an elder brother, Edward, who was killed at the Battle of Fontenoy, being lieutenant-colonel of the 31st Foot.” Or maybe just a good made up name?
Some of the portraits look as if they have sketched from magazines and may or may not be based on real people. Captain Earl Haynaught appears to be a made up name (the Earl of Hainault appears in medieval times in Froissart) but his portrait does look like Victorian army officer’s hat.
Other contributors include the grandly named Montagu Fontenoy, Major Pearl, Dick Iberville, Lady Sagasso and illustrator R. Springfield.
Page 2 – Editors Notes
“This is our grand August double seaside number and is generally considered the best paper of the month. We do not think that this year it will fall far below its usual high standard. We have many articles of interest this month that we have not had before and it bids fair to be a good success.”
“There is very extra special superfine, pluperfect competition specially designed for the pupils of Ronde College belonging to the Lower School and we hope to have a great many competitions for it. The prizes offered will be very handsome ones. There will only be two prizes for the two sets which are nearest right.”
Page 3 – ‘Model Mothers to Be – An Improvement on Home Chat Model Mothers’ by Lady Sagasso. An amusing little mock article about a warring celebrity couple and their darling only child that could have been written today …
Home Chat was obviously a style model to follow or mock – to make “an improvement on”. Alfred Harmsworth founded Home Chat which he published through his Amalgamated Press in 1895. The magazine ran until 1959. It was published as a small format magazine which came out weekly. As was usual for such women’s weeklies the formulation was to cover society gossip and domestic tips along with short stories, dress patterns, recipes and competitions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Chat
Illustrators D. Iberville, H. Vaughan, C.U. Boswell, K. Selagein, S. Howard …
“It is an insoluble Chinese puzzle to Maidstone why they ever did it” is a good closing line to ‘Model Mothers to Be’.
Page Six and Seven – Dog breeds, royal portraits of Princess Winifred and Cecily (the Creeper sisters, with Cecily’s Fifth Birthday on the nineteenth, see page 1 Cs and B’s?) ,
Scene or art competitions ‘you have to sketch a scene in pencil or crayon. It may be a landscape, seascape, fire escape or any other scape. Size half this page. Paper provided’. R. Springfield.
Page Seven – Hints on Etiquette …
“When introduced to a complete stranger, there is no need, as a general rule, to shake hands, but to bow.”
“It is now fashionable for a bridegroom to wear lavender suede gloves”
“A gentleman should precede a lady in a crowded street, in order to clear a way for her.”
Page Twelve – ‘My First Attempt at Novel Writing’ a comic article by ‘John Fitzgerald’ – ‘extracts from JF’s novel next month’ – were there more issues of Warrior and Pacific?
Page Thirteen – Nature Competition’ – for the best pressed flower leaf or seaweed “sent to us before September 1st.” [1901]
A Brother’s Revenge by Montagu Fontenoy
Stretched on the ground her lover lies,
With dagger drawn, her brother stands
“My brother, go” she sadly cries
“Oh Philip, hasten from these lands.”
He turns, then mutely kneeling down,
Beside that prostrate form,
With lips compressed, and beating heart,
She ———– his lifeblood warm.
She see the face she dearly loves
Now stamped with death’s grey hue
Grow fainter, fainter as she looks
With loving eyes and true.
One glance, one kiss, one gasp, one tear and all is o’er
She knows that brave heroic heart
Will beat on earth no more.
Then rising quickly from her knees
With a steadfast upward glance
She stoops beside the fallen man
And holds his fatal lance.
“I will not live my life” she cries,
With the passion of despair
Then with one sharp homeward thrust
She lies beside him there.
———–
Stirring stuff!
A variety of article styles are parodied or pastiches from dramatic poems, romantic gothic melodrama stories to nature notes and etiquette observations.
Page Fourteen – a portrait of Dick Iberville by R. Springfield ‘An Eminent Member of our Staff’
Page Fifteen – ‘By The Old Style’ [Styal?] story by Major Pearl: the heroine’s face “beautiful it is beyond doubt. Beautiful in the full beauty of womanhood and yet there is a winning girlish charm about it. She raises expressive blue grey eyes to the man’s face …”Etc, etc.
‘To be continued in our next’ issue – by Major Pearl – do any other issues of Warrior and Pacific exist?
Hold the Back Page! For the next 120 years …
————————-
I shall type out a few more of these strange little mock articles in the coming weeks.
Warrior and Pacific Magazine – Excellent for the ImagiNations?
I feel the Warrior and Pacific should have a travel writer or war correspondent. Maybe we can send an eminent member of our staff Dick Iberville or hope that Captain the Earl of Haynuaght is not too busy with Princess Eloise to provide some Churchill style dispatches from the front?
Warrior and Pacific – It ought to have a railway company named after it.
I feel sure that we should ‘find’ a few more back issues of the Warrior and Pacific, (c/o The Editor Maidstone) in future.
Why do I like this tiny very fragile magazine?
I really like the mixture of tones in the article, faithfully recreating or mocking the magazines of their day.
As a comic book writer and cartoonist at school, I was part of an underground 1980s fanzine / samizdat culture of small comics and magazines satirising events and caricaturing school and national personalities. These were often in small runs of a couple of hand stapled photocopies or hand-drawn originals circulated to avoid unwanted attention from “the authorities”. A scurrilous rival comic in the sixth form got busted, snitched or grassed to teachers (not by me, I hasten to add), shortly before we left school and expulsions were threatened.
B.P.S. Blog Post Script
Interesting comment from Rosemary Hall on the handmade little books, worth sharing:
A delightful find! It reminded me of a handwritten (but full-size) Edwardian magazine, written by members of a family, at least one of whom was awarded a military award – as featured in episode 3 of History Hunters, originally shown on Yesterday, and still, I think, available on catch-up (UKTV).
The writing of such magazines was not unusual, in the days before the availability of commercial entertainment – think of the Hyde Park Gate News, the magazine that Virginia and Vanessa Stephen (to become Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell) and their siblings produced during their childhood. &, while not a magazine, there was the Journal that Beatrix Potter kept for several years, a journal that was not just in tiny writing (like the Brontes’ little magazines) but in code.
Another example of the kind of writing produced for amusement by young people in the past is the collection of handwritten little books produced by the Nelson brothers in 19th century America. The collection was discovered by Pamela Russell when she was at an auction house in southern New Hampshire, and came across a ‘flimsy, old shoebox filled with tiny carefully handwritten books’ – a collection consisting of over 60 volumes!
They are described as comprising ‘an astounding, one-of-a-kind trove of stories and drawings [revealing]…what life was like for …[youngsters] growing up in rural 19th century America.’ The books are now in the collections of Amherst College. To find websites describing the collection, go to a search engine, and type in ‘Amherst Nelson brothers’- and on one website there are digital images of pages from some of the booklets (which always made me think of the Brontes.) You see how the brothers combined accounts of their ordinary daily life with imaginative embellishments.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN 6 / 7 June 2021.
Marples and Miniatures – some Railway Civilians
Crossposted from my occasional Sidetracked blog – enjoy!
The General’s Fast Asleep
A new addition to my toy soldier collection – this charming 1935 sheet music cover and lyrics are pure H.G. Wells’ Little Wars and RLS’s Child’s Garden of Verses.
The General’s Fast Asleep – Military Foxtrot
First verse:
Right across the nurs’ry floor,
Gallant soldiers dress’d for war,
Drummer boys and buglers grand,
wait-ing the word of command,
Spick and span they stand,
But ne-ver a word of Com-mand
However most recorded versions of the song usually start here at this point:
Chorus:
You won’t see any big parade
There won’t be any bugle played
Sad to say no war to-day
‘Cause the General’s fast asleep
There won’t be any bugle played
Sad to say no war to-day
‘Cause the General’s fast asleep
.
Soldiers bold in a mighty row
They’ve been told they’re to fight the foe
Sad to say no war today
‘Cause the General’s fast asleep
They’ve been told they’re to fight the foe
Sad to say no war today
‘Cause the General’s fast asleep
.
Verse:
The Colonel’s mad, and the Major blue
The Captain’s sad and the Sergeant too
Guess this war will have to keep
It’s enough to make an army weep
The Captain’s sad and the Sergeant too
Guess this war will have to keep
It’s enough to make an army weep
.
Look oh look at the curly head
Time to take him away to bed
Sad to say no war today
‘Cause the General’s fast asleep
Time to take him away to bed
Sad to say no war today
‘Cause the General’s fast asleep
.
Gee – It seems an awful shame
That his victory won’t go down to fame
Sandman’s here to dim the light
Little General, good night.
That his victory won’t go down to fame
Sandman’s here to dim the light
Little General, good night.
.
Other additional lyrics / verses
All the gunners wear a frown,
Half the tanks are upside down,
while the horses say “neigh neigh”,
.
There’ll be no battle today
Air Force must not fly,
They know there’s a good reason why,
‘cos the Generals fast asleep.
.
Songwriters: Michael Carr / Jimmy Kennedy (1935)
The Peter Maurice Music Co. Ltd.
The General’s Fast Asleep lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.
.
.
Ear Worm Alert – listen to these recording and this jaunty Military foxtrot will be in your head for days. You have been warned!
You can hear Vera Lynn singing this 1935 jaunty song, some say it’s her first recording, singing with Jay Wilbur and the Rhythm Rascals on Crown Records 51
.
Gracie Fields recorded this for Rex records. Elsie Carlisle recorded this for Decca in 1935
.
George Brassens sings the French version on Ukelele or Guitar, called Le General Dort Debout
Sadly there seems to be no George Formby Ukelele recording!
.
The song even features in French and Italian on an anti war song website with a variation on this sheet music cover – French and German lyrics given too on this website:
.
IL GENERALE DORME IN PIEDI is also the title of a comic 1960s Italian movie.
.
There is a jolly military band feel to this Ray Ventura French language version 1935/6
https://youtu.be/qGeus7zvqgo
.
Fast pace German dance orchestra version 1936 by German jazz / dance band leader Heinz Werner (1908- died / missing on Wermacht service 1945) but sung in English https://youtu.be/JZvbaZn2r54
Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra 1930s (with Henry singing the vocals?)
https://youtu.be/iDwt_hOeLgc
Ambrose recorded this with Evelyn Dall on vocals,
as did Joe Loss and his Orchestra
https://youtu.be/pwT3AgKSF3U
The art work (by Muf?) shows some attractive little redcoats and their (almost spacey) artillery
I shall probably frame and hang this music sheet above my gaming and painting table. All for the love of toy soldiers …
I wonder if the 1935 song title comes in any way from an 1855 Crimean era Punch cartoon by John Leech “The General Fast (Asleep). Humiliating – Very ” https://punch.photoshelter.com/image/I000003bgnBCre0U
based on Victorian and ACW era National Days of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1855/feb/22/day-of-humiliation
The French lyric version appears slightly different, translated and rewritten to keep the right rhythm?
LE GÉNÉRAL DORT DEBOUT
Sur le plancher du salon,
Sont rangés les soldats de plomb.
Fantassins et artilleurs,
Des cavaliers, des sapeurs
Vont jouer leur destin.
Pourtant, aucun ordre ne vient.
Rantanplan, pas de grande parade !
Fermez le ban, pas de mousquetade !
Tout le monde au garde-à-vous !
Mais le général dort debout.
Les soldats étaient pourtant prêts,
On avait dit qu’ils se battraient,
Mais il faut qu’ils soient dissous
Car le général dort debout.
Les officiers ne sont pas contents.
Du colonel au sous-lieutenant,
Ils transmettent ce commandement :
“Baboum badaboum, rompez les rangs !”
Regardez sa tête se pencher,
Il faut l’emmener se coucher
Ce tantôt, pas de héros,
Car le général fait dodo.
Devant ce grand désarroi,
Tout va vite de guingois.
Quatre tanks sont renversés ;
Tous les avions sont écroulés ;
D’un geste du pied,
Leur chef les a tous balayés.
Rantanplan, pas de grande parade !
Fermez le ban, pas de mousquetade !
Tout le monde au garde-à-vous !
Mais le général dort debout.
Les soldats étaient pourtant prêts,
On avait dit qu’ils se battraient,
Mais il faut qu’ils soient dissous
Car le général dort debout.
Les officiers ne sont pas contents.
Du colonel au sous-lieutenant,
Ils transmettent ce commandement :
“Baboum badaboum, rompez les rangs !”
Regardez sa tête se pencher,
Il faut l’emmener se coucher
Ce tantôt, pas de héros,
Car le général fait dodo.
Le marchand de sable vient
Apportant le sommeil en ses mains.
Dormez bien, la lune luit.
Général, bonne nuit !
French Translation Contributed by Marco Valdo M.I. – 2015/2/23 – 20:34
Strangely, “fait dodo” is French baby talk for going to sleep, like the sleepy, slow or stupid (thus rapidly extinct) Dodo.
General Dort Debout and General Fait Dodo would be good French General Imagi-Nations names. Likewise Generale Dorme In Piedi for an Italian General.
Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN / Homme de Plomb, 14 March 2019.
A poor old Toy Soldiers Home?
A great little “tum te tum” poem about old forgotten toy soldiers from Tony Kitchen’s ever interesting blog Tin Soldiering On.
If you’ve not visited, look up Tony’s website http://tonystoysoldiers.blogspot.com
The Broken Toy Soldier by Marguerite Tracy
We wear no medals on our breasts for gallant battles won;
No pension-bureau offers us reward for service done.
Yet no one of Napoleon’s, nor one of Caeser’s host,
Has made himself a record such as event I can boast.
Toy soldiers must work harder than real troops, you see;
A march of fifty thousand miles is nothing much to me.
I lost a leg at Marathon, an arm at Monterey,
Was left for dead at Gettysburg – all on the self same day.
And now that I’m forgotten and no longer fit to roam,
I wish some kindly boy would found a poor Toy Soldier’s Home.
Marguerite Tracy
Having read this poem on Tony’s website, I was curious to find out more about the poem and some of the references.
This poem was first published in December 1897 in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks Magazine Volume 25, No. 2, a fact mentioned in the footnotes or endnote section of the book Sing Not War: The Lives of Union and Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America by James Alan Marten, 2011. This makes it sort of sad toy related Christmas poem. The original can be seen here: https://archive.org/stream/stnicholasserial251dodg/stnicholasserial251dodg#page/120/mode/1up
I like the HG Wells’ Little Wars style illustrations.
Monterey? Had to look this one up. This was a short battle or landing by US Navy and Marines to occupy this part of California in the Mexican American War in July 1846 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monterey
Along with Gettysburg being mentioned, it suggests the poet was American?
I found this short poem strangely quite moving, wistful and resonant: “Was left for dead at Gettysburg – all on the self same day.”
I often wonder what battles my bashed and broken figures (collected for repair from various people and online auction sites) have had in their old days. How did they lose that leg, arm, head or rifle?
There is an element of truth to the poem – before you could afford to buy or had available every figure / period ever, in the old days when your few figures stood in for everything, green were generally the good guys, grey and all else the enemy. (The power of Imagi-nations?) One figure could indeed fight Gettysburg, Marathon and Monterey all on the same day or at least the same weekend.
“And now that I’m forgotten and no longer fit to roam …”
At last a pointless vocation! All those broken Britain’s figures under repair – I’m turning into a poor Old Toy Soldier’s Home.
I hear the cry “Lead Medic! Lead Medic!” and come running. A call goes out for a Lead Vet to fix a missing horse leg. Farewell dear friend? No shooting if injured for these noble old animals in my Remount Department.
Hopefully Tony might catch the old Toy Soldier Home bug and start repairing bashed and broken vintage figures.
The Good Soldier Svjek 23 November 2018 at 08:40
Have noticed lots of broken figures on Ebay and having seen your good work on repairing them I’m tempted to have a go myself .MIN ManofTin 23 November 2018 at 12:35
Huzzah! Go on and do so, Tony. Restore their battered dignity … and give them a new lease of gaming life. I’m not damaging my supply options – there are more than enough battered figures on EBay for everyone. If you do, I look forward to seeing them feature on your blog.
Here are a couple more of my current lead veterans from various makers in need of minimal repair help, just a broken rifle to mend for each one.
A small pin vice drill to drill the rifle holes to insert some stiff wire, thickened out with masking tape should do the trick. Stout enough for gaming again.
Some may need repainting, others have enough original paint that there is no need to disturb their bashed and playworn “veteran” patina.
All on the road to recovery, ready for for some 54mm skirmish games next year.
Inspired?
A few of my figure related blogposts ranging from early experiments with cocktail stick rifles and heavy Fimo bases (now debased and re-repaired or upgraded) to more delicate pin vice drilled wire, masking tape and super glue repairs:
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/the-old-toy-soldier-remount-department/
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/29/on-the-repair-bench-rainy-day-update/
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/the-remount-section-gets-a-visit-from-the-lead-vet/
and plenty more to find on the blog – I hope some I them are helpful.
Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN (at Ye Olde poor Toy Soldier Home) November 2018.
More Dumb Soldiers Missing In Action
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in A Child’s Garden of Verses about an old toy soldier buried away on watch in the garden in a poem entitled The Dumb Soldier.
I have featured this subject before on my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog. https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/more-dumb-soldiers-in-the-garden/
Having lost soldiers in my childhood garden and found others on the beach recently, I am fascinated by these lost and found soldiers out on an “unending mission”.
Occasionally lost toy soldier figures turn up on online auction sites amongst the hoards and hordes of metal detecting trinket sites.
I spotted this interesting collection from a metal detectorist called Frank in the Southeast of England on offer for a couple of pounds. I asked if they were from one hoard or toy mass battlefield burial but they were apparently collected over many years and many sites.
Whilst I wait for some recast arms to arrive from Dorset Soldiers for my current Broken Britains restoration projects, I have been busy this bank holiday weekend in the sunny garden, gently cleaning these finds up prior to restoring what I can to fighting or parade fitness. The others will go in a display box.
I often wonder about the stories behind how such figures and toys came to be buried or discarded. Were they lost toys or were they discarded because they were broken in action or accident?
They once belonged to someone, probably a small boy. Did they lament their loss or hardly notice it?
Before I post pictures of the cleaned up figures, what familiar figures can you see in the online auction picture?
Hint You can see toy animals, soldiers and more. Enjoy!
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, Bank Holiday weekend 5/6 May 2018.
Mr. Thomas Atkins and family
Tommy Atkins is a famous poem from 1890 in the collection Barrack Room Ballads (1892) by Rudyard Kipling.
It captures well the long lived 19th Century view of the Army and its Redcoats as a job only for the drunken, desperate or destitute in peacetime, but how differently treated, more acceptable and valued they are in wartime.
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_tommy.htm
I WENT into a public ‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, ” We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, go away ” ;
But it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, wait outside “;
But it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide.
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap.
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul? ”
But it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes ” when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes, ” when the drums begin to roll.
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! ”
But it’s ” Saviour of ‘is country ” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An ‘Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!
Rudyard Kipling
————-
Interesting the line “Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints” as single this Tommy Atkins portrayed on the card certainly isn’t.
This illustration above of Mr Thomas Atkins comes with three others, his Happy Family, all a recent vintage shop find.
These Happy Family cards are a little difficult to put a rough date on – Mrs. Thomas Atkins looks more modern or WW2 than the more Victorian looking Redcoat Mr Thomas Atkins.
The children are equally difficult to date. Miss Atkins with a then stereotypical female job of a nurse could easily be from WWI onwards. Teddy Bears are a 20th Century thing, after Rough Rider and US President Teddy Roosevelt’s discovery of a bear cub in 1902.
Master Thomas Atkins looks like a late 19th Century / 1902 print that I have somewhere of Nursery Warriors with paper hats in the style of children’s illustrator Randolph Caldecott (1846 to 1886). Similar figures can be found in this Victorian Edwardian scrapbook in my collection:
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/28/toy-soldier-scrap-book/
An eclectic or retro mix of period clues in good several colours printing. Colour half tone dots on the faces may give some idea but then halftone was common from the 1880s onwards.
Who was Tommy Atkins?
The Tommy of the poem is ‘Tommy Atkins’, a generic or slang name for a common British soldier. A term of uncertain origin, the name “Thomas Atkins” was used in 19th Century British War Office manuals as a placeholder name to demonstrate how forms should be filled out.
Some say the name Thomas Atkins was chosen by the Duke of Wellington in honour of a brave soldier that he remembered, an idea discussed the further or challenged at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Atkins
In popular slang, “Thomas” became the more familiar “Tommy” from the First World War. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(Kipling_poem)
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN blog, 31 July 2017.
Postscript
A little more research on Etsy found a seller (dottycrocvintage) who listed this set or suggested a 40s looking box.
Another historical novelists’ collective (!) website shows the Victorian style of Thomas Atkins cards for Happy Families:
http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/in-praise-of-tommy-atkins-by-l-berridge.html
Garden Wargames and Lost Dumb Soldiers
Garden Wargames blog post – Dumb Soldiers: The Past and Future of Garden Wargames? – Cross-posting from our sister blog site Pound Store Plastic Warriors https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/04/23/dumb-soldiers-the-past-and-future-of-garden-wargames/
(Picture of beach found plastic soldiers, lost in the biggest sand pit for miles around!)
Man of Tin blog 