Man of TIN Advent Calendar 2019 Day 6: War Games V & A Exhibition Plymouth 2016

What I bought at War Games … these now have WG written on their base.

This was a post that got lost back in May 2016. Now I have found most of the photographs again!

The ‘V and A’  (Victoria and Albert Museum) also run the Bethnal Green Musuem Of Childhood. They put together touring exhibitions from their extensive collections of toys, such as the now finished War Games exhibition I saw in 2016.

Sadly it seems photography was not allowed in the main exhibition, but I have photographed some of the things I picked up free around the exhibition and in the shop including the obligatory bag of plastic toy soldiers. These now have WG marked on their bases, short for War Games (the exhibition). They can be seen at this May 2016 blog post https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/spa-treatments-for-toy-soldiers/

War Games brochure 2016

This post got lost in the earliest days of my blogging. The Victoria and Albert Musuem / Museum Of Childhood travelling exhibition War Games has now finished travelling. It was hosted as part of the 1941 Plymouth Blitz Anniversary  and the Plymouth City Museum (which survived the Plymouth Blitz) is closed for rebuilding until the Mayflower Anniversary 2020 https://plymhearts.org/

https://plymhearts.org/2019/10/16/figureheads-restoration/

Presumably  the collection is back in store at the V and A Childhood Museum at Bethnal Green https://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections

UK blogger PB EyeCandy visited the exhibition and a related talk in London in 2013 and did take some photographs  https://pbeyecandy.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/war-games-talk-and-review/

Sadly I was unable to photograph the responses written by young and old visitors on these postcards  – hopefully they were suitably wide ranging and thoughtful  comments.

Picked this up at the end of the visit – obviously well used!

Britain’s Soldiers formed part of the advertising. Incorrectly these highlanders are labelled as Lancers.

One of the children’s trail leaflets – a glimpse of some of the toys.

A very Airfix sprue design to the cover of the children’s trail.

Hauser Lineol German composition figures 1936

I have a few photographs of the advertising banners outside the museum but nothing inside the museum.

Sadly three years later I cannot remember too much detail about the different sections appealing to different demographics.

There were some well-presented old toy soldiers on parade or in boxes. There was a section on classic board games (Risk etc) and  a whole section on video games. I don’t recall a wargames section and any classic wargames title.  The section on vintage kids dressing up uniforms such as “cowboys and Indians” and toy guns was pure nostalgia!

There was the obligatory dressing up costumes  (for kids only) for  a photo opportunity. From what I recall, you weren’t allowed to photograph the rest of the exhibits and in 2016 not everyone carried an IPhone camera.

The final room featured a big room sized table top diorama using toys of all scales called “Earthling Armies vs. fantasy Forces” which was quite good fun to see and identify figures.

Another random blog post draft finally sees the light of day as part of the Man of TIN Advent Calendar Day 6.