FROM AIRFIX TO HISTOREX!

At the end of my first teaching post in Suffolk I was given as part of my leaving present, much to the surprise of many, this model kit made by the Historex company.

For those of us brought up on the Airfix plastic kits the variety of different troop types available made Historex seemed like the ultimate model maker for a young Napoleonic history enthusiast. I can’t say that the model I created would have won any prizes at a show but, I loved creating gun crew with accompanying harnesses for the horses, learning where wood, leather and chains were used and initiating research into the Royal Horse Artillery that I had seen on ceremonial occasions.

The uniforms have changed since the early nineteenth century, as has the gun that is pulled by the horses however, the principles behind the way in which the gun teams work have not. The way the guns go into action, the roles that each man has, the different types of projectiles used on the battlefield, all have become part of the training for the newly formed ‘Troop’ in my first adventure “A Dangerous Hour for England” where Fin and Thomo meet for the first time and forge a lifelong friendship.

Unfortunately, with changing fashions both the Airfix and Historex model companies fell on hard times but managed to continue making kits, even if not in the full range as once they did. Metal figures, resin figures… the variety of models has increased, and so has the price, but they still provide a challenge for anyone wanting to create a 3D version of a painting or print, or make miniature versions of the troops from different nations at war with Napoleon.

Finding out what the uniforms would have looked like on parade and then on campaign led me to discover letters and diaries telling stories of how the men and women lived. These have been the inspiration for the five adventures that I have written following a gun crew from training in the south of England, across the sea to Portugal, into Spain, onto Leipzig, returning to Wellington’s army as it invaded southern France to cause the abdication of Napoleon, before the final battle at Waterloo as European nations unite to deal with the ‘Corsican Ogre’ once and for all!

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