GR III - The Final Shelf of Discovery

And so, following the success of Operation Garage, I can actually reach the final unexplored shelf  and I could quest to find the mother load of my wargaming memories.  Stories are told of chests full of toy soldier gold hidden somewhere among the old dusty relics of a house move.  so like an slightly agen Indiana Jones I began to climb the rickety step ladder of the ancients (well the previous owners of the house left it behind 10 years ago, to be fair they were quite old) to search

<Roll Titles>

The shelf which promises so much

The area my intelligence sources lead me to believe the 'stuff' may reside 

I started at the end where I didn't really expect to find anything, and my expectations were well placed unless you count boxes of MG and Mini magazines, original sales brochures for the same, a child sized sewing machine (!) and SWMBO's childhood Lego (still with the original boxes).

The first finds were the easy low hanging fruit of the search, 3 choppers from the early issues of Helicopter magazine to go with the others already stashed in the new in their new home, a Blackhawk, a Seaking and another Chinook.  A good start.

SeaKing

Chinook

Black Hawk

Next up an small box which peaked my interest as I had no idea of it's contents. As I opened the flaps I was greeted with big bubble wrap and polystyrene chips and sneaky peaks of a gaudily painted building......

Mmmm wonder what this could be?

To my very pleasant surprise a more or less complete Airfix 1/72 Waterloo Farmhouse, all be it with a nice coating of sloppily applied enamel paint.

Ooooooo shiney.  Airfix Waterloo Farmhouse

The next was a box I knew contained gaming paraphenalia, I just wasn't sure exactly what.  On the lid was written a guide to its contents, hills, trees & shubbery, broken cork and some tanks.  But would this be accurate?

Would this live up to its promise?

Well to be honest it wasn't far off.  A couple of bags stuffed with lichen for shrubs and trees, another bag of broken cork and various sized flocked polystyrene hills.  In addition there was most of a bag of bright green flock and an unopened Airfix Churchill Mk VII - so one tank rather than some tanks.

Bags full of goodness, slightly faded goodness but still of use.

A hill and a churchill

So another box another piece of childhood memories, this time a whole heap of Action Man goodness.  Bits of uniforms and heaps of guns and bazookas an other miscellaneous equipment, all manner of Palitoy goodness.  In the layers below were some, but weirdly not all, of my old Action Men.  Time has not been kind to them and some have suffered a form of plastic rot which has seen the part which connects the head snap.

Ready for action

And down came the next box, a large white carrier bag stuffed in the top concealed the contents.  Pulling the bag open I was greeted with masses of Britains Deetail, Airfix and Timpo Wild West-ness.  As a child I played for hours and hours with my 'cowboy and indians' (I know that's not pc, but that's what they were called when I was a kid).  I used to pool them with my best mate and there would literally be hundreds of them.

Ooooooooo a great big bag of the Wild West

One of the favourites was the bandits/outlaws/injuns attacking the railroad, and under the bag of figures was my Timpo Prairie Rocket, carriages and track.  It was in somewhat worse condition than I remember, well the loco at least. 

All aboard.

And as a little bonus extra there was a tiny plastic bag with the rather hard to come by Airfix 1/72 Astronauts.  Sweet.

A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.....

In the spirit of modern sequels I'm going to split the final instalment in to two separate 'episodes'.  So I'll sign off this instalment with a final picture

and a

*SWMBO = She Who Must Be Obeyed = The Trouble & Strife = Her Indoors = The Good Lady Wife