How it all started for me - Part Four

We had to wait for another three years before two more Napoleonic Waterloo set’s came out of the Airfix stable in 1975 and they were the French Imperial Guard which for the first time came out in a grey plastic and the Prussian Landwehr infantry, made in a blue plastic.

These were the very last set’s to come from Airfix as there was a decline in sales on all of their kits. Even after all these years I still think that these were the best we ever got from Airfix in that the detail was better and largely free of flash. I remember buying two Imperial Guard boxes and three Prussian but it was very sad that they never continued with the Waterloo series when the hobby started to take off again in the 90’s.

It was in the late 70’s that I started to get into wargaming again and started to paint my Airfix figures with the old Airfix paints. First I started with the French Line 1^st and 2^nd Fusilliers and then the 1^st and 7^th Curassiers. In those days I only had the books from the local library to get the information that I needed about the colours of the uniforms by looking at the pictures but even after all this time, today I still have these in my ranks. So started a long and painful years of painting my Waterloo armies on and off when the mood took me. 

In 1978 while I was serving on the tenants association and a question came up about the use of the estates community hall. At that time little was going on in the hall except for a play group during the day and a judo class one night a week. This got me thinking about running my own wargaming club and with the approval of the tenants association my idea was put into action. A monthly newsletter from the tenants association was sent out with news of the wargaming club. It started life as the Coldbath Military Modelling Club as the committee wanted a more wider appeal to the club and not just kids playing war!

So on a cold Monday night on the 20th November 1978 we started our very first club night. We had just five people that walked through the door at 7pm and the night really was just to get too know one another and what we hoped to do in the club. That year we had just three meetings.

In the following year the club changed its name as the committee had now stopped meeting. On the 2^nd July 1979 I changed the name to the Coldbath Wargaming Association. (C.W.A) We had a total of 23 names on our books and we had a total of 42 meetings. In March I made a club magazine called “ATTACK” and sold 11 copies to the members. I published a total of 10 issues that year. We had our own tuck-shop for drinks and snacks and even had some raffles giving, Books, Figures, Terrain and model kits as prizes. Also in March I started our GENERALS TABLE. This was a club competition where it was all about playing little battles over a period between Jan-Nov and winning points in the games. Our very first winner was Tom Casey picking up the very first trophy. We went on our first club outing to SELWG show at the old Grove Park HQ in South-East London.