1930s MERCEDES POSTERS

A few Mercedes posters from the 1930s - all three of which the modern Mercedes "brand managers" no doubt wish could be conveniently forgotten:

1930s BRITISH SUMMERS - THE PASSING SHOW

"The Passing Show" was an Odhams UK magazine title from 1924 - 1939 (when it merged with "Illustrated"). Much like the "Saturday Evening Post" in the United States, it featured beautifully illustrated covers of everyday events, some archly humorous, providing an insight into 1930s civilian life (and lots of useful 'uniform references' for the VBCW modeller). Here are some 1930s "summer covers":

Saturday, 3rd September 1938 - newspaper boy and exhausted father.
The Munich Crisis is just about to envelop Europe (see this TIMELINE)
but the British are, as always in summer, "at the beach".

Ice Cream Vendor, June 25th 1932. No "ice cream vans" in the 1930s,
but one man "ice cream carts". It is likely that this chap is an Italian,
as the Italians had a substantial interest in the British ice cream trade from
 around the 1880s. Mussolini's well known "ice cream intervention" in
the VBCW used such vendors as a convenient excuse for action.

Five years later, August 1937. A rather smart ice cream cart finds an
ironic customer. It may be that, by this stage, the ice cream market
was becoming more commercialised - certainly the smart livery and
ice cream man uniform would so suggest.

Village cricket, June 1935. Here it looks as if the "Lord of the Manor"
is "out for a duck". See HERE for VBCW Cricket

"Ye Olde Village Fete" - another English summer staple of the 1930s (and now)
It is not quite clear what has happened to the local Mayor here - has he lost
all his money at the coconut shy, or is he desperately looking for "the facilities"?
Whatever - the villagers (all save for the Vicar) seem to be enjoying it all.

COMRADES WINTER and DENNIS PRITT KC

Things are looking bleak for Comrade Colonel Professor Winters. Following his stillborn appeal to Comrade Pollitt, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Winters has now made his way to the most prominent "useful idiot" Communist fellow traveller Left Wing barrister of his generation, Dennis Pritt KC, in a bid to see if "the law" can save him from the vengeful hand of Comrade Stalin following the "Disaster at Dinmore":

Dennis Pritt KC

Regrettably, Mr Pritt could only pass on a message from Stalin (and then present his own outrageous feenote for the consultation):

Historical Note : Pritt's Wiki entry is HERE. In 1937, he wrote a turgid 31 page pamphlet entitled "At the Moscow Trial" defending the Soviet show trials (which Pritt attended in person) and subsequent executions of Kamenev and Zinoviev. 

VBCW RULES OF GOLF

In one of those occasional episodes of slippage across the time vortex, Hereford1938 presents the Richmond Gold Club's "Temporary Wartime Rules" from 1940, compiled at the height of the "Battle of Britain":

The Richmond Golf Club must have learned a great deal from Hereford 1938's own Charity Golf Challenge (Spring 2017 Big Game), and the similar additional rules introduced during the VBCW:

where, it might be remembered, Terrain Tsar Roo claimed victory at the 19th hole:

Sir Alan MacGuffin, Chairman of the Hereford Golf Club, supported by
his Committee, prepares to present the County Cup to Terrain Tsar Roo. Since
this presentation, Sir Alan has had his (privately financed) "armoured behemoth"
blown up beneath him, been captured by the Presteigne Communists, escaped
and fled to the Independent Republic of Bromyard, befriended "General" George
 S. Patton, and is now in command of the Bromyard Armoured Brigade. What a guy!

Unfortunately, it appears that the Hereford Golf Course has yet to recover from the damage visited upon it during the County Cup Challenge:

Hereford Golf Course before the County Cup.

Hereford Golf Course after the County Cup.

VBCW PARATROOPERS (MARK'S LITTLE SOLDIERS)

Some recent blogposts have focussed on the well known role of Reichsmarschall Goering and his Fallschirmjager during the Hereford VBCW, including the ever present possibility of daring glider actions at the request of His Majesty's Government.

A surprise entry into the Hereford VBCW - Goering's Fallschirmjager "drop in" on
The Battle of Mortimer's Cross (aka the Autumn Big Game 2019)

The initial landing zone. Farmer Roo's Herefordshire fields are here clearly recognisable - and his
subsequent claim for "damage to crops by damn' furrin' parachutists" is documented and filed in the Ludlow VBCW Research Library. This much reproduced Fallschirmjager Propaganda-Kompanie photograph [see, for example "Mortimers Cross : Then and Now" (After the Battle Publications, 1990)] was originally printed in the limited circulation pamphlet "Gebirgsjager und Fallschirmager ein der Englischer Kreig" (Munich, 1938)

Gathering supplies; Fallschirmjager preparing to combat the advance of the
 Presteigne Communists (with supporting Boy Scouts) towards Mortimer's Cross.

Every action, however, provokes a reaction - particularly so in the Hereford VBCW (witness the ongoing "tank race" between, amongst many others, the BUF and the Communists). But how could the VBCW Opposition factions recruit Very British style paratroopers? Thankfully - and some say not a moment before time - Marks Little Soldiers have now come to their aid:

 

Copplestone Castings MLS-SL16 "Slovskan Paratroopers"

Copplestone Castings MLS-SL17 "Slovskan Paratrooper Officers"

If we detach Mark's paratroopers from their 1930s style Central European Imagi-Nation background, they happen to be pretty much perfect for (very) early War British Paratroopers: 

British Paratroopers in training, Ringwood, late 1940.

Training completed and Thompson SMG in hand - 1941

Some rotters and spoilsports might argue that 1940/1941 is a little too late for Hereford 1938, but there is no doubt that the British were experimenting with paradrops as early as 1925, and indeed exhibiting this method of warfare at the 1930s Empire Air Shows:

It's not Arnhem, admittedly : a Very British parachutist prepares to drop for the first time
from the wing of a Vickers Virginia above the Hendon Empire Air Show, 1936.
 Further info at the artist's (David Rowlands) home page
(the white silk scarf clenched between his teeth may have been
 designed to muffle any wholly UnBritish screaming...)

It is not much of a stretch, therefore, to use the Mark's Little Soldiers figures as Very British paratroopers as early as 1938. Not only that - given that the Red Army, to the astonishment of the world, dropped 1,500 soldiers by parachute at their September 1936 Military Manoeuvres - it may very well be that the Presteigne Communists will be interested in a few recruits, too:

"Health and Safety" demonstrably at the forefront of Soviet military thinking (as so often)
, are these "Red Paratroopers" at the 1936 Soviet Military Manoeuvres, or "dropping in"
 on the Hereford VBCW in 1938? Breathlessly, (like the paratroopers, no doubt),
we can only await future blogposts...

TYPES OF THE VBCW (6) - THE NUN

 An occasional series of painted 28mm VBCW archetypes 

Every VBCW Campaign needs at least one nun ! Preferably, of course, a heavily armed section of nuns with an LMG - but let's not get carried away. While it is the Anglican factions that appear to have adopted 28mm nuns in the greatest number, there is no reason why nuns of the Catholic faith could not turn out in support of another faction (other than the Communists, of course...)

"Sister Mary Stigmata" aka "Mother Superior Firepower"
Reaper Nun. Painter Fairoaks 024

And we do mean superior firepower.....

A nun with a Machine-Gun : a favourite choice for female VBCW re-enactors.

F.A. CUP FINAL 1938 - or ARSENAL 1933 v LIVERPOOL 1991

It's FA Cup Final Day on Saturday, with the international multi-millionaires of "Manchester City" playing the international multi-millionaires of "Manchester United" for the honour of lifting the famous trophy - and very substantial "win bonuses".

It was all very different in 1938, when Preston North End beat Huddersfield at the "old" Wembley, 1 - 0 after extra time, in front of a crowd of 93,000:

                                                   Pathe News Reel of the 1938 Cup Final.

VBCW "Yorkists" will be encouraged by this footage.

The 1938 FA Cup Final was the first to be televised. The number of TV sets amongst the population, however, was vanishingly small, and most people will have seen the FA Cup Result from the newsreels at the cinema:

"The Passing Show" magazine of 30th April 1938. These fans are in
Huddersfield Town colours. It may be that behaviour from the terraces
does not quite translate to the cinema...

For an in-depth analysis of the differences between the modern game and that of the 1930s, we can do no better than hand you over to those two Very British football commentators, Messrs. Grayson and Cholmondley-Warner, and the spectacular match between Arsenal (1933) and Liverpool (1991). Will this one go to extra-time ?

                                                      Arsenal (1933) v Liverpool (1991)

COMRADES WINTER AND DUTT

It appears that, after all, Comrade Pollitt has not interceded with Stalin on behalf of the recently vanquished (and possibly soon to be liquidated) Comrade Colonel Professor Winters, leader of the Presteigne Soviets in the Herefordshire VBCW.

Whatever fellow feeling Comrade Pollitt may have for a brave battlefield general fighting on behalf of  "(Marxist-Leninist) truth, (Stalinist) justice and the Soviet way", he has been specifically instructed by the CPGB's leading theoretician (and rigorously hard-line Stalinist), Comrade Raj Palme Dutt, that Winter's fate is not a matter for the CPGB, but for the Communist International, or Comintern.

Rajani Palme Dutt - inflexible Stalinist and CPGB "power behind the throne".
The photograph is said to capture Dutt's ruthlessness - and complete lack of a sense of humour.

Critics of Dutt (none of whom, of course, dare to speak openly) ascribe Dutt's ruling to personal animosity. It appears that, before the VBCW broke out, Dutt was openly jealous of Winter's academic credentials as a Professor (although of what institution remains somewhat of a mystery), and the two entered into sharp exchanges on various obscure points of dialetical materialism - in even more obscure academic journals (readership of some of which is said to have been limited to, er....two).

The party line, however, is that, as Herefordshire is clearly of critical importance to the balance of power within Europe, Winter's fate transcends mere national party business. Long term readers of this blog may consider that such reasoning ironically reflects that of the German Fuhrer and Reichkanzler himself, Adolf Hitler, as set within his notorious "Herefordshire Speech" to the Reichstag.

Upon learning of Dutt's ruling, a frustrated Winters in the King Street HQ.
During this period, Comrade "Bill" Winters even grew a bushy moustache
in order to curry favour with Comrade Stalin.

Slavishly adherent to the party line, the best that Comrade Pollitt has been able to do for Comrade Winters is gently to suggest that he obtain some legal advice, and possibly a super-injunction against immediate liquidation, and to type out an introduction to the foremost Communist KC of his generation, Mr Dennis Pritt..... 

Notes : for more on Raj Palme Dutt (although, strangely, the long running Dutt/Winter's theoretical dispute is not mentioned) see WIKI HERE

COMMUNIST PARTY HQ - COMRADES WINTER AND POLLITT

In a strange omission, while we've already glanced at Hitler's Munich "Brown House", Mosley's London "Black House", the Hereford BUF "Black House, and even witnessed the capture of the Leominster "Black House" by forces of the Independent Republic of Bromyard (Spring Big Game 2022, see label to the right), nothing has yet been said as to the Communist Party of Great Britain's Headquarters, whether in Hereford or London.

So here at least is one of them - 16, King Street, Covent Garden, London, with Communist propaganda in the ground floor windows and offices above:

Throughout the "interwar years", Communist Party HQ in London.
Purchased in 1921, allegedly with money advanced by Lenin himself.

Why visit the Communist Party HQ now ? Well, after the "Disaster at Dinmore" and Comrade Colonel Professor Winter's resulting fears of being "recalled to Moscow", the gossip in the "City & County" tearooms is that Winter has "hotfooted it down to King Street" in a despairing attempt to avoid such a fate. If only the General-Secretary of the CPGB could intercede on his behalf with Comrade Stalin.... 

Harry Pollitt, General Secretary of the CPBG.

The Ludlow VBCW Research Centre has already published some information about Harry Pollitt (see HARRY POLLITT LINK HERE), including the full text of the lyrics of the famous (well, in some circles) "Harry Pollitt Song"! The question now is, can he be persuaded to intercede on behalf of Comrade Winter?

Harry Pollitt types a letter beneath a portrait of Comrade Stalin.
But is the letter to Comrade Stalin, and what does it contain?

Stalin deep in contemplation, papers to his right. Has he received a
letter from Comrade Pollitt? How can the Communist cause best
recover from the "Disaster at Dinmore"? All this, and more, can only
be learned from subsequent blogposts...

Alternative History (i.e. Reality) Note:

The King Street Headquarters is no longer in the ownership of the CPGB, having been sold in 1976, and indeed the CPGB subsequently dissolved itself in 1991. Rather ironically, the King Street premises now form part of the Covent Garden branch of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank:

Capitalism's ultimate triumph over Communism - at least in stone. From Communist HQ to HSBC.

For an interesting article (from the BBC) in relation to King Street and its sale, see HERE