HEREFORD VBCW AUTUMN BIG GAME 2024 - KEEP THE DATE FREE !

A short "keep the date free" post in relation to the Autumn VBCW Autumn Big Game 2024, which is going to be a little later than usual this year because Umpire (and Terrain Tsar) Roo is "moving barracks" in October, so our 2024 Big Game will take place on/at:

 Saturday 23^rd November 2024
Yarkhill Village Hall
9.30am – 5pm

The full scenario will be put up on the blog in the due course, but it’s already clear that, with our working title, "Return to Little Hereford", we’re revisiting the same Parish as last year's Autumn 2023 Big Game. Its an “All play All” game in farming country, with "Big Men", hordes of marauding women – possibly a return of the Nuns – on a battlefield centred upon a 1/60 scale Handley Page Heyford, flown by the RAF but crewed by Feldmarschall Goering’s Fallschirmjager (on day release from The Red Lion, Bridge Street). With such unprecedented co-operation between RAF and Luftwaffe, what valuable secret can the plane be carrying? And how many marauding women can you capture take hostage “persuade to take tea” in your farm – if you can even capture a farm ? 

And can Stokkies Joubert, rollicking hero of the King’s Own Colonials, finally escape from Anglican captivity? Will the Umpires have made up some rules for his possible escape by November 23rd ? (if either of them can find an envelope, you can count on it).

All these serious issues can only be resolved by attendance at the Hereford 1938 Autumn Big Game 2024 on Saturday 23rd November 2024 - keep the date free !

PS. Free Stokkies Joubert !!

CHATEAU de CANDE (2) - EDWARD and WALLIS

 The usual VBCW Historian's Trigger Warning applies to this Post

Edward and Wallis were married at the Chateau de Cande on 3rd June 1937, and today the Chateau remains as a shrine to their wedding day:

Wedding Photograph at the Chateau.

Another wedding photograph at the Chateau

The original photograph - Wallis and Edward

Wallis' wedding dress at the Chateau. This is, in fact, a copy -
the original is in the US but undisplayable, as the specially
dyed "Wallis blue" colour has faded over time to .... brown.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

The Library of the Chateau set for the wedding guests.
Through the doorway is the wedding altar.

Wallis at the altar.

The wedding lunch. In the centre, an outsize wedding cake with
Prince of Wales' feathers.

The wedding lunch in progress, "Fruity" Metcalfe right foreground.

The wedding certificate on display at the Chateau.
"Fruity" rather grandly signs himself simply "Metcalfe"
(in rather larger writing than the happy couple, too)

Signature close up. This is the first public document signed by Edward as Duke of Windsor
(in the French style, too) and the first document ever signed by Walls as "Duchess of Windsor".

(1). For those resisting the urge to visit the Chateau de Cande in the immediate future, You Tube is (as ever) your friend. A very professionally done video tour of the entirety of the Chateau is available on YouTube here

(2). Charles Bedaux, the owner of the Chateau de Cande in June 1937, died far from France and in mysterious circumstances in Dade County Prison, Miami, Florida, on 18th February 1944. His interesting Wiki Bio is HERE.

CHATEAU de CANDE (1) - EDWARD AND WALLIS

Trigger Warning : VBCW Historians should look away now. This post clearly comes from an alternative time line, one where Edward VIII did not raise his Royal Standard in the Mall, Mosley did not become his appointed "Prime Minister", and Britain did not descend into an uncertain Civil War. Instead, it appears, Edward VIII tamely abdicated, and was then taken into exile in France aboard a British destroyer.....good grief.....

It is 3rd June 1937, and the wedding day of the Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII, King and Emperor) and the Duchess of Windsor (formerly Mrs Wallis Simpson, formerly Mrs Wallis Spencer, formerly Miss Wallis Warfield) at the Chateau de Cande in the Loire Valley, France. After the wedding ceremony, the happy couple emerged onto the front steps of the Chateau for formal pictures:

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Chateau de Cande, 3rd June 1937.
None of the Royal Family attended the wedding, and some days previously
(27th May 1937), King George VI had informed his brother that the 
Duchess of Windsor would not, upon her marriage, be accorded the title "HRH".

The Duke and Duchess in close up.

...and colourised....

The happy couple with the Duke's best man, "Fruity" Metcalfe.

another colourised photograph, reverse view.
The photographer is within the entranceway
of the Chateau, looking out upon the same steps and estate.

The couple with their wedding guests - a generally sorry lot of hangers on, perhaps
exemplified by the presence of Randolph Churchill, son of Winston (right). Between
the Duke and Randolph, Mrs Fern Bedaux, chatelaine of Cande. More helpful detail
and the full guest list HERE

A closer image. Randolph to the right of the photograph and to the left, Wallis'
redoubtable Aunt Bessie.

Looking down and......

....later, after the wedding lunch and changed for departure.
The Chateau de Cande, now owned by the French State following the deaths of
its previous owners, Mr and Mrs Bedaux, (in 1944 and 1972 respectively)
is open to the visitors of today...

87 years later, a helpful tourist practises a "royal wave" at the entrance

to the Chateau de Cande...

and "steps in to history" (or at least steps on history,
or on alt-history) at the Chateau de Cande.

HRH the Duke and (not HRH) the Duchess of Windsor, same spot,
87 years before.

Notes

(1). The formal photographs of the wedding were taken by Cecil Beaton; the informal photographs by (amongst others) "Baba" Metcalfe, wife of "Fruity", daughter of George Nathaniel Curzon, one time Viceroy of India, and very close friend of the very married Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, 1938 - 1941

(2). An amazing and colourised moving film of the Duke and Duchess on their wedding day is on YouTube HERE. Baba Metcalfe can be seen taking some of the above photographs, and there is a suitably 1930s musical accompaniment!

BARRICADES AGAIN - SUGGESTIONS (2)

It's back to the barricades, and some inspiration for the Modelling Challenge 2024 from Mr Awdry of the 28mm Victorian Warfare Blog:

Great painting and lovely detail, including the crates and leopard skin covered travelling case! And if its crates you're after, Minibits have some robust MDF examples:

while those in search of more detailed 1930s furniture might search Ebay for this cheap plastic dolls house set (approx 1/48):

Wargames Foundry lady for scale

and apparently, at the risk of being accused of being more of a shopper than a modeller, the new science of 3D printing can deliver practically everything pre-imagined and cheaply produced (Eskice Miniature):

On with the Modelling Challenge 2024 (Ladies! To the Barricades!)..........

1930s SUMMERS

Continuing to channel "the Spirit of Summer", here are some more seasonal covers from "The Passing Show" magazine, illustrating the 1930s Very British at play:

Summer means a Very British beach... (July 1932)

Bat, ball and beach cricket.... (July 1934)

Cricket, sand...and heels? (August 1932)

..although there may be other distractions....(August 1937)

.....as we said....(August 1937)

Grandad at work (1932). A three piece suit and tie
- the only proper clothing for a beach..

Avast there! The grandkids take on the Royal Navy (1933)...
(Comparisons with the Wye Riverine Flotilla are unwelcome)

All the family taking advantage of the fine weather, knowing only too well....
 (1935)

...that Summer will be over all too soon....covering the advertising
hoardings in preparation for the Autumn's posters (1937).

VBCW HEREFORD - THE BATHTUB HYPOTHESIS (7) - LEARNING HOW TO ROMMEL

  Being the seventh in an irregular series of blogposts considering the application of Frank Chadwick's "bathtub" campaign ideas to the VBCW in Hereford. For earlier posts, click on the "Bathtub Hypothesis" label to the right.

Part of the inspiration for the Hereford VBCW "Bathtub Hypothesis" came from the "Megablitz" rule set by Tim Gow, as noted HERE. Chris Kemp, of the Not Quite Mechanised ("NQM") blog (see the blogroll to the right and HERE) seems to have been part of the same loose group of gamers who developed "Megablitz", but later split off, with the heinous decision to scale down to 15mm, and thereafter developing his own NQM rule set.

All such rules, however, are seeking to restore "the operational art" to the tabletop by playing with various representations of space, time and distance. Chris Kemp's NQM site has just published a recent and well illustrated Megablitz game of "Operation Crusader" in the Western Desert, 1941, titled "Megablitz - A grand day out Rommelling" : see HERE.

Rommel in his Pz.38(t), pre-1941. Somehow, in another impeccable description of the "Megablitz"
recreation of "Operation Crusader", Chris Kemp failed to refer to Rommel's previous involvement in
the Hereford VBCW. We hope to remedy this unfortunate error in future blogposts...

Well worth popping over to Chris Kemp's NQM blog just for the photos of a grand scale Operation Crusader, but the real gem has to be his breezy explanation of what "Rommeling" actually is - or "Things to Do in a Tank". Very funny.....and Storm Leader Dastardly of the Ledbury BUF has clearly been taking early lessons.....

Dastardly, not Rommel. All such gestures from a 28mm tank commander must now
be accompanied by the immortal phrase : "Release the chimps !"

Not Quite Rommel - Kemp. Jawohl, mein Feldmarschall !

MODELLING CHALLENGE 2024 - SPIRIT OF SUMMER

Well, it appears from the recent weather that the summer is finally here, and while everybody is beavering away at the Modelling Challenge 2024 (demonstrating the typical wargamer's sensible priorities by producing mostly "barricades", rather than 28mm "ladies"), along sashays an inspirational seasonal figure:

"Spirit of Summer" by Reaper (Dark Heaven Legends).

Nicely painted and based. A bit of greenstuff and sculpting
might well be needed to make the dress more 1930s, but the hat
is splendid...unknown painter and inspirational figure!

In a small but timely illustration of the difficulty that the contestants will have in pleasing all of our distinguished Judging Panel, however, at least one of the Judges thinks Miss Summer is quite perfect just as she is....

I say! Mr Terence Thomas suggests that "the greenstuff" should be left well alone.