A friendship out of “conflict”
Back in 1979, when I first became involved in board wargaming, the world was a very different place to what it is now. I had never heard of board wargaming and my only knowledge of wargaming was that it was something played on a large tabletop using lead soldiers with the participants being curmudgeonly old retired Major Generals arguing why Ney could never seem to understand an order from Napoleon at Waterloo.
The hobby, in the UK at least, did not have much in the way of publicity so the majority of people were unaware of board wargaming, the games were only sold in specialist retailers and there were very few of them about in 1979. Back then there was no internet, email or mobile phones and trying to find an opponent was pretty much an impossible task. My friends and colleagues either were not interested, cowed by the rulebook, or were “far to grown up to play boardgames” so I was on my own and usually ended up playing “solo” i.e. playing both sides impartially. It worked for a while but what I wanted was someone to play against.
My wife worked part time as a librarian in our local library at that time and one day brought home a book that became a firm favourite with me, it was titled “A Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming” and was by a guy named Nicholas Palmer. This book was a lifeline to me as, at last, I became aware of what was out there. Nicholas Palmer gave an insight to the wargaming hobby and did reviews on numerous games such as Fulda Gap which became one of my favourite games and is still in my collection albeit a bit battered and worse for wear. I became aware of game manufacturers and companies like SPI and Avalon Hill became part of my life. I loved this book so much that when the hire period expired my wife just renewed it and it remained in my house for over three years. Then, one fateful day as my wife was at the library check out desk, a guy came over and asked if the library had a copy of “A Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming”. My wife was a bit taken aback and said “yes we do but it is out just now, I can put your name on it for you if you wish.” The guy said that that would be good. My wife asked if he was a local and a wargamer and he replied that he was. Then my wife told him that it was her husband who had the book and that he might like to meet you. The guy took a note of my address and said he would pop round in a couple of days. When she told me about this encounter I was pretty interested in meeting the guy however I felt a bit of trepidation about losing my book to another person.
About two nights later the guy appeared at my door and introduced himself as Tim or, as my mates call me, “Moth”. He seemed a decent enough guy and was about 8 years younger than me. We got chatting and agreed that he would nip round the following week for a face to face. The day arrived and he appeared with one of his games “SINAI”. After explaining the rules we got started and it was an amazing experience for both of us as we had both been playing solo until then and we both agreed that face to face was much better. We made a regular date at my place or his and we played, over the years, many games but the most enjoyable had to be the Squad Leader series by Avalon Hill. We are both pretty competetive and we used to get a bit niggled when we lost but, after a cup of hot coffee and the obligatory nip of whisky, war was forgotten about for another week at least.
Well that friendship has lasted for 27 years and although we don’t get time to play now we still are close friends. Tim has converted to miniatures which are not really my cup of tea however last Monday Tim nipped in for a quick chat and we got talking about our wargaming past and we have said we should get together again for some serious face to face so, hopefully we can get together once more.
I suppose the subject header may seem a bit dramatic but, it is a friendship from out of “conflict” even though the conflict is between “cardboard soldiers” and it is a friendship that has lasted almost three decades. Who said this hobby was for losers?