Setting the scene

Back before I really got "into" wargaming, I did some military modelling, both single figures and vignettes as well as 3 dioramas.

I don't remember if this was spring or fall of 1966 so I might have been 10 or 11 but I remember that Giant supplied the British & American Regulars for this school project, a diorama  of the Battle of Queenston Heights. It was of course a few years too early for Airfix's Waterloo ranges but their ACW range supplied the militia. My partner was Jim Doake, fellow boy scout and the only one I have ever played Little Wars with. He had a box of Britain's with an abbreviated set of the rules on the back of the box. We also played at least one Featherstone game in later years.

Then there is the diorama I made of the construction of the first fort at Saint Jean by the Carignan Salieres Regiment in 1665. It was one of the display's the museum club had to get ready for the official opening  of the museum at the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean in 1974. It started life as a 54mm diorama using Segom Acetate figures but I realized I had bitten off more than I could chew and down scaled late in the project. (some things never change) 

One of those 54's who didn't make it into a diorama but did make it onto the museum business cards  and into Wikipedia (anonymously).

As I recall, I press ganged a prep into doing some of the figures, not at random,  Simon was not only  a museum club member, he and I were already playing WRG Ancients with fictional armies created from Airfix figures. I suspect someone has refurbished this but its hard to be sure, it was a few decades ago and its the figures and over all idea that I remember.  I'm amazed that it still exists at all after 39 years! The other diorama I made at the time showed a sortie by the Royal Fusiliers against the Americans in 1775, this time using Airfix figures more or less straight up but it does not seems to have survived. 

Doubtless many of you can recognize the source of most of the conversions. 

   The photo was taken by Eric Ruel, the curator of the Fort Saint-Jean Museum in Feb 2013.

As long as I'm indulging in nostalgia, Dr. David Ruddy was the founder and Director of the museum while the curator was a cadet, me for 2 or was it 3 years? Here he is with me in 1776 when the Museum Club, or for practical purposes, Dr. Ruddy, Simon MacDowall and I helped co-ordinate the visit of the Brigade of the American Revolution on their way to recreate Montgomery's attack on Quebec. Simon & I  painted up Rose Miniatures of British officers as gifts for some of the organizers and I am about to present them.

Not only was Dr Ruddy a marvelous history professor but he became a mentor and inspiration whose influence has been life long. The last time I was in contact with him was in the 80's after I had left the navy. It finally occurred to me this week to use the internet only to find that he passed away in Victoria in 2011. May he rest in peace.