Anything other than doing Battles, I guess.
As a regiment, we resisted it good and proper at first, being only interested in pike blocks and beer tents, with a bit of singing thrown in for good measure. Mind you, we had a good reason for resisting, as it turned out to be a major bone of contention during the Big Split which occurred in July 82.
However, once we gritted our teeth and got on with it, we became surprisingly good at it.
We were lucky to have had people who were good at making things, and of course we had the Perry Twins, Michael and Alan, who were incredibly creative, and who came up with all sorts of amazing things, including dummies for dramatic deaths ("Lec", as he was known) and a washer-woman with the operator in a basket on her back. Hmm, a bit hard to describe that, and of course I don't have any photos of it.
It's odd to think that in those days, cameras were quite expensive, and were certainly big and heavy, and we had to send the film away to be developed. Nowadays, with everyone having a mobile phone, and every phone having a camera, I would have a much more complete record of events.
Mind you, in those days we used to actually live our lives, rather than taking pictures of them... oh dear, I'm getting old. Quick, back to the plot!
Here we are at Capel Manor in 1982, still in our grey uniforms, therefore pre-split: mind you, we hung on to our beloved grey coats for many, many years, as they were useful for exactly this sort of event.
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| Capel Manor 1982 |
Kneeling with his back to the camera is Cris Alcock, with me standing behind him: and on the far right is Andy "Yatti" Yates being a blacksmith, and looking a bit introspective.
My brother Biggles turned up on the day, but as he hadn't brought any uniform, we dressed him up in an old sack and no trousers, and put him in the stocks.
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| Death by Straw |
Next, a nice atmospheric snap of our cooking arrangements, with Sue, our chef, being supervised by a lad called, I think, Phillip: he belonged to the Bobshaws.
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| Living History |
We used to go to a lot of trouble to get the cooking "right" for the benefit of the public, and if we were lucky it was edible as well (only joking, Sue!!).
We accumulated quite a good collection of pots, implements and other "props", which certainly looked the part: but Sue was accustomed to somewhat classier cooking than the stuff we made her do - dead bunnies, an onion and a quick raid on the herb garden were about the best she could expect.
At one memorable event, the landowner had promised us some mutton for our stew, and asked us to pick which sheep we would like!!
Now, this was in the days long before PC, (in both senses, ha ha, no computers either) and when vegetarians were definitely weirdos, so none of us had any qualms about choosing our meat.
This led to quite a competition to find the fattest sheep, with half the pike block chasing the sheep around the field. I am not entirely sure that really improved the flavour of our eventual dinner.... but we ate it, anyway.
I rather think my mother took this one, and failed to wind the film on after taking the first snap. Ah, those happy pre-digital days.
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| Ghosts of the past. |
I look at this now and see all the mistakes... like my glasses, and my loose hair, for starters, and I sincerely hope that it's all being done a great deal better now. But these were among the first efforts at Living History, as the ECWS had previously been very much just a "pike and musket" thug and bash sort of organisation, and it takes a while to get up to speed - not only with the attitudes of the participants, but with the "props", all of which had to be hand-made by us at that time.
There weren't any Re-enactor's Markets in those days, nothing could be bought off the shelf, and of course this is long before the internet made it possible to source almost anything from almost anywhere. A regiment counted itself lucky if it had some handy people in it, who could have a go at constructing any of the things required....
Talking of constructing things, how's this?
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| The Howse. |
It filled up most of Bertha, Gurgeri's hand-painted brown van. Yes, the painting of the van was another regimental effort, we did it with brushes outside his house in Luton, and it rained just after we finished, giving an interesting stippled finish to the paintwork. But who cared, it was great for carting stuff around in.
This house went to several musters, including this one at Barnet in 83, before collapsing: it wasn't too solid on a windy day. In fact, you can see the row of pikes leaning on the "roof" to keep it in place!
The handcart and the woven gabion look nice, but I'm not so sure about the pallets lying about on the ground.. let's assume it was a set-up day, shall we? Oh, and you can see a discarded red coat on the ground, as we weren't in grey any more.
Living History became quite the thing, after a few years, and some regiments had groups who didn't even participate in battles at all! (she said, in a shocked voice.)
It was somewhat ironic that LH was at the root of Rawdons' Big Split in 1982, and I chose to stay with the bulk of the regiment, on the non-LH side of things. Yet in later years, I became quite evangelical about improving kit and accessories: I was even given a Silver Griffin (Gryphon? Griffin? Who cares...) for raising the general standard of clothing within the society.
It's always easy in hindsight, but I do wish that Val Skipper had thought to include me in those early discussions, instead of just assuming that I would follow her. Oh well, that's life.
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