Golden Demon - May 1989

Friday 26th May 1989.

I'm fourteen years old. The same age my Grandad was when he joined the Royal Marines in 1939 - a few short months before WW2 started.

I'm supposed to be having an early night. Long day tomorrow. It's about 9:40pm.

Just another couple of minutes dad.

Ninety-two minutes gone. The ref checks his watch. That should be it.

And then Lukic bowls it out to Dixon, Dixon punts it hopefully forward, Smith takes one touch then flicks it on.

Michael Thomas is charging through the midfield like Forrest Gump, what the &$%£ does he think he's doing?

Somehow Thomas' poor control bounces off Steve Nicol's back, or his arse, or something...I don't know...but it's hit Thomas' knee and sweet Jesus NO. It bounces back into his path and he's into the penalty area. Twelve yards from goal.

"IT'S UP FOR GRABS NOW!..." screams Brian Moore.

And my whole 1989 falls apart.

I was at my parents' place this afternoon for various reasons that are unimportant to those reading. My long suffering mum is still surrounded by my dad's hobby stuff. I count four large WW2 models in the conservatory in various stages of construction. A Mark V Spitfire; some Russian armour; an American half-track and another allied truck of some kind all sprawled out over the furniture of the space my mum would probably like to sit and read in if only there were a few less Tamiya spray cans laying about.

Like any parents, mine keep various things of their kids' around. For me it's usually art pieces - Don Troiani ACW studies and pretty girls from school who posed for me back when I had Michael Hutchence hair and about fifty pounds less weight around the middle.

One strange thing they have kept of mine though is in my mum's glass display cabinet. A large cabinet in the corner of their living room that is full of the tat that she has amassed in around fifty years of marriage. It's a dwarf gun emplacement that always sends me back to that May '89 horror show.

Covered in dust but under there somewhere is the original paint.

The reason I was supposed to be getting an early night that early summer day of 1989 was because I was a finalist at Golden Demon at the Assembly Rooms in Derby the next day. My dad had showed some of my (frankly embarrassing now) painted models to the manager of the Games Workshop store in Harrow which back then was my closest GW store. He encouraged me to enter the Golden Demon regionals (back then there were only a few stores in London) and although there was an under 16s competition my vignette was entered into the adult competition and won.

You can probably see that it's the original Perry dwarf cannon and two of the crew plus the spotter from the old dwarf bolt-thrower. The emplacement is a resin ACW earthwork we picked up somewhere and the non-moulded stones were picked up on the banks of the river Pinn near our home next to the old RAF Uxbridge base.

Dad was very determined that I do all the work myself. Even the bits that these days would have a health and safety officer doing cartwheels.

You'll be able to see that the top of the observation platform is the top of a snotling pump wagon. We had about a dozen as my dad once wanted to build a six story snotling siege tower (yes really). The logs of the tower and ladder are actually old pieces of plastic sprue. Dad showed me how to carve them into pointed logs with a big £&$^%ing sharp knife and then using a really £!^&ing hot etching tool and a soldering iron - how to carve in wood grain and melt in knots in the logs.

I added on some engineering tools from the old British faithful Essex Miniatures (still going - still awesome) and raided two shields from my poor-man's Kev Adams Man-Mangler attempt. I was done. As an extra addition for the finals dad showed me how to add the (now rather amateurish) fireball. There's a piece of brass rod drilled into the barrel of the cannon and a ball of Milliput placed on the end as the base of a flame-cannon fireball. I scraped thin pieces of sprue to make the licks of "flame". Once painted we tried to cover up how bad it looked with cotton wool which in the intervening thirty years has discoloured somewhat.

So now it's Saturday 27th May 1989. Last night's worst night of my life is forgotten and dad drives me the few miles to Harrow (it doesn't take so long at 5:30am). At the GW store is a free bus to Derby. It's 3 or 4 hours drive and to amuse us they give everyone a set of the GW top trumps. In fact because it's me and dad they give us all six sets. Where are they now? No idea.

My entry in the display cabinet next to a superior piece.

I have nothing but great memories from the day. I had a jacket potato with Red Leicester for lunch (GW Harrow gave us bacon sandwiches on the coach), the tables were amazing. The entries really made you humble, they were that good. And back then acrylics were poor and enamels were dull. If you got good results from those then you were a better man than I was a boy.

There were 80s British haircuts and Def Leppard T-Shirts. That smell from modern wargames shows of leather and no shower was as exciting as to a 14-year-old me as it is disgusting today! Outside there were Viking re-enactment chaps beating the living £uck out of each other.

There are a few items such as the shield, crossbow and whatever I dangled from the flagpole that have since been lost to my mother's "dusting"

My piece that was the most important achievement of my life up to that point (and I had made most bases with Carolyn Murphy) was man-handled by several members of the WD team whose mullets I'd looked at with fear for my entire hobby life thus far. I could tell by one shaking his perm that I wasn't going to get photographed.

One of the original artworks on display that I photographed with my point and click 36-shot camera.

My last memory of the day was watching the Slayer-sword winner (Steve Blunt) picking up at least three trophies. Whoever that skinny guy in glasses was running down the stairs from the gallery to pick up his next trophy...he was like a god to me.

I don't remember getting home. I'm guessing dad got me on the coach and after a long day I probably fell asleep for the 4 hour drive back to Harrow.

I never forgave Michael Thomas. Just so we're clear.

P.S. These photos were taken in the days before digital cameras. Although they have been adjusted in photoshop I still understand that the quality is poor. I have about 35 pics from that GD show and if you want to see them they are in an album in the Oldhammer community. The link below points to the album but if you are not a member of the community you won't be able to view.

Photo album link