All Roads Lead To....

Donald Featherstone (at least as far as post-war UK wargaming is concerned).

I was one of probably many who were drawn into the hobby during the 1970s and 80s by pictures of Peter Gilder's wargames, and, as PG himself told us, he was introduced to wargaming by Featherstone - so in the end we are all children of The Don, so to speak....

The above scan comes from Wargamers Newsletter 146 May 1974 and i suspect the two photos will be known to you already having been published in various books and magazines over the years. They were taken during one of Don Featherstone's visits to Peter Gilder's home in Norfolk in the early months of 1964. The game depicted is ACW - and this is before Airfix released their ACW range, so most of the 20mm figures will be conversions.

Again this comes to us via Clive - who has contributed so much content recently that i may have to start paying him a salary... BTW, i welcome any and all relevant content (pictures, scans, anecdotes..whatever) as inevitably your stuff will be far more interesting than my stuff. I can be contacted via the email address in my Blogger Profile.

Gilder on Diversity

Here we have an extract from a letter sent by Peter Gilder to Wargamers Newsletter printed in issue 91 (October 1969 i believe). The background is the spat that rumbled on for some time between the London and Southampton 'sets' of wargamers (Featherstone vs Tunstill, seconds out...), but the real reason i post this is the insight it gives us into PG's hobby philosophy - his rejection of standardisation is music to the ears of this dyed in the wool individualist....

Thanks to Clive for supplying this scan.

Peter Gilder: The Early Years

Here we have Donald Featherstone passing on some of PG's ideas for concealment and surprise to readers of Wargamers Newsletter. This article dates back to Issue 18 - which must be from late 1963 (given that Featherstone began publishing Newsletter in '62) - and is the earliest piece by, or about, Peter Gilder that i have come across to date.

As you might expect PG's ideas are simple but effective. I particularly like his 'unit counters' concept - reminds me of Koenig Krieg (which remain my favoured SYW 'big battle' rules).
This article comes to us via Harry Pearson and Clive - thanks guys.