Mentors and Influencers

Started by fsn, 25 July 2018, 08:03:16 AM

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fsn

As usual, I was listening to Radio 4 on the drive in to work. They were trailing a new program in which politicians talked about those that had influenced them, been their role models.

Well naturally, I began to think about my role models ... and came up short.

A little bit of my history: When I was born, my Dad was in the RAF. Consequently we moved around a lot. At a toddler, I suffered an accident and that meant 7 or 8 years of hospital visits. When I was about 6, we were in Germany, and it was quite a distance to go to the RAF Hospital at Wegberg. So Dad bought a Triumph Herald so they could skim along the autobahn to visit me once a week. What I remember is the long columns of armoured vehicles - at that time Centurions, and it is being awed by these behemoths that led me to where I am today. Parents didn't help because every time they visited they brought me either 2 foot or 1 mounted Timpo figures.

There have been books that changed my life: The Blessed Featherstone's "Wargames" turned my toy soldiers into wargames units; "A Near Run Thing" by David Howarth kick started my interest in the Napoleonics, and ... just so many others .

People though are absurdly lacking as positive role models for me. Lots of people who I didn't want to emulate, plenty I respect and like, but so few who I cherish as having changed my life.

In fact, I can think of only one: When I was in the early years of High School, I had an English teacher called Mr Brick. He was as tiny man who invariably wore a three piece grey suit and sat on his desk clasping one knee whilst pontificating.  He had a love and grasp on language that flowed out of him and into, or passed by, his students. After assembly one morning, he picked on one poor girl.

"Julie. Are you aware of crowds behind you all the time?"  The poor girl looked perplexed and indicated that she wasn't aware of such a phenomenon.
"You don't see your fellow classmates here every time you turn around?" Again, poor Julie replied that she did not.
"Ahhh!" Mr Brick sprang off his desk, and rose to his full 5'4" "But they have just sang that their desire is to follow you." Julie looked around at us, accusingly.
"They have just been singing 'my hope to follow Julie'!" Then it clicked.* "The word," Mr Brick announced "is pronounced dew-lee, not jew-lee."

Please forgive the long preamble. Am I alone in not having many role models? Am I self deluded or just brought up to be independent?  Who are your key influences and role models. I'm thinking real people now, not public figures or media.


* Oh Jesus I Have Promised, verse 5
Oh, let me see Thy footmarks,
  And in them plant mine own;
My hope to follow duly
  Is in Thy strength alone.
Oh, guide me, call me, draw me,
  Uphold me to the end;
And then to rest receive me,
  My Savior and my Friend. 
     
Lord Oik of Runcorn (You may refer to me as Milord Oik)

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Techno

I'll have to think about that.  :-\

Cheers - Phil

Duke Speedy of Leighton

Eve? Noah? Methuselah? David? Rameses I?
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Techno


Ithoriel

Can't say I'm aware of ever wishing to be like someone else. The person I want to be ... is me!

To quote Green Day ...

"And there's nothing wrong with me
This is how I'm supposed to be"
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Dr Dave

Quote from: Ithoriel on 25 July 2018, 01:00:35 PM
Can't say I'm aware of ever wishing to be like someone else. The person I want to be ... is me!

I think the question is who has mentored or influenced you, not who would you like to be like?

My Dad took me to the cinema to see "A Bridge too Far". That evening and an interest in science lead me to my chosen career. So that influenced me, but I'm nothing like him!   :)

Then my first real boss who taught me how to do a proper experiment, analyse data, present and interpret results, trust nothing, check everything and always ask "so what?"

As for the rest, it's down to my dear departed Uncle Alf and all of his tales from North Africa, and then all of my pals and lastly my students of whom I am in awe (most of the time!)

Subedai

Like fsn my old man was in the forces and therefore posted all over the place, with his family duly in attendance. I well remember Christmas Day in 1962 when I opened two boxes each of Airfix 8th Army and Afrika Korps and a papier-mache hills on a board layout he had made for me to play on. Frank Ifield was singing 'I remember You' in his best yodelling fashion. So you could say my father was an early mentor. Unfortunately, he succumbed to the 'grass is greener' bug later in my life but that is another story.

Move ahead to a fourteen year old boy staring wonderingly at a diorama made up of some Airfix Highlanders forming the corner of a square being faced by charging Cuirassiers. There was a note that said something like 'If you like this see Matt Love of (can't remember). I was immediately hooked -and still am nearly fifty years later. Matt is no longer with us but his legacy of being my second mentor lives on. This was the man who showed me how to paint figures and introduced me to plastic conversions using Airfix ACW or the Colonial Set to make Prussian Napoleonic Uhlans. Using cut down plastic straws filled with Plasticine for body and coated with Humbrol Banana Oil for a little rigidity to make shakos, the world was now my oyster. speed painting was another attribute of this fellow who once turned out a battalion of 33 MiniFigs 25mm Napoleonic Highlanders in a single evening!

Next to enter was a young man named Mick Allen. We never really hit it off at school but after I had left we used to meet and chat about games, painting and our club SEEMS in the morning -me on my way to work and him on his way to his last year at school. Between us -Matt, Mick, myself and another gentleman named Robert Evans- were known as the Marshalate from the Napoleonic persona we adopted. I was Blucher, Matt was Davout, Mick was Ney and Rob was Murat. The four of us were inseparable and would have weekend long games at Rocheway Youth Centre using huge amounts of the old MiniFigs 5mm blocks. i suppose between then these three have been the greatest influence on my life, both in and out of wargamiing. As I said before, Matt died a few years ago now but I am still in regular contact with Mick and Rob even though Rob lives in Oz and Mick is over the Thames near Southend.

Another influence -although he probably didn't know it- was a lovely gentleman named Bob O'Brien from the original WRG triumvirate. This mans articles in Airfix Magazine and talking to him at each successive Present Arms in the 70's were inspirational for my developing wargamiing mind where plastic figures were concerned.

As I moved into employment, albeit in a part time job at the local newsagents, I saved up for metal figures and then Peter Gilder showed me the way forward with his beautifully painted figures  on stunning terrain. Of course, completely  unachievable by myself at the time but the drool factor was off the scale. Similar to Bob O'Brien, I would bombard him with questions about everything he did, from how he did his bases to how he built his terrain at every opportunity at the annual Model Engineering Exhibition in London.

Since then, I cannot really say that anyone has been a great influence on my hobby. I regularly 'borrow' ideas from other people on all manner of wargaming things but nobody can really hold a candle to any of those mentioned above.
Blog is at
http://thewordsofsubedai.blogspot.co.uk/

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