Reminisces of John Tilson.

                    The Hull Group admiring the Waterloo terrain prior to a photo shoot with  Peter Gilder, Laurie Coverdale of Humbrol Paints, Rob Baker and John Tilson looking at one of Gilder's representations of the Battle of Waterloo, of which he made several. 

  

John Tilson has been wargaming a long time but had been interested in military history long before that, he started as many early wargamers did as a member of the British Model Soldier Society [BMSS] which contained most of the UK's pioneering wargamers.

John who lived in Hull in the early 1960's had become friends with Bill Lamming whom he had met at the BMSS meeting at York. At that time Bill Lamming was a soldier collector who also made 54mm figures.    

He was introduced to Peter Gilder by Bill Lamming. Gilder had just moved to Hull and was living in a flat above a fish shop. He was working as a salesman for a company supplying stainless steel equipment to fish fryers. John knew of  Peter Gilder via the Wargamers Newsletter where Donald Featherstone had sang Gilder's praises for his figure painting and terrain making.

In true Gilderesque style Gilder managed to interest Bill Lamming in creating smaller scale figures and amongst his first was an early French hussar in mirliton. Possibly this was the start of Lamming Miniatures which grew quickly through the 1970's and early 1980's.

 Because Peter Gilder knew of John's interest in wargaming as well as collecting Briton's he invited him to a game in his flat above the chippy, and the rest was history as they say.They fought a couple of small campaigns using Peter's figures but as John said, 'did anyone ever win a game against Gilder?'

 Gilder began to cast his own figures whilst becoming a member of the North Hull Wargames Club where he met John Braithwaite who later founded Garrison Miniatures. The pair became very close friends and sparked off each other. 

Gilder created his first Waterloo terrain and staged the inaugural game in Willerby near Hull. This was the game he took to the original Waterloo Festival arranged by Donald Featherstone in London. 

 Whilst at the North Hull Club Gilder staged his second attempt of his famous Waterloo wargame using an improved wargames terrain and more figures. He also staged Borodino and Dresden at the club. It was clear Peter Gilder was learning as he soon after moved out of Hull and began working with Frank Hinchliffe to produce new ranges of 25mm figures.

 During the time Gilder was in Hull he showed John how to improve is painting and how replace any bayonets and swords with flattened pins, a trademark Gilder touch. He also showed John how base and make better quality buildings. In order to speed up his unit production Peter Gilder would either leave bare or undercoat the underside off the cavalry and only paint what as visible, again it was a trademark Gilder trait for his early painted figures. 

Gilder also introduced company bases, moving away from the original single figure bases then in use. Initially the figures were affixed with double-sided tape before Gilder took to permanently fixing the figures to terrained bases and introduced unit causality sheets.

John described Peter Gilder as a generous and knowledgeable wargamer and modeler always keen to help.

   

John Tilson and Battleground.

Im a believer in Serendipity and although Im no flat-earther I have experienced events that cant be explained totally. I would like to think the tale Im going to recount is just such a thing. 

A few weeks ago I had a call out of the blue from a wargamer Ive known for years who  I'd bumped into at the Fiasco show late last year. When we had met, I had mentioned in passing that I was reluctantly looking to sell my 6mm Napoleonic armies. It was just a throwaway comment and I never thought anymore of it. Anyway the chap, Steve Lloyd called and said there was a friend of his looking for some armies he could use now that he'd downsized and effectively had to sell all his collections. The friend was John Tilson.  

Now wargamers of a certain [old] age will recognise the name as one of the wargamers who appeared in the legendary Battleground series presented by Edward Woodward. John and Duncan Macfarlane staged one of the battles of the series, the beautiful Battle of Edgehill. It was a chance to speak to another wargamer who had known Peter Gilder and also knew some of the background to the legendary series Battleground.

John is an extremely shy bloke and I know he would be embarrassed by any mention of himself in a blog on the internet but he did agree to jot down some notes on Gilder and later when we met at the York show we chatted about Battleground and Duncan Macfarlane. For this post I thought I would talk about Battleground.

John was a member of the North Hull Wargames group and was a friend of not only Gilder but also of Duncan Macfarlane who lived in nearby Driffield and was a school librarian who wargamed. John would regularly pop into the school to meet up with Duncan who taught him how to play GO, very badly apparently. When Charles Wesencraft had been approached by Tyne Tees Television to help produce a programme about wargaming which was just starting to become a popular pastime he put them in touch with Peter Gilder who he rightly identified as the perfect person for the job. As the programme was planned, John and Duncan were asked by Gilder if they would stage the Battle of Edgehill.

Gilder didnt have any English Civil War figures then and he knew John and Duncan both had very large ECW armies. John had been working on a New Model Army and had created lots of one off figures, chopping and changing their heads to make some interesting units. Duncan possessed a beautifully painted Royalist army. It was a logical choice for Gilder. The programme was hosted in a very large empty hangar near Hull.Gilder naturally provided all the terrain which added so much to the spectacle. 

The producer in an effort to make the game more interesting? insisted that they use long measuring sticks and artillery cones even though they played no part in the actual rules being used. 

Because Peter Gilder didnt have any Civil War rules John and Duncan used a set written by George Gush.

The producer then thought of another great idea? which was to add more atmosphere by having a smoke machine puff clouds of white smoke across the battlefield and amongst the figures! Being an industrial strength smoke machine the hangar became full of white clouds which forced the production team to open the cavernous doors and stop filming until everything had cleared. The rest was history as they say. Edgehill was a beautiful representation of the battle and for many wargamers it showed what could be attained. Like most wargamers who have studied the Battleground series I thought all the figures used in the battles had belonged to Peter Gilder, obviously I was wrong. Gilder did take the time to show John how to customise the figures and paint them in a Gilderesque style, he was always generous with his time.