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.