Snapper

Brilliant stuff. This topic section is really worthwhile. More please.

Hello. I should explain that I am fortunate to have access to a range of military history books thanks to my full time work and because I am always hunting for something to read for my commute to work etc. I am not specifically interested in MV books, being more interested in people and histories. I am do not confine myself to WW1 or WW2. I hope you don't mind me sharing these thoughts: McCRAE'S BATTALION by Jack Alexander. Available on the internet from Mainstream. As said elsewhere, this is a masterpiece. Band of Brothers for WW1 with a bit of football thrown in. Don't let that put you off. They were corinthian times not fed by greed. MY WAR - KILLING TIME IN IRAQ by Colby Buzzell. This is an amazing book born out of blogs Buzzell posted during his time in Iraq and based from his period of recruitment and training. What you have is a confessed no-hoper skater dude turning himself into a bit of a star thanks to a love affair with a machine gun. SQUADDIE by Steven McLaughlin will be seen as a British attempt at Buzzell's book. McLaughlin is clearly a brilliant bloke whose efforts to get into the army at a late age are incredible. But this book lacks oomph and is dull. I didn't finish it. BOY SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT WAR by Richard Van Emden is doing the rounds. It is a very interesting book full of details and bits of injustices that can make you angry. If you've ever been to a boy soldier's grave you will feel even stronger about the issues. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT by Tim Collins. The man shafted by the MoD. I found myself in the bizarre situation of meeting him at Beltring. God knows what he made of it all. This book is fantastic. No battles, no gung ho crap. but the eloquence of the man is inspiring. The army made a massive mistake screwing him. BLOODY APRIL - SLAUGHTER IN THE SKIES OVER ARRAS 1917 - by Peter Hart. This is brilliant. All that Twenty Minuters stuff from Blackadder writ large. The courage of the air crews is incredible - British and German. FIELD MARSHAL HENRY WILSON by Keith Jeffrey recounts the life of the Ulsterman who is widely blamed with taking Britain to war in 1914. He was director of war plans and was very keen to see things done properly. He was an avowed Francophile and did not get on with Sir John French, but who did? Wilson was assassinated by the IRA in London in 1922 when he was CIGS. THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES/ THE DIEPPE RAID/ THE BATTLE FOR THE RHINE. Three books by Rob Niellands. This bloke can write. He is not afraid to challenge carefully crafted legends surrounding events and with the Rhine book he makes a solid point of blaming American anglophobia and ineptitude for many of the problems typically dumped at the door of Monty. In the Dieppe book he is scathing of the British and Canadian military command - not the troops or their combat leaders. Mountbatten gets a hammering. THE BIG SHOW by Pierre Clostermann is back in the bookshops. This book was written in 1951 by the great French air ace. It is a great little book. Clostermann ended up living in Argentina and caused a stink when he congratulated Argie pilots in 1982 for their bravery. Why shouldn't he have? They were brave. ZEEBRUGGE by Barrie Pitt. This is a stunning book covering the events of st George's Day 1918 and "Eleven VCs before breakfast". No Speilberg style blockbuster of this one ...yet. But there were no Yanks involved..funny, that. Barrie Pitt died this year and was editor of Purnell's History of the Second World War partwork of the 1970s. TOGETHER WE STAND by James Holland is excellent reading about the north African campaign and the beginnings of Anglo-American co-operation. There is a lot of info in here. The stuff about the Torch landings and events involving the British Airborne is toe curling. Those paras were tough buggers. BLITZ by MJ Gaskin compares nicely with the old classic THE CITY THAT WOULDN'T DIE by Richard Collier. The former covers the great raid on London on 29.12.40 while the latter is about similar events on 10-11.05.1941. These are brilliant books. Loads of detail and atmosphere with the people brought to life. Ordinary people. The difference is styles between 1959 and 2005 are marked. Hope you didn't mind me sharing this lot with you. I've got loads more squirrelled away.

Absolutely. We few, we happy few. we band of brothers. And he who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother be he e'er so base....etc etc. Churchill knew who he was aluding to with his own Few, didn't he! If you want a British Band of Brothers try reading McCrae's Battalion, the history of the 16th Bn Royal Scots. It's a stunning book - the author temporarily escapes me but I will come back about this with some other stuff on books. The story starts in Edinburgh with the rise of Heart of Midlothian football club and how the team and Edinburgh and other places in the Lothians provided sportsmen to form the nucleus of a great unit covered in glory on the 1st day of the Somme and throughout the war. It is a brilliant work that will bring a lump to your throat.

Ambrose himself was critical of some of his own research methods used in Pegasus Bridge which led to some minor errors. He was clearly driven by the desire to tell a massively important story regardless of the nationalities involved. We owe him an enormous debt because he has almost single handedly made popular WW2 history to a wider audience. Now, obviously. this was aimed primarily at the huge American market pefected in Band of Brothers; but there are good British writers out there telling our story. Some are actively attempting to debunk the myths perpetrated by the Americans about how they won the war with elan and vigour while we prevaricated and plodded in our snoppy parochial way. I will come back with some recommendations. As for the Band of Brothers, there was another group of elite fighting men dubbed with the same name. Nelson called his captains this and treasured them from the Nile to Trafalgar.

This would be an amazing place to have a MV show. But I suspect most of it's aura comes from seeing it deserted and in moody weather. Who owns it or is it just abandoned? I suspect you'll see a new town on it in a couple of years. So if there is to be a show make it nowhere near Beltring or Kemble and make sure that if it is a one off - it is brilliant. Maybe the Essex contingent would consider a road run? I don't even know where it is and I want to go. On a related subject, photographing these sites in detail is very important. It is correct to get a mixture of arty and pure record pix. Even when you go somewhere on a well trodden path try and get your take on the place. These snaps will all have a value one day. I spend a lot of time out on the WW1 battlefields of Flanders and the Somme (etc) and looking round UK memorials and also cemeteries for war graves and it is very special to do this. I'm out there at half term snapping the graves and memorials of men from the newspaper company I work for (aside from just wanting to be there). Keep up the good work folks.

The Guards Museum is in Bird Cage Walk in the grounds of Wellington Barracks. I think that makes it a London SW1 postal district. I only walked past it last Saturday and added it to my 'places to visit' list. The rest are in the Public Record Office at Kew. But I think they've given the organisation a trendy new name. Someone will correct me.

I fancy having a go at this. I used to work for the Melody Maker music magazine and once had the joy of being photographed with Lemmy from Motorhead. He was sticking his thumb up the news editor's nose at the time. A little while later we had Stewart Copeland of the Police in the office and my future wife was a big fan. So I phoned her and she didn't believe me - so I got hime to talk to her on the phone - a quality moment. One of my childhood friends was Buster Bloodvessel of Bad Manners fame (we went to different schools together - as the saying goes). I helped them get some publicity and went to their first gig in a pub in Tottenham. They were an R&B band at the time. I appeared in a school photo which included two future murderers an armed robber and a very nasty rapist. I had the displeasure of serving in the army with a nasty little git who was recently imprisoned for selling secrets to Russia. I once appeared as a model in The Sun as an unhappy yuppy after taxes went up on mobile phones (when they were bricks). I was then asked to be in a photo casebook as a rapist returning to hassle his victim...I declined. I also appeared in a Saudi Arabian defence catalogue modelling webbing. It was the days before Photoshop and the effect was not helped by the photographer's dog biting me on the face before the shoot. AND BEST OF ALL....my uncle Edward was the first Merchant Navy winner of the George Medal which he won in 1940 following the sinking of the Severn Leigh. Which brings me to my wife, whose grandfather was a Master Brewer for Scottish & Newcastle Breweries (and eventually managing director). He won several gold medals for his beers and invented a reasonably popular beer called....Newcastle Brown Ale. We've got the recipe book and it makes no sense at all to us mere mortals. ALL TRUE....

Today is the anniversary of the death of Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his navigator Squadron Leader JB Warwick. They are buried in Steenbergen in the Netherlands. I have never visited their graves, but will get there in time. With the impending fuss about the remake of the Dambusters it is right and proper to record this date. Gibson is something of a sacred cow for his exploits, but he was not universally liked in his lifetime. He seems to have been a bit of a difficult character, not perfect as we like our heroes to be. His leadership qualities are beyond doubt as is his personal bravery. He knew what he was fighting for. There is a great deal written about him, but the hardest thing to reconcile today is not the nonsense about the name of his dog, he was a man of his time; but the fact that when he died he was still only 26 years old. Look at all the people of that age today having their fifteen minutes of fame and earning millions from kicking footballs or making salads and it makes you wonder where things went wrong/got better (you choose).

Does this mean Maud would be free for an alternative Southend seafront cruise, then? There was a bloke there last Saturday with a "Ferrari" which we reckon was a panel kit built on a Calibra or something similar. Hats off to him, it looked great. My son, who is 14, wants us to do re-enacting with our Iltis. Plenty of Flektarn about. Easy peasy. But I am 47, getting flabby and am a shrinking 5ft 8 and a bit. He is about half my body weight and not much shorter. I think my Iltis looks just as good (joke) with me wearing whatever I like. I agree with the notion you should wear what you like. He also likes guns - not the best of interests for a father to pass on to a son - but he is entirely non violent and is not Walter Mitty - thankfully. I was a soldier. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I don't need to relive it, I never did anything interesting but there were some scary moments I've been trying nigh on thirty years to forget that would make places like Deepcut seem like Butlins - but that was then. Move on. The plain fact is tossers come in all shapes, sizes and colours. It only seems worse when they dress up to be even bigger tossers. I have met some brilliant re-enactor/living history people. Gentlemen and ladies to a tee. More power to them. It's easy, give the planks a wide birth. You know who they are. I don't think it is wrong to name and shame in a proactive way. They might get the message. I think I mentioned once in a separate post how one re-enactor of a British airborne unit once demanded money from me to take his picture. I've never seen his group since. Oh dear, how sad, never mind. KEEP SMILING. For my money the hobby needs these colourful types. They live in a parallel universe of sorts and give what we do some depth.

I always think that the guys who want to wear British BD for fun are amazing because it is horrible stuff. I suffered KF shirts and they still make me shudder - so...... I always remember the funny scene in Leslie Thomas's The Dearest And The Best when some dapper Americans encounter a British soldier in Devon and presume he's going to kick the Germans to death with the boots he has on.... This must be partly why the Yanks are so popular with re-enactors because the uniforms are so much more acceptable. Funnily enough an Afrika Korps re-enactor was telling me the other day that their uniforms were designed by Hugo Boss's dad and the cut was planned to make the wearer look taller. But British serge? never mind the quality, feel the width. This does not, of course, apply to the wearers. We know how good they were.

WW2 is always going to be the winner and the element of snobbery surrounding it (if this is, indeed, the correct terminology) is omnipresent. Even within the WW2 crowd you have the jeeps and the rest. People draw together. I am massively in favour of vehicles being kept in their original guise. I understand, but loathe, Hotchkiss jeeps being made into Yanks. But I always stress, it isn't MY money and I always respect the work effort. So, Greek jeeps and Norwegian WC's are required. Be brave . As for the Brits, the previous posts are entirely correct. The poor things were worked to death and hacked up. How many Morris-Commercial breakdowns or Matadors have you seen at classic commercial shows? While it would be nice to see SOME of them converted back to WD standard, who would do it?? I agree wholeheartedly with the quotes by Pat Ware in his interview with Jack about the movement being great because of it's diversity. This doesn't stop me being miffed with people turning their nose up at my Iltis at shows because A) it's modern and B it's not whatever they want it to be (but you should see the smiles I get from the car nuts on Southend sea front - time to do an MV cruise there methinks). Just keep on keepig on. For the sake of debate - here is my wish list in no particular order: Volvo Suggan Dodge Weapons carrier ACMAT Volvo anti-tank jeep M3 half track (or M5/M9) Sheridan M551 tank Ford MUTT M38 CDN etc etc

If someone has made the time and effort to restore or reconstruct a vehicle for us all to enjoy then I'm happy. I am never going to do it myself so will readily accept any compromise the people at the coal face make to get their projects completed. Anything that gives us more variety to keep the MV movement strong is fine by me. Examples of WW2 era British armour are especially welcome. Keep them rolling...

As an aside it is nice in some ways to see that Peter Jackson is definitely going to remake the Dam Busters adding much of the technical stuff they were not allowed to use in the original. He's even going to keep Eric Coates music - but the dog is now Trigger. I sat here with a bloke who has always loved the original film, but had never heard of Guy Gibson and tried to explain to him that Gibson was only 26 when he died. Not 40! He found it hard to believe. This started a debate about who could play the role. Good question. So, if you;ve got an RAF WW2 motor, time to get it spruced up for film work!! I loved the original film and have read several 617sdrn related books, so this is a bit special for me. Those men were amazing. Bless them all.

Well done, Mick. You get everywhere.

Hello Jack, I think this is an interesting idea; but I am not sure how my tatty 1979 VW Iltis would fit in with a column of WW2 vehicles. We would need to see all eras catered for with some care. Obviously your main impact would be in the major cities. I work in London and am considered to be an eccentric anorak at my work for my military interests coupled with some bewilderment that I was once a soldier. The emphasis for any event like this is always going to be WW2 and I have some difficulty imagining how a bunch of inevitable Land Rovers and Ferrets could be included (I pick these for the sake of their immense popularity - not any dislike). My employer is a media organisation big on claiming support for the military and veterans - but, to be frank, this is just cynical in my view and is a way of upping sales. I would not be able to bring my vehicle on site during the day because of parking rules. As far as I know, I am the only MV owner here - but it is hard to say. So, if your idea took off and got wide support in industry/business I feel I would be creating a pretty poor image turning up in an albeit interesting (to us) veteran of the Panzer school at Castle Martin which is far off looking presentable. Maybe it would be more practical to aim for some runs into the major towns and cities where we could achieve a proper mix of vehicles to impress the general public. But i think this would have to be done with some care and you would need to get support from the major groups (but you knew that already). I'm not fussed about paying the congestion charge or even causing some congestion once in a blue moon. I think your idea has merit and needs a lot of debate from across the MV spectrum. But we would need to be fully sure of the kind of impact it will have on the public and the transport network and just how practical an idea it can be. We would also need to assess the kind of image we want to present in terms of re-enactors and weaponry taking part. Like you, I would like to see what everyone else thinks. So, come on....

This an interesting post worthy of some chatter. I've seen the Crossley and it is brilliant. It was on the HCVS London to Brighton Run. I believe it was one of very few not built for the military and if memory serves me well there is one in store from the old MoM at Beverley (I was there when the army cleared it out - a memorable day). But I think some people would prefer to consider it more of a replica than a real thing given the amount of fabrication required. I don't know where these things properly divide and would welcome a view from the chaps who restore WW1 era vehicles who monitor the forum. Maybe some people would prefer to describe the well known jadpanther as a replica given the amount of new material added. My final view is who cares? The skills to recreate the vehicles are amazing and the dedication worthy of high praise. Anyone bringing out examples of long lost MVs get my vote. I can well remember seeing a AEC of Guy armoured HQ truck rotting away in an Essex field near Basildon for years and often wonder what happened to it. Another loss....

I can only speak for me - but i don't think there was any intention to compare the men of 1914-18 with the case of Bloody Sunday and the casualties of that terrible day. I think it was meant as a comparison of enquiries and revisionism which are thoroughly in vogue much to my own personal disgust. We all know, whichever side of the fence we sit on - that the Bloody Sunday enquiry has been completely dominated by the machinations of the IRA. It played into their hands entirely. Nuff said on that one. As for the question of the pardon - I am against a blanket one and have said so. A proper review is fair of the individual cases of particular men has merit - but I think it is too late and pointless as a pursuit of justice and good old British fair play we used to cherish in these islands. A genuine spirit of forgiveness is a lovely notion - but hopeless in our modern Britain, methinks; where criminals and morons hold all the aces in an increasngly useless, lawless State . There are far too many genuine and dodgy wrongs floating about that politicians and pundits are seeking to put redress for all kinds of reasons which all centre on taking your eye off the ball. So are you cynical? No. Not in my book.

A proper memorial is long overdue. Debating the rights and wrong of the offensive is pointless in 2006 but there should be no argument about the cruel way Bomber Command and Arthur Harris were treated by HMG. Bomber Command carried the war to Germany at huge cost. The cream of the pre-war youth were lost by this offensive - men from all backgrounds who had excelled in science, maths and technical subjects at school, quite apart from the athletes. They were a huge loss to post war Britain & the Empire. The sheer cost in terms of science, finance and industry just to carry it out was phenominal. It was probably the high point of British scientific and industrial cohesion. But the main issue is the men who were at the sharp end. They were dropped like a hot brick before the ink was even dry on the German surrender. No campaign medal, not even a clasp - a precedent was set as Churchill and his scientific advisor Lord Cherwell sought to distance themselves from the campaign. I think it is too late. Nobody really cares. Bomber Harris is still a criminal in the eyes of many and in 2006 the Germans are assiduously developing a victim culture. Harris said of the Germans 'They have sewn the fire, they will reap the whirlwind'. The offensive he ran was not his - he inherited it and perfected it. But he and his men remain damned by too many revisionists who have been able to do their dirty work. To be fair the offensive did have it's detractors at home and the particular angle that by carrying it out Britain was lowering itself to the level of Nazi criminality does have a ring of truth to it. When Harris got his CoS to lecture on the 'ethics of bombing', Pastor Bell replied with the 'bombing of ethics'. Fair point. But Harris, who hated the Germans with a passion, made a significant point when he said that all the German cities he had flattened were not worth the bones of a single British grenadier. Lincoln is a fitting place for a memorial - but the capital city has ignored Bomber Command (bar Harris' statue at St Clement Danes which is frequently abused) : a national disgrace. London is more concerned about what to do about a statue of Nelson Mandela - a great man; but hardly essential to the survival of the British people. It's a funny old world. Even the media darling Guy Gibson did not get a memorial because he was not pc - blame it on the dog! (who does have a memorial). There is a poem called Ellergy For a Rear Gunner: My brief sweet life is over. I can no longer see. No summer walks, no Christmas trees, no pretty girls for me. I've got the chop. I've had it. my nightly ops are done. But in a hundred years from now I'll still be twenty-one Nuff said

I think a sense of forgiveness is the most important motive because there is never much of it about. I think you are right - these men deserve it on that basis. I believe there has been a tendency to mix a pardon with an apology. The first is obviously symbolic while the latter is not ours to offer in truth - a bit like Bristol and the slaves, to my mind. There should never be an apology to the Shot at Dawn men in my view - because it would be totally meaningless and we would never stop apologising after that for everything done by this great nation of ours and I think we live in a political age where the PR fuelled rush for a collective mea culpa by our masters is a slur on our ancestors and us. In the end all history is written to please the modern age of the time. Shakespeare knew what he was about just as much as Livy and the likes of Cornelius Ryan. They knew their audience. Pure truth is always the loser because much of it gets left behind - it is inevitable as much as deliberate. WW1 has passed into a semi-mythological state of lions, donkeys and a collective calvary - I've seen it from Verdun to Plugstreet and it breaks my heart. So the 300 out of a million Brits should perhaps be allowed to sleep with less pain. I always liked the way Lyn Macdonald opened "Somme" with My Name Is Legion - For We Are Many. There are, perhaps, no finer words. And what tabloid editor has rushed round to the likes of Henry Alingham to ask him what he thinks of all this? None. We don't need to know. When we are much older men we will see versions of our history which seem as strangers to us. I am 47 and decrepit enough to see how events I lived through have been revised for the modern audience. It is, therefore, very important that forums like this one allow a group of generally likeminded people to discuss these issues in addition to the colour of wheel-nuts, in a proper manner. All power to it.

Next Wednesday is the anniversary of the death of my great-uncle Leslie. He was twenty when he was killed at Ypres serving with the 2nd Londons in 1915. His friends wrote my great-grandmother a string of letters to say he was a great bloke and a "soldier - not a shirker" For their loss my family got the standard "Dead Man's Penny" . The state issued over a million of them and the vast majority were thrown away in disgust. Although I like to think Les was a good lad and was brave, there is no real way of knowing how someone who was little more than a boy by the standards of the day was genuinely feeling. I don't feel there is any real distinction between him and the men who were shot at dawn who were victims of a system they could not beat. The people running it were not a cold bunch of mean spirited monsters either. They were all of their time. We don't like much about the way they thought or acted towards each other, or towards women or to the vast phalanx of "victims of imperialism" the history revisionists line up to batter us with. But there is much we do not like about our own society or what the State does on our behalf today. The two eras can never sit comfortably together. What would Les make of our world? and what would he feel towards these men receiving pardons? We cannot say - but unfortunately there is always a queue forming of people who want to tell us for him. The Bloody Sunday enquiry is a fiscal insult to our senses - I cannot speak for the political or legal aspects. If it sets a precedent then we need to see an end to the issue of those men shot at dawn, properly or otherwise. Those men of 1914-18 would be as horrified by the military law accompanying the army in the Crimea as much as modern day soldiers in Iraq would be of WW1. But they would all understand that armies have to have rules. That "Roman Legionary" mentioned early on by one of the forum knew where he stood and he broke the rules (figuratively speaking). Harsh sentencing is sometimes a fact of wartime operations within the forces. Would any of us be any happier about serving in a combat situation with a cynical coward any less than with someone who was genuinely ill? No - we would want them out of it; one way or the other. If you visit the Perth (China Wall) cemetery just outside Ypres you will find VC winners buried just yards from several men who were shot for breaking military law. In general terms these men have no distinctions - the grave stones are the same pattern and they are not buried separately. We know without the benefit of revisionism that the British Army was made up of people from all walks of life for whom a sense of adventure, duty, patriotism and religious faith played a big part in getting them to the particular spot where they died. Their deaths were all individual tragedies for our country and their loved ones. They can all deservedly rest in peace. Modern day politicking by governments looking for good PR changes nothing. If for one minute it took our eyes away from our service people in Iraq and wherever who are regularly let down by their State just as badly as the Shell scandals of WW1, then the PR men have won. These pardons are a diversion. The fact that they are either a good or bad idea is not the point. But they change nothing. You will never see the people who failed to buy body armour or invest in decent APCs facing any kind of trial other than the ballot box and these issues do not win or lose votes. This story is as much tomorrows fish and chip wrappings as the last British military casualty. It was ever thus. We may not like it, but it is a fact. Old Soldiers Never Die, They Only Fade Away. Keep them all in your hearts - you don't need politicians or PR gurus to help you.

Yeah Mick - that lookks like my sag bog snap. Sorry it took so long for me to reply. Hope you will be at Odyssey to say hello again. I have to say that the RBX was on of the best features of Beltring I can remember and being out on the road was amazing. I think I have got snaps of all you blokes - but sorting them out is taking an age. I presume you lifted the food snap off the show website?? There were a load more pics of events that never even got added because time ran out. The show snappers team will be back in 2007 and we hope to an even better job. Editing the stuff proved imposible, hence the dupes and occasional duffers - but the webmaster and his lads worked like trojans - so no complaints there. See you soon Mark B

Thanks very much! We actually needed them to work out decals for the half-scale SAS landie my friend Richard and i built for CMV. I hope Beltring visitors saw it on the CMV stand. In the end we went with the pressures for the actual wheels supplied with the vehicle which we think came from golf buggies.

Because I've never logged off properly I didn't see the new format until this evening - lost my password and had to start afresh. But the whole thing stems back to Pat Ware who I have worked for as a contributor to CMV since 2001 and whose interview with Jack is true to form (he is famous for polite but terse emails). Pat is a vehicles man first and foremost and is not interested as much in re-enactors/living history. However, there is no question that the MV scene has gained from the growth of it's stable mate in terms of the wider interest in the hobby as a whole. Mags like CMV benefit from the re-enactment world - they add colour and a bit of depth. At my first Beltring I was dumstruck when I saw a Waffen SS inspection by a group I assume to be the current SBG. I was part horrified and partly happy. As a photographer I am biased to a degree. The MV snappers talk about this subject a lot - but our biggest debate is how vehicles look best. There are two aspects here: Event photos show vehicle owners/passengers wearing what they bloody well like as they rumble around the field they are in. Many of my colleagues hate these moments because these photos have no "stock value" in their eyes. Classic depictions would show well turned out re-enactors in the vehicles in contemporary settings/action. I am personally not bothered if tank commanders want to wear their old Van Halen T-shirts while working video cameras in my photos. I didn't pay for the tank or the gas (etc!!). I definitely prefer to get more "realistic" images but this can only go so far and is best to be arranged privately - but we have immense difficulty getting some people to do it because they go all shy or are just not as vain as they might appear in a shallow degree to a wider audience - whether they dress up or not... In my time I've met some miserable sods who "live" the battlefield a little too much for my liking and they can be a bit scary too. A wannabe WW2 Para once demanded money from me for taking his picture - I haven't seen him or his group at any other event since. I've been fortunate to work with some kind and very level headed types too who I look forward to meeting on the circuit each year. Re-enactors are not models and they are definitely not the Killer Elite - but I think the whole "event" aspect of the MV world has been empowered by them. Like many my jury is still "out" over the SS guys - but the dedication of these people is stunning. I hope the two can live together as long as possible. There are too many grey people who would love to stop the whole hobby altogether as they move down their checklist. So whether you dress up or not - just HAVE FUN while it lasts. And if you want to be photographed please say so!!! I might draw the line at a Flock of Seagulls T-shirt though, Jack!! - Snapper (Mark B)

good info. I've remembered that his Fallschirmjaeger book is called Hunters From The Sky - which I think is almost a literal translation....

Just seen this - so take some advice for next year. DON'T CHANGE YOUR LENS ANYWHERE NEAR THE ARENA - if at all. I use an SLR and a digi compact for all my work To be honest this arrangement did not work so well this year and I will get a second SLR to mount a decent telephoto lens permanently, while still making use of the digi snapper. Zoomer and I were snapping people in the beer tents for the show website and my D70S did not like focusing in the dark at all - so a snapper would be better for some of the event. Some pros get proper dust hoods for their kit. But I can't be arsed. The compressed air does help - but read up on CCD care for SLRs - you can seriously ufck them up if you are not careful. I wrecked two Nikon F70 film cameras at Beltring in 2005. But the results were fantastic. So.... NEVER feel bad about taking too many snaps. I kept my total down to 3,000 this year over 4 days. My problem is they all seem to be of drunk extras from Allo Allo and an Elvis impersonater - not MVs.