Snapper

Hi Kuno, If the Shermanistas and yourself can collate enough info. Can we use it in an article for the front end? This is a great story. Thanks for sharing it. No doubt the Sherman brains will be of assistance. Great snaps, btw! MB

After a minimum of consultation between the Bunkerbusters and Jack, we have elected to enhance the front page to take in more news and reviews in addition to having features and show reports. This is the point where you all scurry off to hide behind your PC monitors, because I am about to ask for your help. What we would like to do is get the wider forum family to contribute to the front page. Your opinions on new and old books, TV, film and all manner of products would be gratefully received. This does NOT mean you have to write pages of stuff. We propose to do round-ups where a simple paragraph on a given item would suffice in addition to the longer stuff by those who wish to do so. A thumbnail image of the item and any relevant info - where to buy, ISBN, prices, websites etc etc would be most welcome. For show reports we welcome a selection of images, you might post in the forum anyway, to make a round up. It might be you offer a snap for the front and put extras in the forum. It works all ways. We don't propose critiques of events as such, just the who, what, when and wheres to keep things on the straight and narrow. You can make your opinions in the forum as usual. News, features and show reports will hopefully have images which expand, like pop-ups I suppose, without being technically minded. I would imagine a lot stuff would effectively be images with extended captions because reading articles on the web can be very dullsville on the eyeball. There are technical things to work out yet way beyond my knowledge. But Jack is on the case and Joris is looking busy as well. Features might be walk rounds of vehicles, battlefield stuff, guides to kit and kaboodle, you name it - it's your train set. It's a collective thing. No stars, no egos, just coverage. None of this effects the forum where we carry on regardless. We just want to make the front a place where people can find out what is going on or see what they have missed. There will be no favour towards brands, organisations or any dilution of the things we all like best about HMVF. So, Jack is the man for news and I am the chap for features and reviews. Please comment and offer suggestions. We would like to build a regional panel of people we can ask to do stuff or who come up with it regardless. The facts are simple. We do this for fun, not wages and to reach all corners of the UK and abroad we need help. Geography is a key factor. I hope all this makes sense. Jack may well comment if we can get him away from his road map of the Netherlands. Right now he is trying on his Overloon pants. MB

These pix amply illustrate why my wife won't go to Malta. M :coffee:

I am fortunate to have some Charles E brown prints of my own. When The Sun cleared out a section of the general library I was instructed to do the "war - defence" area. This was in 1987. I did a good job of it, sympathetically - but the manager wanted more to go and did a big trawl himself. He always ripped prints into four parts to assure destruction. He piled up a great selection of aviation pix ready to destroy and I managed to go through it while he was at lunch. I kept the Charles E Brown stuff because he is a legend. A colleague of mine worked with him in a round about way and says he was a "nice little man". I cherish the prints and will never part with them. He would have made them himself. I have two books of his work and thoroughly recommend his stuff to the house. M

Nice. I remember they used to have one in the RAF museum. But on my last two visits the gallery it used to be in was off limits and second time I was covering the Haynes Lanc launch... which reminds me, I need to see what they are up to this year. MB

London had it far worse than my corner of Essex - we call the People's Republic of Southend. I agree. All the buses were off the road in the capital. When my parents were "on the back" in the 1950s and 60s working out of Tottenham Garage in Philip Lane they worked on the old RT, RTL, RTW, RM, RML, DMS and RF types in the fleet. They were out in all weathers and conditions. Nothing stopped the buses of the old London Passenger Transport Board. Now they have all these modern brakes and stuff and look what happens. Where was Cliff Richard when we needed him? Barnes digresses.

Now, that is clever!

Took some pretty snaps of the Tower Hill MN memorial this morning, will attempt to post them later. MB

Brilliant! Well done, Nick! I wish I'd been able to get the MUTT out, but knowing me I'd have pranged it. M

Will do my best. I have a lot (as ever) - but I'll try and stick to the most interesting. Nice job on the snap there Phil. :-D MB

Welcome Steve, The Friendly Forum is the place to be. Good luck with your project. Post a snap or two as soon as you can. MB

Last one for now...I love this tank. Photogenic or what? The light was brilliant.

Will do. I'm assuming this is Richard's Bedford. M :yay:

Hi Richard, I took a few of this scene and the best ones without the car in the distance were blurred. I hope this fits the bill. Someone cleverer in the black arts of Fotoshop than I could probably get rid of the roundabout. I'll see if I can pursuade a colleague to do it for me.

Harry, James and I were bouncing around in the back of a jeep taking snaps. It was an entertaining experience, but we managed a few decent pix, I hope. This one has a bit of atmosphere.

What a line up!

One of the stars of the 2008 show.

I aim to please....

Thats right, Enzo was great - he let us snap him at all stages - I really admire him. He is one of the most loveable characters of Beltring. I've got some slides he took of me (he don't do digital nonsense!) and he also gave me some copy prints of some of his work which I treasure - even though they are just copies on a4 plain paper.

The British road run was disappointing at first glance, but there were some great lorries out there.

These are the Slovakians Markheliops made friends with...

This is the wonderful Enzo Maio, illustrator and amazing character. He does the model box art for Revell amongst others. I snapped him painting the KV1 and have pix of the finished work, but I cannot reproduce them for copyright reasons. I believe the KV1 is hitting the shelves this spring, so you saw the box art here first.

This is also a motorcycle, I believe.

I never got round to posting any of my other 2008 show snaps. So, here is a very slow start. These will come in day order, or thereabouts. Welcome to Tuesday, 15th July. You're welcome to provide the captions....I need educashun. BTW, I know these are motorcycles.

Haven't you checked the answer phone? She's buggered off to the Maldives for the duration. Her cousin Mildred is filling in.