Snapper

To be honest, CW, we've not got room for any more boards like that at the moment - but I'd welcome seeing more snaps here - ESPECIALLY THOSE SCRAMBLING BIKES. I hope I didn't bore you all with the old banknotes. BTW - Paul - late white fivers like that one are not so valuable. I bought that one for a whopping £9 in 1976 and at one time it was worth nearly a hundred, but the market has waned. Like everything, including MkII Jags and old comics, the speculators hit the thing hard in the eighties and early nineties. If you remember those lovely old pound notes, you should remember the little blue fiver before the classy one with Wellington on the back came in in 1970 (I haven't got one - a serious omission i'm in no rush to ammend)- are are you younger than you looked round Lee's campfire!!!!! MB

the till is now closed.....

I'm on a (bank) roll :-D

and...if you're feeling nostalgic.....

as you're being clever, Paul. Here are some of mine :-D

Nothing stops anyone downloading...it's how newspapers work. I'd just let it go for the time being....museums don't have time to monitor every site and person breathing God's air, but they aren't stupid. Other sites have posted snaps of the Tiger, I haven't heard of any who've been made to remove images.

Good luck Neil, I hope it works out well after all your aggrevation and treasure draining joys... I keep thinking we need one of those rubbishy BBC comedy drama series about MV owners. Anyone fancy helping with the script. See how many times we can get TANK in the first episode. Rhymes with....

This is really interesting for all you installation luvvers.... MB http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/s/station_z/index.shtml

What, no gun, nothing noisey, nothing pointy and nothing metal? MB

No it's a fifty cal on the back. The cans are just matt green, unlike the MV. This is one of the snaps my pal Richard and I used to fabricate one from the Toylander Landy for CMV.

Museums are private property. You cannot snap without permission and no commercial sales are allowed. As HMVF is a free to view site, then we get round it by publicizing the museum. I don't know how the Tiger is copyrighted, I'd presume the copyright of the interior belongs to Henschel or whoever built the blimmin' thing. But it is now over 50 years old. So, the copyright issue relates to being on the premisis. MB

We got the film props off a chap who is in to sniper stuff who does the rounds. Don't know his name - he prefers to remain in the background. The SLR is basically a lump of wood and iron, but I really like it. Lee and Harry have recommended some mods to improve it. I bought a butt plate which goes with the older wood furniture (I think - from memory) but the butt is cut more like for the later plastic stuff. I'll get it right. The SA80 is lovely. It has the old a1 cocking handle which doesn't look so wonderful, but who cares for that price. The Browning HP remains a bit of a curates egg. Markheliops tried to strip it and could not. I'm happy with it, regardless. The downside is we managed to lose the lanyard ring out of it in no time at all - fixing screw and all. But it looks fine. Fun times ahead. MB

James and I didn't do too badly - I'd been saving photo sales cash pretty much since January for the show..and he bought some of this stuff with his own cash. film prop deactivated L85A1 from Children of Men, with correct sling etc £20. film prop SLR from Bloody Sunday (I think) - full weight - needs a bit of tidying up, but I loved it - £40 airsoft M14 rifle - really very good for it's type and much improved with a little detailing £125 nice old deactivated blank firer (we think) replica Browning HP £80 RAF flag - £5 Browning HP 58 pattern holster £2 current British army gas mask and case with two filters £20 repro Garand sling for M14 - nicer than modern thing (not that I found one) price forgotten - I think it was £15 four SA80 mags - £12 some clothes - total £20 oh....and a vehicle. (to be paid for). :sweat: Ok, we went mad. James also got some perfect Dutch army shirts someone had binned in the market on the last day (why??) and thousands of expended blank rounds which go in our bullet bucket. I pick them up after the arena battles. Saddo.

Bloody superb.... Missing Beltring can have it's benefits..... top class M

My dtr is extending her studies to WW1 and WW2 next year. She's already plodded over Normandy, Flanders and the Somme with me; so I'm hoping she'll get on alright. Poor lamb is probably bored rigid. Let's hope her teacher does better this year. He had repeated trouble with the idea that the eighteen hundreds are not the eighteenth century. It does not bode well. m

Something different.... good post. Ta, MB

Sorry folks - I'll start posting some snaps as soon as I've sorted the business end of my snapping life out with my customers. MB

Photography - I'm hoping to get good at it. Reading. Battlefield touring - totally absorbing and deeply emotional stuff. Music - can't play a note, but have been engrossed in it since I joined the Melody Maker in 1977. Travel. Collecting old/foreign bank notes (this is a very casual thing - it crops up from time to time - I was big into it as a yoof, but usually confine myself to stuff from my travels or those of friends....) Collecting die cast models (a largely dormant hobby - but I am always looking for something different - Authenticast & heirs are my latest flames). Collecting military helmets (only the cheap stuff as and when found. There were hundreds at W&P and all I bought was film prop guns and odds and sods). I'll soon think of something else...........

Never seen one. Looks like you've got a handful there. Hopefully you'll be able to display it at some events if your wallet holds...Now we know what you've got we can get you to clear the golf balls out of the lake at the back of the HMVF course. Lee knows what it's like to be Bunkered. I'm going off topic again... Please post up some snaps of your toy as and when.... MB

Lee's description of events says it all.But me, being me, I'll add my perspective. I was at Hendon to do the Lancaster book launch when who should appear but Mr Pat Ware. We ate as much of the buffet as we could and enjoyed a bimble round the museum with James and Roger. It was there that Pat said he wanted to nominate Jack for the 08' Bart and I was quite amazed. But the caveate was we had to get Jack to Beltring. This is why I involved Lee. I'd asked for contacts via Joris and the other mods to reach Anne and Lee and I even had our lads trying to get thru to the junior Becketts via MSN. In the end Lee and Ian made the journey to Jack's - just for this purpose - God bless them. It all turned out well. HMVF has changed my life. I've never been one for clubs and committees and so on and am a happy refusenik. I have always saluted the organisers and people who make events and good stuff happen. But in my experience many good things get clouded in politics and can sometimes become negative. Thus far we have managed to avoid a lot of this on HMVF and are growing stronger by the day. This strength is not about running things and being 'in charge' - it's about common purpose and belief. We're all equal and all have a valid and valued opinion. We've built our virtual and entirely silly club house and evolved our "rule book" - we are nothing short of a positive influence. There are no cliques and no clubs within a club (with exception of the firemen, perhaps). This is a happy place. For this we have to thank Jack. He's a shy, retiring, modest, big headed show off - a mouth on a stick. He's got more front than Sainsburys. He's a total spanner. He's one of the most generous and genuine people I've ever met.The tosser. I quite like him. Now we keep going. Do your own thing and join in when YOU want. HMVF is as big and as silly as you want it to be. It can be serious and it must always be educational. We must never lose sight of what we care about. In closing James and I send greeting and best wishes to our friend Ashley Bridger. It's the future of the hobby that counts. MB

My school reports were always dismal and I was rubbish at football, which was the top criteria for being a person. I was a serial underachiever and the subject of some degree of scorn. I always wonder about those idiots who say, in general terms, that school days are the "happiest" of your life. Every day was misery and grey. I never looked back. I have no friends from school and have no interest in friends re-united. I got my education from the day I walked out the gate. I read an awful lot of books. Still do. I really hope things are different now. My son is waiting his GCSE results and we have high hopes for him. Getting a job was easier in the seventies. I literally started one the next day after leaving the previous one. I've had five in 31 years and have taken something from all of them (not just stationery). My first day in the job I had before this one began with watching three people share a foot long line of cocaine off a desk without as much as a nod in my direction. Experiences and self-education matter more than all the formal stuff (in my experience). Would I like to have gone to university and got a degree ? Yes. But in "my day" kids from Hackney got jobs in the Metal Box Factory or something similar - a friend who wanted to be an air force pilot became a bus driver - it was not about choices it was about real life of 1970s London. My dad told me when I was fifteen that I would have a union card and a guaranteed job in Fleet Street - "a job for life" bought by union power. Schooling was irrelevant. So I did three weeks in the sixth form and went straight off to work in Fleet Street earning £17.50 a week at The Observer. Making me go in to "The Print" is the one thing my Dad did for me that has driven my life.

A look at the new team

In honour of this great occasion, members will be delighted to learn that the HMVF Fire Station has now opened and needs volunteer staff. In addition to the fulltimers we are looking for volunteer Retained, Refusenik, Rebuked and Retarded firefighters to do the odd shift. Let's face it, most of what we do here is odd. Applicants should measure between about that and a bit more Weigh several pounds, stones or kilos Be able to: expand their chests or stomachs Pull Identify most brands of popular biscuits Laugh at themselves (or laugh at Jack) Training will be provided by the Beltring Turret-Totty Watch Pay: :rofl: Terms of service: Make up your own - we have everywhere else Nee-naw

Tea and biscuits are just as good. On HMVF we do a lot of biscuits. The site would be sponsored by Peak Frean's but they went west a long time ago. Mores the pity. They made the best custard creams. Have fun and make good use of the old place. We have no bar on age, colour, creed, period, type of motor or anything else that matters. We don't do religion or politics and like it that way. This is the award-winning friendly forum. Enjoy MB

I hope Bill Oddie and Kate Humble got out before you did that!