Wednesday 27 October 2010

In the beginning...

All stories have a beginning, this one starts with the Somerset Freedom Fighters.
The Somerset Freedom Fighters where born on the night of 2nd November 1966 at a recording of Adge Cutler and the Wurzels by the BBC. In a throwaway line Adge says ‘there are members of the Somerset Freedom Fighters in here to night’, it gets a big cheer.
I heard this recording as a teenager in 1979 and I thought this was great idea. My Godfather Dick Skeggs have just started taking me to his local wargaming club in Wells, Somerset.
I wrote some background, how Somerset declared UDI, the siege of Frome, an attack on Yeovilton to steal the helicopters. The enemy was a Labour government and a paramilitary police force called the Special Patrol Group (SPG).
The first game I put on at club was the Somerset Freedom Fighters verses the SPG. I painted all the figures and wrote the rules.
The game finished with a duel between apposing commanders with 40mm grenade launchers! And from that a legend was born.
When Rob and I where talking about a civil war in 1938 the Somerset Freedom Fighters where the first unit we thought of.

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