It’s always intriguing to hear about famous wargamers. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I discovered the English actor Peter Cushing had been one of our fraternity. Doubly intriguing was the fact that Alan Perry had recently acquired what he billed as “Peter Cushing’s Wargaming Ephemera”. Alan pulls out a letter. Alan invited myself and a few others over to his house to have a shufty through the box file of Peter’s notes and scribbles. It was fascinating stuff. The ephemera consists of lots of paperwork, including letters back and forth between Peter and his friends concerning games and campaigns which Peter (mainly) was umpiring. Peter’s diagrams and maps of games and campaigns. Artwork of flags and banners. Letters from figure manufacturers. Photos of Peter with his collection, and various other pieces of ‘ephemera’. One of the most interesting things about the paperwork is that much of it is written on the back of film scripts. On the flip side of the hand-drawn illustration of a Napoleonic flag is a fragment of a typed script which reads “They jump into bed and start to make love”! Alan is in the process of sorting all the paperwork and attempting to piece together enough information to bring a couple of Peter’s tabletop battles back to life. He will be posting his findings on the Perry Miniatures Facebook page, and we will also bring you more on the ephemera in Wargames Illustrated Magazine. For now, I will just whet your appetite with a few photos. Sifting through the ephemera. They jump into bed together! Some of Peter’s notes and illustrations.
