Sometimes you don’t choose a wargaming period; it chooses you. Via a small contribution to the latest issue of the Wargames Illustrated magazine (Wi405) I wrote about my appreciation of the author Thomas Hardy and how his book The Trumpet-Major provided some interesting background material for wargames based around Napoleon’s possible invasion of England, circa 1805. Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, in all its glory (if you can ignore the tons of scaffolding). Fast forward a few weeks and there I am in Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, minding my own business whilst avoiding hordes of kids doing broomstick training lessons (more on that later) when what do a I spy but an exhibition on the “Percy Tenantry Volunteers”, aye, aye thinks I, what’s this all about ... Downstairs in the Constable’s Tower – a collection of fascinating artefacts stolen from around the world, including the cylinder thing you can see, which is a Mahdist Warrior’s ‘shield’. I was there for a family holiday and Alnwick Castle was a ‘not to be missed’ local attraction. Despite myself being a good student of history and solely interested in the part this grand bastion has played in my nation’s heritage, it turns out most of the visitors to the castle are more interested in the fact Alnwick was a film location in a couple of the Harry Potter films, therefore its awash with young children engaged in Harry Potter themed activities e.g. the aforementioned boomstick training, and ‘Dragon Questing’. The Percy Tenantry Volunteers audio-vision display. In an effort to live up to the disapproving 50-something stereotype, I frowned on these frivolous (and popular) activities and instead went first to the Northumberland Fusiliers Museum located in the Outer Bailey and then stumbled upon the Percy Tenantry Volunteers Exhibition housed in the Castle’s Constable’s Tower. The Percy Tenantry Volunteers Order of Battle wall display. Before ascending to the first-floor exhibition I was also charmed to see several other interesting artefacts in the Duke of Northumberland’s collection, pilfered by his ancestors and their cronies from around the globe; including Mahdiist military ‘memorabilia’ and Maori War weaponry. The Percy Tenantry Volunteers training with their ‘wall gun’. The first and second floors of the Constable’s Tower were dedicated to an exhibition on the Percy Tenantry Volunteers (PTV). Harking back to my Wi405 piece on the ‘Home Guard’ of 200-odd years ago, the Percy Tenantry Volunteers were one of seventeen volunteer corps. that were raised in Northumberland during the Napoleonic Wars, with the intention of fighting Boney’s forces on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields (and so on). Some of the weapons from the PTV’s armoury. As well as a modern audio-visual presentation about the PTV, the exhibition also
