[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Norman McCormick

Hi Gene,
To follow on from your deliberations a selection of T.V. programmes shown at 5 p.m. weekdays when I was a lad. Things were definitely different in those days. I remember vividly as an adjunct to our History lessons our teacher arranged to take us to Kelvingrove Museum and once there the class was taken down into the basement and given a lecture on Medieval Arms and Armour complete with the curator dressed in a suit of armour handing round actual weapons for us to look at, I was 9 years old, happy days. The Museum used to be 'chock a block' with A&A including an Ethnographic Hall, now there is one small gallery upstairs for everything. It is very sad as Kelvingrove has one of the best collections in the World mostly in storage now. It seems anachronistic to me that movies and games are so much more violent and visually graphic these days and yet historical A&A is hidden away and shunned like a leper. As a kid everybody had a 'tin hat' and a bayonet or two with badges, patches and the like, I suppose this was more due to the period being in the first few decades after the war and these things were readily available at not a lot of money and no stigma attached to collecting these objects. My mother always knew what kind of movie was on at the local cinema on a Saturday afternoon as the children, me included, would be coming up the road fencing, pulling bows or drawing six guns all imaginary of course the game continuing all week until the next Saturday and another visit to the cinema. Both my children, boy and girl, played with wooden swords, "By the power of Greyskull", and toy guns and when old enough an air rifle and pistol, amongst other things of course, and neither of them are raging sword swinging gun toting bampots in direct contradiction to what some would have us believe. There are some young and energetic collectors in our Forum Family and hopefully they will keep the flame going and if there are any more out there who are interested JOIN IN you don't have to spend a fortune to have an interesting time here.
My Regards,
Norman.

Great points Norman, the only thing more violent than the movies and games these days is the news....yet the now archaic historic weapons of yesteryear are stored away out of public view for fear of disturbing or offending?

All the best,
Jim