Meet the Organisers
David R. Clemmet
is Deputy Chief Accountant for a Teesside council and has been involved with
Mobility International at local and international level for over 20 years. David
is physically disabled from birth and has been a wargame and model making
enthusiasts since childhood. Although David's main interest is all things World
War Two he has dabbled in other periods ranging from Vikings, Normans, English
Civil War, Napoleonics, American Civil War (the Rebs) and British Colonial
enemies. When not wargaming or model making David likes to research his hobby
through reading and history programmes on the television. Outside of wargames
and model making David is a keen Miss Marple fan (Joan Hickson not the ITV
adaptation!) as well as some other fictional detectives. David's other TV
favorites include Star Trek and Doctor Who. David also enjoys football & cricket
on the TV but has not been an active player since school days.
Thomas Davidson
was
a member of the management team at the Remploy factory in Stockton until he
retired in early 2007. Tom is
physically disabled from a very early age and has been a wargame and model
making enthusiasts since childhood. Tom and David met at a Special School - now
demolished - not that far from the show venue and have been friends for over 40
years. Like David Tom is interested in World War Two and particularly interested
in British Airborne forces. Tom has numerous paratroop figures in a range of
scales as well as a comprehensive library of reference books on the subject.
Tom's other wargames interest is Napoleonics and in particular lesser known
units - such as Brunswick, of which he has a large collection. Tom dabbles in
other periods including American Civil War (the Yankees) and British Colonial.
We have been attending shows for many
years and came up with the idea for our first show in 1981. That year was the
International Year of the Disabled Person
and we decided to
celebrate it in an unusual way – by staging an event showing off our hobby. Such
was their success that they were asked to make the event an annual event. It
originally had a different name - "Models, Wargames & Boardgames" - and a
different venue but was always staged in the late November/early December
period. It outgrew its original venue in 1994 and was renamed "Parade Ground"
the following year. 2005 was the 25th anniversary show and over the
years the event has a national and, well deserved, reputation for quality and
value.
In 1996 it was suggested to us by John
Shackleton of Bookstop Bookshop that there was a gap in the wargames calendar in
the North East for a wargames show in the Spring. In 1997 we staged the first
"Spring Offensive" and it was run annually until 2006.
For a number of reasons we have
decided to call a halt to organizing shows in Stockton - with Parade
Ground 2007 our final show.
Both our shows
have been
run for charity, with proceeds being donated to our two favourite charities, but
we also like to contribute to wargame debates. We have had two articles
published in "Wargames Illustrated" -
"The War games Show"
in issue number 89 (February 1995) and "Wargames
Shows: it’s time to modernize" in issue number 152 (May 2000). If you would like
to read them then we recommend you purchase the excellent Wargames Illustrated
on CD-ROM disks from the magazine publishers. If however you would like to read
the unedited versions then please click
HERE.
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