IN PICTURES: A little bit of Waterloo recreated in Bridgnorth
Two hundred years after Wellington and Napoleon faced each other over a muddy field in Belgium, the events of the Battle of Waterloo have again been under the microscope.
But, not perhaps, quite like this.
For amateur model-maker Gerry West has spent seven months painstakingly recreating a scene from the battle, which took place on 18 June, 1815.
The one-to-72 scale model depicts a counter-attack on the d'Erlon French infantry by Netherlands infantry and the British Inniskilling Dragoons. It features 400 figures, each 25mm tall, and every one took around three hours to complete.
"I've tried to make every figure unique," says the 63-year-old grandfather-of-two, from Bridgnorth. "For example, very few soldiers come with water bottles. I know it's a minor thing but I try to get it historically right." Mr West, a retired railway commercial manager, continued: "Each soldier and horse started as a commercial figure but was converted with a knife, plasticine and nail varnish. Less than half the figures used are Napoleonic in origin and some were even sailors. The aim was to make every figure unique in pose, height, action, thus giving a feeling of reality."
This is the second model that Mr West has made – although, to be fair, his first, a recreation of the Battle of Borodino, which was immortalised in Tolstoy's War & Peace, took 38 years to finish. This one was started last June, and was completed on Wednesday for Spartan Trophies, in Whitburn Street, Bridgnorth.
