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Flashman at Lucknow 1857


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Wow, this one has been a real marathon. The final three figures I wanted to include, (all three are now out of production and extremely hard to find), ended up stuck in some postal facility in New York City for more than a month before finally being delivered to my humble abode halfway around the world.
Anyhoo, I ended up moving a couple of the existing characters further back in the diorama to make a bit more room for the additional figures -- and then finally tackled fixing all the Sepoys into the groundwork.
So here it is, finished at long last...phew...😀

All figures are nominal 54mm White Metal or Resin.

 

AA.jpg

 

BB.jpg

 

CC.jpg

 

DD.jpg

 

EE.jpg

 

FF.jpg

 

GG.jpg

 

If anyone wants to see the full slideshow with more photos, it can be accessed on my YT channel by hitting the link in my signature.

 

Cheers the Noo

Edited by Cadman
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23 hours ago, John_W said:

This was the occasion where he won the VC? The figure with the pistol would be Scud East then?

 

Nope, Scud East died during the Suti Chowra Ghat massacre at Cawnpore, and is featured in a different display in my man-cave.

 

Cast of British Characters

1st FLOOR

Mrs. Frances (Fanny) Isabella Duberly;

Intrepid Victorian Lady Adventurer.

It's a bit of a shame that Queen Vicky snubbed Fanny Duberly on her return to Great Britain from the Crimea, but that's Royalty for you.

Granted she didn't arrive in India until December 1857 and wasn't involved in the Siege of Lucknow, but this is a fictional diorama in any case.

 

Mrs. Elspeth Rennie Flashman (nee Morrison);

Ravishing and extremely clever Scottish blonde. May have been habitually unfaithful, but the truth has never been satisfactorily established, (or confirmed).

Part-time card shark, among many other attributes.

 

GROUND FLOOR

Mrs. Grizel de Rothchild (nee Morrison)

Elspeth's disapproving sister and accomplished firearms expert.

 

Lieutenant Micklewhite;
Cashiered for “looting while intoxicated”.
Re-enlisted using an alias, calling himself Peachy Carnehan.
Later promoted to Sergeant.
HIGHEST CAREER RANK ATTAINED:
Aide-de-Camp to the King of Kafiristan.
 

Unidentified Private Soldier rumored to be from Edinburgh, Scotland;
Court-martialed and dishonourably discharged for “looting while intoxicated”.
Also, re-enlisted using an alias, calling himself Daniel Dravot.
Later promoted to Sergeant.
Together with Sgt. Carnehan, was reputed to be affiliated with the same Masonic Lodge in Lahore as the assistant editor of a local newspaper, "The Civil and Military Gazette”, where it was furtively whispered in certain London Gentleman’s Clubs, they assisted him to bake rather "exceedingly good cakes".
HIGHEST CAREER RANK ATTAINED:
King of Kafiristan.

Harry Flashman;
Had recently served as detached Political Officer at the court of Indian heroine, Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi.

Who, on account of her epic career as a rebel leader and somewhat inevitable demise in battle, was unjustly derided by the British gutter press as “The Jezebel of India”.
Anyway, getting back to Flashy’s adventures;
Survived the uprising at Meerut and briefly served as a member of “Rowbotham’s Mosstroopers”.
Also survived the siege of General Wheeler’s entrenchment at Cawnpore, escaping the massacre at the Suti Chowra Ghat by the skin of his teeth.
Subsequently assigned, not without due protest, to the commissariat support element of the 2nd Lucknow Relief Force under Sir Colin Campbell.
Later promoted to General Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE, etcetera.
Appointed by a naïve Queen Victoria as honorary president of the famous charitable institute, “Mission for the Reclamation of Reduced Females”. In which duties he took diligent and proactive interest, (by all accounts).
HIGHEST CAREER RANK ATTAINED:
Debatable; but acting on a friendly suggestion made by the kindly old Prussian gentleman Otto von Bismarck to impersonate Prince Carl Gustaf, and then entering into a bigamous marriage with Duchess Irma of Strackenz, doesn’t count.
However, military service as Sergeant-General of Mad Queen Ranavalona’s Armed Forces of Madagascar must surely be considered.

 

Private Hen Broon;

Reluctant hero serving with the 1st Foot & Mouth North British Highlanders. Comes from the hamlet of Auchenshoogle.

HIGHEST CAREER RANK OBTAINED

Contracted to make amusing weekly appearances along with his entire family in the somewhat radical Scottish Sunday Post newspaper/comic.


Havildar Shadwell Gupta Singh;
Half-Welsh/Half-Sikh deserter, now masquerading as an Afghan trooper in The Corps of Guides for reasons as yet unknown. Although I’d hazard he was also kicked out of the military for “looting while intoxicated”. It’s a rather familiar story.
HIGHEST CAREER RANK ATTAINED:
Butler at Gandamak Lodge, Ashby, Leicestershire. Flashman’s opulent retirement home, funded by a lifetime of ill-gotten gains.

 

Livestock:

Rooster and goose.

HIGHEST CAREER RANK ATTAINED:
Tomorrow’s breakfast.

 

Names of the Mutinous Sepoys, (or freedom fighters, depending on your point of view), are unknown, but the reprehensible and slippery Peshwa Dhondu Pant, otherwise known as The Nana Sahib can be spotted on horseback preparing to take to his heels at the first opportunity. 

Edited by Cadman
typo
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On 2/24/2022 at 2:32 AM, John_W said:

Thank you. Many years since I read the books.

 

Was glad to help out with the various clarifications and additional info...😉

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On 2/26/2022 at 3:03 AM, Toryu said:

Very imaginative and artistic! Such great figures!

 

Yeah, it was a lot of fun putting this one together.

Shame it took ages to complete due to events beyond my control.

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55 minutes ago, Paul Alan Bardell said:

Cadman

 

That's really fine work, I  do enjoy your sense of humour.

 

I can really see a certain M Caine in the figure of Peachy !

 

B R

 

:poppy:   

 

Cheers mate.

I guess I could have done a better job of painting the Sepoys. These are all resin figures that were gifted to me by the manufacturer in Hong Kong after I explained the project I was working on; (i.e. they're not cheap recasts from Taobao). The resin material was difficult to work with, being pretty brittle and prone to breakages. I had to cut away the arms to get access for the paintbrush and they were, (generally speaking), an absolute pain in the neck to complete, which probably accounts for my less-than-stellar paintjobs on them.

The rest of the characters are a mix of white metal kits and generic toy soldiers, all of them converted to some extent -- some extensively so. 

The final three, now OOP and very rare, figures were kindly sourced on my behalf by a good friend of mine in the States. They actually took over 2 months to be delivered and at one point I had given up on ever receiving them. As mentioned in my original post, they were stuck in NYC for an entire month before someone finally remembered to send them on. Transit time, (USA to China), wasn't too bad, but the shipping box then got stored for a couple of weeks in the leaky tin-roofed concrete holding shed out the back of the local Customs facility before they decided to release the shipping box to our local post office. I almost gave the postman a few bucks as a tip when he pulled around to our place and delivered the box -- but manfully resisted that particular temptation...😉

It all worked out in the end though and the diorama now looks good in the display unit at the back of my man-cave.

 

Display-Unit.jpg

 

Edited by Cadman
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  • 2 weeks later...
16 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

I really want to re-read the books now. The dio is great stuff. It's very dynamic and battle scenes like this are so difficult to get right.

 

Everyone's mileage will vary, but here's my personal list of favorite Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser:

 

01.               Flashman in the Great Game (1975)

02.               Flashman at the Charge (1973)

03.               Flashman and the Mountain of Light (1990)

04.               Flashman’s Lady (1977)

05.               Flashman and the Dragon (1985)

06.               Flashman (1969)

07.               Flashman and the Tiger (1999)

Books 08 to 12 are really all 8th equal

08.               Flashman on the March (2005)

09.               Royal Flash (1970)

10.               Flashman and the Redskins (1982)

11.               Flash for Freedom (1971)

12.               Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994)

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  • 4 weeks later...

also read Quartered Safe Out Here....by Fraser.   its his account of his service in the Far East during WW2 in the British Army....Absolutely beautiful work - I love how you combined your love of the books with your model making hobby!

 

I may have to do the same thing with Biggins....author of The Two Headed Eagle - I am an Airplane modeler primarily.....

 

 

All the Best!

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On 3/15/2022 at 11:46 AM, Cadman said:

 

Everyone's mileage will vary, but here's my personal list of favorite Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser:

 

01.               Flashman in the Great Game (1975)

02.               Flashman at the Charge (1973)

03.               Flashman and the Mountain of Light (1990)

04.               Flashman’s Lady (1977)

05.               Flashman and the Dragon (1985)

06.               Flashman (1969)

07.               Flashman and the Tiger (1999)

Books 08 to 12 are really all 8th equal

08.               Flashman on the March (2005)

09.               Royal Flash (1970)

10.               Flashman and the Redskins (1982)

11.               Flash for Freedom (1971)

12.               Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994)

I read the Flashman books pretty much in order of publication from assorted libraries, and thoroughly enjoyed them. Then, a couple of years ago, I got them in electronic form on the Kindle, where one option presents them in historical order. It's interesting to read Harry's (mis-)adventures in sequence.

A shame we will never discover the sordid details of Flashman's American Civil War service.

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