Miniature battlefields a labour of love
A Nelson man’s enthusiasm and more than 1000 hours of hard work has created four very detailed model battlefields of the two world wars.
Jeff Cotton said he started building battlefields two years ago after he got a book on war gaming from his wife Jo for his birthday.
However, these battlefields aren’t for play, he said, ‘‘But maybe the grandchildren can play with it at some point’’.
Cotton has modelled four different scenes from both world wars; the World War I Battle of the Somme, the World War II North African campaign from 1940 - 1943 in the Libyan/Egyptian desert, a jungle fight during WWII in the Pacific in 1944 and the French city of Caen in 1944 during WWII.
‘‘My father fought on the Pacific Islands and my grandfather fought the Battle of the Somme.’’
Cotton said he thought the average time spent on each battlefield was 400 hours, working on them for about three hours most evenings.
He said a lot of time was also spent researching what houses looked like in 1930s France.
‘‘Some of those were modelled on houses that I saw in pictures.’’
He had made most of the trees, buildings and other little things himself, as well as painting everything including the soldiers.
The boards Cotton built on ranged from just over 1mx1m to 3mx2m. Cotton said he had bought some of the soldiers when he was a child in the 1970s.
‘‘The desert one I spent about six months on, maybe a little longer, and in the same period I made the one of the Battle of the Somme.
‘‘I actually thought it would be something I would do in my retirement.’’
But instead Cotton said he started on them earlier than that, initially together with his son.
‘‘I didn’t actually think after two years it’d be quite this size.
‘‘We did it for Anzac Day last year and we instantly thought we have to do it again.’’
Cotton said he found working on the displays ‘‘almost therapeutic’’.
‘‘You make up your own little world away from everything else.’’
The model battlefields were on display during Anzac Day at St Peter’s Church in Atawhai.