Collecting things - from thimbles to tanks - is a common compulsion, and a lot of people have very fine, and often valuable, collections of this bric or that brac.
For many men - and some women - model soldiers, not to be confused with "toy soldiers", are common collectables. Toy soldiers are usually, but not always, for boy children and nowadays tend to be made of plastic, rendering them non-collectables in the strict sense.
Model soldier collectors vary. Some like to paint the old or unpainted model; some to make them from scratch; some simply to parade them. Some, like me, were old soldiers themselves. They can specialise in types, countries, periods and so on. And they can make what are called dioramas - typical or historical settings. That late, most genial and very admirable man, Bruce Williamson, sometime Literary and Deputy Editor of this newspaper, was a keen collector.
Model soldiering can also be a useful historical indicator and has provided me with clues for some of my books, both historical and historical fiction. For instance, when modelling a diorama of Beal na mBláth (for which I made and had made appropriate replicas), I discovered that someone sitting in a rear seat of an open Leyland Thomas straight-eight touring car of the period with a rifle across his knees was likely to sit in the left hand seat with the rifle protruding over the side of the car. I later verified from General Dalton that he sat behind the driver with Michael Collins on his left.
All of this is by way of an introduction to a current series of excellent models produced and published jointly - over a two years period - by Del Prado of Madrid and Osprey Publishing of Oxford under the title Napoleon at War. It is also to vent a gripe.
The Del Prado 75mm models - costing about €12.50 - are very fine and beautifully painted, classics of their kind. Each comes with a lavishly illustrated booklet with interesting historical (if sometimes a little shaky) information and details of accoutrements together with a wealth of magnificently detailed colour illustrations, of which Osprey can be justly proud.
In my view no serious collector should miss these, and it would be well worth while for anyone who is interested in militaria of the period to investigate a copy or two to sniff the wind.
The title is a little misleading since the series is as much, if not more, about Wellington and his troops as it is about Napoleon and his. One might even gain the curious impression that the principal opposition in the field to Napoleon came from Great Britain. But the series is, mainly though not quite exclusively, about the Peninsular War.
Which brings me to the gripe - and it is both fair and substantial. In spite of the fact that Irish regiments fought on both sides - the Ultonia, Irlanda and Hibernia which served Spain in succession to Stanley's regiment of 1585, and others, continuously since then; Napoleon's Irish Legion, the successor to the regiments that had served France since 1690 - no model or account of any of these has appeared.
All right, you might say, they can't include every little bitty regiment. Really? But there are models - at random - of a Guerilla, an Italian levy, an East Prussian reservist, the Brunswick Lieb battalion, for all of which booklets come too. And there are illustrations of the Lithuanian Legion, Greek Light infantry, Hompesch's Mounted Foot - but that's enough to make the point.
Of the Irish regiments that represented such long and sustained service for France and Spain (over 300 years in the case of Spain and over 200 hundred in the case of France) - not a model; not a word.
This omission is absurdly aggravated by the fact that Osprey, joint publishers, in 1980 produced a very fine booklet about The Wild Geese, including all the Irish regiments of both Spain and France.
Having waited in vain to see something of these Irish regiments opposed to one another in the Peninsular War, I wrote (last November and in Spanish) to the editor-in-chief of del Prado, Signor D. Juan Ramon Azaola, asking why there were no examples of these important Irish regiments of Spain and France in this fine series.
I indicated that the omission was all the more glaring since three contemporary Spanish battalions still carry the traditions of the Irish regiments. Is this, I asked, a mistake, or would they be included later? There was no response.
So three months later I first telephoned and then wrote to the editorial director of Osprey, Ms Jane Penrose, with the same query. I explained that the point seemed to me too important to go by default: that it would be entirely incongruous if the series did not include models of the Irish regiments in the service of both Spain and France.
I asked Ms Penrose to bring this to the attention of those in Del Prado responsible for the series, adding that they might well have scheduled inclusion later in the year. I hope so; but somehow I doubt it.
If they do not collectors world wide will be at the loss and del Prado and Osprey will, quite rightly, lose much face.
P.S: The fascinating exhibition of Irishmen in the Imperial Austrian Service is in the National Museum, Collins Barracks, until the end of June.