Is it possible that a man I never met is the reason I live in Oxford?
When I was ten or eleven years old, my parents bought me a copy of the Middle-Earth Role-Playing Game (better known as MERP). I was then, and remain to this day, a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings. At the time, the concepts of the game were a little too much for me, but the artwork that graced the book set my imagination on fire. At that time, almost all of the MERP products had cover illustrations by Angus McBride. To Angus, I owe my first real vision of the Fellowship of the Ring.
These days, Angus McBride’s Lord of the Rings work is mostly forgotten, passed over because they graced the covers of mere games, but the man himself is well remembered.
It was a few years later that I met Angus McBride again in the pages of Osprey Publishing’s Men-at-Arms series of books. These “thin floppy books” as a friend of mine described them are the number one resource for wargamers, reinactors, or anyone interested in military uniforms or equipment of the past. Angus McBride’s artwork for this series is simply awe-inspiring.
Already a fan of military history, I became a fan of Osprey books as well. So it was, that many years later and now living in Great Britain, I found myself looking for a job. Without any real hope, I checked the Osprey website and found they were hiring. A short while later, I was offered a position and moved to Oxford.
I’d only been working at Osprey for about a year when I heard the news of Angus McBride’s death. It was a sad day for me. I never met Angus, but every day I am surrounded by his artwork, and that tends to make me smile.
