It all started when…

My name is Charlie Trumpess. I hold a master's degree in military history by research from the University of Buckingham. As a military historian, it’s my job to research, interpret and tell the countless individual stories that combine to help explain the causes, actions and consequences of conflicts.

Growing up in North London during the 1970s, my childhood differed from that of my peers in one respect. As a child, I grew up surrounded by guns, swords, bayonets, and a host of other military paraphernalia. After the Second World War, my father took to collecting historic firearms, which ranged from flintlock muskets and First World War bolt action rifles to pistols. Once a year, a policeman would arrive to check that my father’s armoury was properly secured and his paperwork in order. Today, it seems extraordinary that my father was able to amass such a collection of firearms, live ammunition and assorted edged weapons.

In an era when small boys spent their pocket money on Action Man figures, Dinky toys, Airfix model kits and comic books such as Warlord, Battle and Victor, I was the envy of the playground. My personal favourite weapons from my father’s collection were a Martini–Henry breech-loading rifle, a .303 Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE) Mark III and a Mauser C96 semi-automatic pistol with a wooden stock. The Martini–Henry rifle played a prominent role in the 1964 film Zulu, which tells the story of The Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879). However, the rifle’s real attraction for me was its lever action which reminded me of the iconic Winchester repeating rifles of the Hollywood Westerns that populated my childhood.