The following story appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post's Weekend supplement on 16^th September 2000.

Alan and Michael Perry are identical twins. They sport the same cropped haircut, go half and half on a hobby and live ten minutes walk from each other in The Park, Nottingham.

They even work side-by-side, building fantasy fighting models in a cramped and crowded little room in Games Workshop’s headquarters in Lenton Lane.

But there is one striking difference between the brothers.

Michael only has one arm.

He lost his right limb in an horrific accident.

The accident came about because of a passion the brothers share. A passion for war games.

Alan and Michael don’t just make models of warriors because Games Workshop pays them to do so.

They make them because they have a joy for all things that go Boom! and Bang! and Budda-budda.budda!

Since they were small they have been researching battles, building soldiers and collecting swords, guns and shiny knight’s armour. Their flats are acme arsenals - everything you ever wanted to know about the art of war.

The 39-year-old men even take part in large scale re-enactments of historic battles.

Which is where Michael’s trouble began.

August 1996, Duvall, France.

The brothers came to this windswept and solitary place to take part in the re-enactment of a 14th century battle between England and France.

These fake skirmishes are usually fun family events. A chance for grown men to dress up in colourful costumes and play with guns. Live toy soldiers running about a field in front of an audience of mums, dads and kids. You learn drill manuals and how to use the weapons of the times.

It is three dimensional history, usually as safe as a dusty old text book.

Usually. But on this day things went terribly wrong. Michael recalls the fateful day:

"We were doing a re-enactment of a campaign from 1346.

"There were five guns and 80 archers in a field which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

"Me and my brother had to fire a volley of guns. Alan came up with a charge and put it down the barrel.

"I rammed the charge down the barrel with a long stick. I remember forcing it down then I blacked out."

The gun had exploded it's round, blasting through Michael’s arm. It is the kind of incident you would want to forget. But Michael does not blank out the memory. In fact he has a video of the incident that he still sometimes shows to visitors.

But what had gone wronog in that field in France? It turned out to be nobody’s fault —just a staggering piece of bad luck.

Michael says: "It wasn’t a mistake. A spark must have gone down the vent shaft of the gun and set it off.

"Even though the inside of the gun had been swabbed out with water the spark still set it alight and the gun exploded.

"The chances of that happening are less than one in a million. I was just very unlucky"

Alan was standing next to his brother when the gun went off. He had little time to be concerned about the welfare of his sibling. He was in shock after the gun came close to blowing his head from his shoulders.

"I couldn’t hear anything," he says.

"The gun went off when my head was just two feet from the barrel.

"I was very lucky it didn’t hit my head, but I was stunned. I saw that Michael was on fire and that his arm had been mangled."

By this time Michael had recovered consciousness— after water was thrown over him to drench the flames. He dragged his ruined arm to his face and realised something was wrong.

"What’s happened here then?" he asked. Concerned faces started to surround him. "How many fingers do you think I have left?" he asked.

The cannon’s thunder was still ringing in Alan’s ear, but he answered his brother.

Pointing to one of Michael’s fingers, he said: "That one looks a bit dodgy."

Recalling the incident now, he says: "I didn’t think there was any hope for the arm, but I didn’t want Michael to go into shock. I deliberately toned down the damage." Michael was flown to the nearest hospital by helicopter.

"I didn’t feel any pain for about half an hour. By then the doctors had given me an anaesthetic but the pain started to overtake it.

I asked for something more to numb the pain but it didn’t work.

"That’s when I started to swear," says Michael.

He was taken to a hospital in Lille. The pain was now unbearable and he was put under general anaesthetic for an operation.

At 4am he was woken and told his arm had been amputated just below the elbow.

"I cried for the first ten minutes. Then I became very angry"

Meanwhile Alan had the unenviable task of telling his parents what had happened.

"When I told mum she just laughed," he recalls.

"She didn't believe me. Me and my brother are both known as practical jokers so it took me some time to convince her that the accident had happened.

Michael was right-handed. It was the hand he used for the delicate and painstaking work of making miniature figures.

He faced the prospect of losing the job he loved - the only job he'd ever had.

"I telephoned work and told them I wouldn't be able to make anything for a while.

"I thought it would be at least five years before I would be able to make anything.

"The truth was I didn’t know how long to give myself. The future seemed uncertain"

Michael discussed the problem with a doctor. The man of medicine was less than encouraging.

"He told me to forget making models. My career was finished."

But Michael went on to make a mockery of the medical advice. He even proved his own estimation wildly off the mark.

Michael would make miniature models once more. And it would only take him ten days.

He smiles: "A couple of days after getting my hand cut off I started to do, some drawings, just. to see if I could. It was a bit shaky but the style was similar to the sort of work I was doing before.

"That gave me hope. So I started to make models. It was taking me twice as long as before, about four days, but I was getting there."

After a couple of months Michael would return to work. By the next summer he was even ready to dress for battle.

"At the beginning of the next season I was back loading guns again," he says.

And strangely enough, Michael’s amputated arm has become much sought after.

After all, in every war there are casualties.

Using a bit of bandage, Michael can make a genuine-looking wound. -

"Now we can show the public how they would treat battle injuries during Medieval times," he says.

"So now I’m using it to my advantage." The wound has even opened the doors of Hollywood to Michael

"Recently I’ve been filming Band of Brothers, the new epic starring Tom Hanks and produced by Stephen Spielberg.

"They were filming war scenes in Hertfordshire and they needed some people to look like they had been wounded.

"Obviously I came in handy for that.

"It was a great experience. When I arrived on the set Tom Hanks said hello to me.

"He was really laid back, just one of the lads."

So Michael’s passion for the art of war is undiminished.

Along with his brother he has even bought a tank. A tank?

Michael grins: "We keep it in a little village just outside Stevenage.

"We had always wanted one so we started asking about. It is surprisingly easy to get one.

"The barrels are bunged up with metal but there is no law against driving it down the road.

"We use it for modern day re-enactments. It comes in handy"

So Michael is fighting fit and fit for fake fighting once more. A friend (almost) of a famous Hollywood star and the proud owner of his very own tank.

But do they have any regrets about a life devoted to highly specialised war games?

Well there is one niggle.

"Sometimes it is hard to enjoy movies about wars," says Michael.

"For instance, Gladiator is a really good movie with great special effects.

"But then we realise they have got the armour all wrong, or some fight technique is a mistake.

"We probably just know far too much about the art of battle for our own good."

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