Although a military publisher, I once made the mistake of mentioning to an author that I had never actually fired a gun. I was visiting the American firearms expert Larry Wilson in his home in Connecticut. He had a very handsome, unusual study which was double level, double height, with a Ferrari racing car (of course), and an alcove with a full-sized stagecoach. Around the walls there was a collection of guns, and I knew sufficient about them so that when he mentioned particular items I knew their significance from books. However I made the mistake of confessing that I had never fired a gun. He pulled down a very large, double barrelled shotgun used for shooting African game and took me out on to his patio. There was plenty of space, as far as the eye could see, and he said he would show me what to do. I demurred. I certainly didn’t want to end up with a broken or very bruised shoulder, whilst on a tour around America. But he showed me the stance and he test fired it, and then he positioned me very carefully and I fired! Obviously the gun had been used in that area before, because it was very effective and there was no sign of any African game. The footnote to this story was that I kept the metal cartridge shell, and happened to have it in my coat as I passed through customs at the airport on my way out. To them there was no difference between a full and empty shell, and although I tried to explain it was easier to leave my souvenir with them. A diversion to the A&AP publishing was the use of the considerable skills of the Arms & Armour Press editorial and production team to produce some exceptional full colour co-editions sold for simultaneous release in a number of countries. With the advent of colour printing for mass market co-editions I believed that there would be a market for using such techniques for books with a scientific or technical basis for international audiences and created two fine and valuable works of scientific merit and one of a popular nature: Butterflies of the World - with 6,200 butterflies illustrated in full colour. The first print run was approximately 60,000 copies, and the book has been reprinted two or three times since then (called in the office Butterflies of World War II). Encyclopedia of World Stamps - with nearly 5,000 stamps in full colour. Marine Life - with 1,300 colour photographs being reproduced. One of the many co-editions of Butterflies of the World. Whilst in progress we called it Butterflies of World War Two. The progression of sales of a publishing house is (or should be) cumulative. Those for A&AP showed a consistent compound growth, rarely less than twenty per cent per annum; it was the best of times. There were also a number of painful lessons, as when we had to break off an inefficient third party computerised invoicing system which was moved to another servicer who could not cope and we had to bring the whole operation in house. The growth that we experienced created pressure, but for the growth the constipation of computerised invoicing could have put us out of business. We eventually found an efficient third party facility, and I have never ever tried again to have invoicing and sales accounting in house. The last year of the seventies saw Mrs Thatcher become Prime Minister and start the fight against restrictive unions, and in 1981 the fairy tale wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer took place. The early 1980s also saw something of a recession in Great Britain, but A&AP was immune to it because of the remarkable success of Who Dares Wins and several other books about Special Forces, together with the growth of the market in which we were publishing. A&AP continued to grow, and at one time had twenty-five people employed in Hampstead, the Arms & Armour Press staff plus those in the Ken Trotman military bookshop. We had twice annual sales meetings with the whole sales team and invited in authors (encouraged to bring exhibits relating to the new book that they were presenting) and including some key customers. One summer I double-booked a family holiday with the sales meeting. We were to vacation in the far west of Wales, near St Davids. The timing of trains was not practical and would have needed two overnight journeys. There was a little airport at nearby Haverfordwest but in fact no flights to London. Doing some lateral thinking, I telephoned the flying club at Swansea and asked if one could rent a plane. No, planes were not available for rent. But I could pay for a lesson for somebody, who would be very happy to have free flying time and the extra hours on their log book. They would fly up, with an instructor, from Swansea to Haverfordwest, pick me up, fly me across Britain to Leavesdon airport, just near Watford and only a few miles from the office. This happened, and I flew out in the morning, attended the sales meeting and lunch, and came back in the early evening in time for dinner. When it was queried by some friends as to where I had been that day and I said ‘London’, there was a severe credibility gap because it was just not possible to get there and back in a day. For a period of years we closed the office one day each summer for an outing. These started quite modestly but grew into pleasant expeditions, such as along the Thames by small boat to Kew for lunch, and a guided tour around the Royal Botanical Gardens. It was in 1984 I decided to take a capital gain. We had over the years been approached by several other publishers who were interested in acquiring Arms & Armour Press, and I entered into a discussion with Link House Books, who had a number of publishing imprints (most notably Blandford) under their umbrella. A deal was agreed on the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1984. Link House Books were themselves the subject of a take-over as the Link House Magazine Group, of which it was part, was purchased by United Newspapers just a few weeks later. At the time that Arms & Armour Press joined the Link House Group books represented about ten percent of their sales, but with the Link House Group joining United Newspapers the book division represented about one percent of sales, and excepting only for Arms & Armour Press, was causing some commercial problems. I had hoped that there would be a continuing role but there was a move to consolidate all the book publishing, and hence functions were moved from Hampstead to Poole in Dorset, and eventually there was total integration with no need for the Hampstead High Street offices. Or Lionel Leventhal. This process took about two years. I was sorry that thereafter there was no contact at all with me, but I have over the years continued to watch the list, and continued to see books which I created and published stay in print, or be reprinted, and authors I brought to the list continue to be published and flourish. Arms & Armour Press was in the right position at the right time and rode the crest of a wave; the right position was military book publishing, mainly ‘nuts and bolts’, the right time was because of an enormous growth of interest in the subject area both in Britain, the Commonwealth and, especially and most fortunately, on a co-edition basis in the United States. By producing top quality books which have also stood the test of time Arms & Armour Press rode the crest of a most successful wave. The first Arms & Armour Press books were published in October 1966 and I left twenty years later in October 1986. When I left I was proud of the publishing list, and the imprint was the leading one in military book publishing. Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 112 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com