What possible educational benefit, you might ask; can there be from two people hitting each other with swords or axes or, for that matter, long, thick poles with large pointy bits on? “None,” you may say. It’s nothing more than boys and their toys. Well, at the risk of sounding arrogant you would be wrong!! For those of you who are still reading this and have not clicked wildly at the computer, muttering under your breath like Muttley, from the Dastardly and Muttley cartoon, let us go for a short walk together.

Walks always start somewhere; this one starts about twenty years or so ago in a barrack block in Wool near Dorset. Everyone in the room I bunked in we’re confined to barracks due to an imaginary misdemeanour. It was after the NAFFI had closed and we were still up late on a Saturday night. Without the benefits of a telly or a radio and having listened to “The Greatest Love II” tape for the twelfth time we were bored. One of the lads asked if we had some dice, ten minutes searching and begging around the block found us with five or so six sided dice (d6). Another half an hour or so and we had paper, pencils, rubbers, coffee and very importantly Jaffa Cakes. Trooper Haig then sat us around a table , gave us a piece of paper each and pencil and drew a very crude map then put it in the middle of the table saying “your all tired after a long walk and your in this small village what would you do first”. After an uncomfortable silence I suggested that maybe we would find something to eat.

That was my first sentence uttered in my first ever game of Dungeons and Dragons. The game never finished, it never really does, that character retired after a long and distinguished career as a ranger. I remember thinking then I wish that was real. I wish this game went on longer. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if I could do this in real life?