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Mission Visits the UK - England & Wales, May 2013
Chapter 1st: Lee and Jules 1
Chapter 1st: The surgeon's first full day in the UK (say, that rhymes nicely) which began with arriving in the early morning in the Manchester Airport and trying to get oriented; Dragging his 3000 pounds of luggage to rainy Liverpool (none of which is mentioned other than here, which should make you happy as it's all kind of boring, really); Meeting pirate reenactors Lee Morrisroe (aka PoD on the Pyracy Pub) and his wife Jules and Visiting with them in a haze of continued sleepy awakeness. (If that's a word.)
Photo: Lee's Brother - I think
Lee at Christmas - As tall as the ceiling
Wanting to try and adjust myself to the time change, I decided to go out and visit Lee Morrisroe (PoD) and his family this afternoon. I took the train from Liverpool to Birchwood station and had no trouble whatsoever finding Lee. (Lee is very, very tall and has dreadlocks and a beard. He told me that his beard used to be much more profuse - so much so that he was considered for the role of Blackbeard at a reenactment - but he had cut it just before I arrived because having such a beard was a pain in the neck.)
Hellboy - Keeper of the GPS (or 'Satnav' in UKese)
The first thing I noticed when I climbed into the Morrisroe car was a little stuffed pirate figure on Jules' (Lee's wife) key ring.
The next thing I noticed was a little stuffed Hellboy wedged behind the GPS. As it happens Jules is a HUGE fan of Hellboy. In fact, she was so much of a fan that while I was there, she was busily working on her Hellboy Cosplay costume for a Comicon taking place in London the week after I left.
Custom Hellboy Prosthetics and Corpse Head
Photo: Jules' Camera
Jules as Hellboy at the Comicon in
London with a Familiar Face
Lee showed me some of the Hellboy prosthetics that they had created when we got to their house, which looked very good indeed.
He also showed me the head of the corpse that Hellboy carried around with him, apparently in the first movie. It looked remarkably like the movie and was made of clay which had unfortunately cracked. When talking later, she explained that she really wanted a lightweight plastic skeleton to sculpt this proper around, but she couldn't find one in the UK. She also noted that she was very jealous of our Halloween goods. Since I have three of them in my garage - like all Americans do - I told her that I would see what I could do for her when I got home.
"Welcome to my underground garage-based lair."
Lee and I then went out to his workshop, which has totally overtaken his garage. This is the current world headquarters of Letters of the Marque, Lee's business. He makes props for various reenactors and film productions and was in the process of assembling 20 French baldrics for a group of soldiers doing something in Spain.
Lee explained that he was planning to get a laser cutter and possibly a 3D laser printer in the near future, although I frankly can't see where he could put them. He's going to have to add an extension to his garage or something.
He also showed me a neat medicine-chest-like cabinet, although he sadly noted that it was in worse shape than he thought when he saw it on eBay and wasn't able to use it. It was a really neat chest and I should have taken a photo of it, but we were having such interesting conversations that I forgot. I did get a photo of the medicine-chest-like demon banishing kit he was making for his wife. It will eventually have all the instruments strapped to the fold-down front.
Lee Showing Me a Chip Log He Made - Sitting
on a
Map that He Made
Lee was trained as a graphic designer, but got into programming and web page design. He left that to start his own business making baldrics, maps and other
The Uber-Cool Demon Banishing Kit
period correct items for Letters of Marque. He also sells costume items for Cosplay after several of his customers asked for them.
Jules had called him PoD several time, which is also his user name at the Pyracy Pub, so I asked him the meaning of this name, which it turns out he has had since kindergarten. As he explained it, "None of the kids could shorten the name Lee so one bright spark decided that Lee rhymes with Pea and Peas come in a Pod. In the pirate community I usually tell everyone it means Purveyor of Death or Pirate of Distinction."
Our conversation ran far and wide – discussing Mad Max's Ford Falcon (Lee wants one), the state of the
Photo: Pirated - The Elusive Palitoy Death Star
reenactment market for PC manufacturers like himself (it's getting better), how he got started making quality reproduction maps (the first one was as a background for a photo of his various weapons, which Ed Fox asked him to sell to him), why an Englishman is creating French baldrics for Spanish troops (why not?), and Star Wars (lots of Star Wars).
He explained that he had many of the Star Wars toys put out in Britain in his mother's attic which were licensed by Palitoy from Kenner back in the day. Many of the ships and other play set toys were still in their original, albeit somewhat battered, boxes. I was trying to remember why I knew the name Palitoy, when I remembered that they had made a unique Death Star toy. Lee did not have one of them, but he remembered them being a little less than impressive. Compared with the one Kenner put out, I’d have to agree, but since so few of them were released and they're mostly made of cardboard, they are worth a lot more than the Kenner Death Star due to their rarity. (And that's more than enough Star Wars toy talk. Let's move on to more generic Star Wars talk)
Photo: Stolen - Removing a Hansicle from the Carbon Freezing Chamber
Lee also revealed that he had designed a series of 3D models for the Decipher Card Games some years ago. On top of all that, he got a preview of the design of the carbon freezing chamber (the place where Harrison Ford gets turned into a giant black Hansicle) from The Empire Strikes Back before the movie was released. It seems his dad used to haunt scrap yards looking for machines to refurbish and resell when he met some of the people from Pinetree Studies who were looking for materials to create parts for TESB. Among the parts they were gathering up were those for the Freeze Chamber.
We actually talked about a great many other things, but it's tough to top old Star Wars stories. Lee did tell me that he once played both Boba Fett and Yoda when he was younger. While Boba Fett is somewhat plausible, Yoda is hard –to-believe. Lee is well over 6' tall. "You must have walked around on your knees!" I commented. "I did."
Photo: Julie Morrisroe - Precocious Jules
Jules appeared at one point attired in a shocking red wig, which she explained was for a future Mara Jade Cosplay costume. (Hellboy and Mara Jade – I am sensing a red theme here.)
In addition to being an avid Cosplayer, Jules used to be a high school teacher. (Of all the people I'd want to teach, high school students rank just above asylum patients. But only barely. I explained this and she said that high school students, while moody, were creative and interesting.)
Jules runs a business called Cosmic Workshop, "which is a leather armoury" as well as being a partner in Lee's business. In addition to Mara Jade and Hellboy costumes, she's working on Sandman from Rise of the Guardians and Spawn. After noting her preference for Cosplay over reenacting, she explained, "I love Cosplay the most as it stretches my creative talents more when putting the costumes together as accurate as possible....but I do love being a pirate re-enactor too!"
I must note how wonderful Jules and Lee were to me. They invited me to have dinner with them, which was a vast improvement over just wandering off with my book and finding some place in rainy Liverpool. Their house was chock-a-block full of skeletons, pirates items and movie memorabilia, which I enjoyed examining. (My house has scattered notes of all these things in it, but theirs was an absolute paean to them.) It was a wonderful introduction to the UK for me.
 Hellboy's Gun in a Place of Honor |
 "It gets lonely being humanity's savoir again and again." |
 "Help! I can't see!" |
On the drive back, I was discussing my concerns about driving in the UK with Jules. She told me that there were a couple things to remember. 1. Roundabouts are stupid. Well, OK, she didn't say that exactly, but she said she understood my concern and that I should always look to the right in a roundabout. 2. You can't turn left on red like we can turn right on red in the States. She actually did say that this was stupid and that if one were contemplating moving from here to the US, that might be a deciding factor.