In the Autumn of 1974, for better or for worse, the “Planet of the Apes” Television series seized my imagination and secured my affection in a way that no other product of the tube ever had.   It wasn’t enough that I could watch the show every Sunday; I wanted to carry that world and its characters with me into the other six days of the week.   This led me to seek out every photographic image and piece of information about the show and its characters that I could lay my hands on and, especially, to go out of my way to collect the Topps Gum Cards that were in such demand that shops were selling their entire stock within hours of putting them on display.   What I wanted more than anything, however, was some sort of three-dimensional representation of my heroes; something I could place on my bookshelves and gaze at in wonder.   When the toy companies of the world failed to provide me with one, I decided to create my own.   Inspired by the image on one of the Topps Gum Cards, I purchased a styrene kit of some 35mm-scale Second-World-War German army officers and, with the aid of some “Plastic Putty” and a base from an old Aurora “Prehistoric Scenes” model, set about transforming them into Virdon, Burke, and Galen.   Looking at it today, the final result seems crude (and is shamefully unfinished) but in 1974 it provided an effective totem for my affection.   Mark. September, 2008