Tales from the National Fencing Museum, with Malcolm Fare

The Sword Guy Podcast episode 64

For transcriptions and more detailed shownotes, please go to 

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My interview today is with Malcolm Fare, who is a collector of historical fencing books, a fencer himself and proprietor of the National Fencing Museum in the UK. The museum houses a library of over 300 books, 250 paintings and prints, 200 weapons, numerous masks, kit, trophies, posters, programmes, medals, stamps, postcards and other ephemera. You can click through on the museum’s website to see photos of the items.

In 2017 I spent three days at the National Fencing Museum with a decent camera and a book-photography rig, taking hi-res images of the cream of their amazing collection of treatises, with the kind assistance of James Hester, and Malcolm himself. Here is a link to the Senese: https://guywindsor.net/2018/06/the-last-of-the-bolognese-seneses-the-true-handling-of-the-sword-yours-free/ and De La Touche: https://guywindsor.net/2017/07/the-true-principles-of-the-sword/

In the interview I mention the photos I took of McBane’s The Expert Sword Man’s Companion. They are sadly still in a disorderly state on my hard drive, and not yet fit to share. If anyone would like to organise them, please get in touch!

Listen to this episode to hear how Malcolm got his hands on some of his favourite books. It’s a wonderful tale involving auctions, barons, and chance encounters.

You can get in touch with Malcolm and arrange a visit to the National Fencing Museum at http://www.fencingmuseum.com/

 

Guy’s new book, as mentioned in the intro, can be found at www.guywindsor.net/solo