I spent Monday morning being taught how to use a shotgun at E.J. Churchill, a shooting ground in High Wycombe. If you’re a member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds you probably won’t approve, but it gets worse. I was with my friend Merlin Wright and we had taken our 12-year-old sons with us so that they could learn how to shoot, too. Needless to say, after they’d hit a few clays they were completely hooked and couldn’t wait to take aim at the real thing.
Merlin brought his own gun and is an experienced shot, but I’m a bit of a novice. Until two years ago I’d never been on a proper grouse shoot. Its appeal was immediate. I don’t just mean the sheer sport of trying to hit a low-flying bird travelling at high speed in a wiggly line (the avian equivalent of a North Korean missile). There’s also the beauty of the moorland when the heather is in full bloom, the springy feeling of the grass underfoot, the abundant wildlife.
But above all there is the sense of a whole community participating in an activity together, each person with a defined role: the gun, the loader, the beater, the flanker, the keeper, the picker-up. That last may not sound so appealing, but it refers to the men and women who come out with their gun dogs to retrieve the birds after they’ve been shot. On my last visit to a grouse moor earlier this year, I got chatting to a picker-up and she told me there was no place she’d rather be.
Which isn’t to say she wasn’t being paid. One of the strongest defences of shooting is that it contributes £2 billion to the rural economy, providing full-time or part-time employment for approximately 350,000 people.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in