Deep in the bowels of the house the kettle reaches boiling point as I quietly unlock the rifle safe. Withdrawing my new .22 air-powered beauty, nestling between a Hornet and .300 Weatherby (rabbits grow large in my neck of the woods!), I struggle to remember when last I’d been afield with what is so often, but very mistakenly, viewed as little more than a toy. Unable to recollect, even after a large hit of caffeine, my thoughts remain firmly in the past as the Land-Rover’s all-or-nothing heater kicks in. Drifting further and further back through the ether as the headlights illuminate the first Autumn leaf fall, I eventually arrive at a defining moment in my childhood:
Lying restless in my Sanatorium bed, counting the minutes to the next meal (oh, the delights of boiled bacon and cabbage!), my young eye catches sudden movement in one of the many ancient beech trees that are such a feature of my "school upon the hillside". Forgetting for one moment the desire to administer maximum scratch power to the measles that cover my back, I hurriedly delve beneath long out of date copies of The Beano, emerging triumphant from my bed locker with a fork of alloy, emblazoned with those letters so familiar to even not-of-this-world Music Teachers.
With my MILBRO catapult in one hand and a marble in the other, I ease open a giant sash window. I can now hear, as well as see, my bushy-tailed target as he descends ever nearer the hooped railings some 20 yards from my barefoot and now crouched position. As Nutkin’s wizened-like claws sense the change from yielding bark to that of rust-flaked steel, I momentarily wince as I glance the less than secure binding of leather to rubber as maximum draw length is reached. Freed of its snug embrace, I watch the green-eyed gem impact and shatter, leaving a whitish powder mark no more than half an inch (yes, this is a sub minute of angle slingshot!) from where the squirrel had just clung. Fleetingly confused by this unwelcome intrusion, Mr. Gray regains his composure then, with more impudence than sense, makes known his annoyance with a clarity to rival that of the Stalking Directory’s abhorrence of “heads”.
The next childhood prize hits the beast square on the nose, knocking him clean off his soapbox and into an extended siesta. Just as I’m half way through the window to claim my prize (heaven knows what I would have done with it), the only other distraction during my enforced incarceration shouts my name. The pretty red-haired Sister in starched linen has my full attention as I am unarmed and threatened with yet another sound beating. Suggesting she would be better employed administering to my needs with much calamine lotion and cool hands is, for some reason, greeted with less approval than her delicious and always present smile signals to this newly born squirrel hunter! But enough of that other distraction of youth, for this is – I assure you – a story in praise of the four-legged chase!
Long freed from my sickbed, my first full day of uninterrupted school holiday freedoms finds me turning my back on the delights of all that is to be lifted bright of eye from a once fine Kentish chalk stream, and instead, heading for a now long-closed gun shop, with a view to trading my elasticated hunting aid for the most obvious upgrade – and in doing so, open a door that’s now seized on its hinges.
Entering this cozy retreat I am hit with a glorious scent from a collection of hand-rubbed pipe tobaccos, blended to perfection with the Young’s 303 that oozes, or so it seems, from every pore of the fine walnut & steel that lines the eye-level gun racks. The big-of-hair proprietor attends to my inquiry with a respect and patience that I feel sure my years do not command, greeting every schoolboy question about "power" ratings and "range" as if they were asked for the first time. In minutes I have set my heart on a .22 air rifle that meets with approval, but more by luck than design as I am - as indeed I remain - attracted to the figure that beams from the stock’s graceful lines. Even the tide-weary looking Extras from a Britten opera nod sagely before returning to their dreams of some Winter marsh and their mentor’s coffee. Watching the salesman slip the buff nametag through the trigger guard gives a warm glow within. However, before I can truly lay claim to my tiger- striped prize I must first negotiate a top-up to my Saturday job savings, such is my failure to keep within budget. Hey, what changes!
Rising from my bed long before the alarm indicates the need, I once more unnecessarily run an oily rag over the Webley Mark III before slipping it ‘neath its crisp new nest of Brady canvas. With a tin of pellets emptied into my army cadet jacket pocket, I set off for a wood I know to harbour many a gray-tinged squirrel. Concealing my steed of dubious parentage beneath the brambles, I enter this narrow band of woodland and am greeted by an all-invading carpet of dew-brushed bluebells that, even to my young sensibilities, are little short of jaw-dropping. Moving cautiously as my many catapult hunts had taught me, I noticed a sudden movement from an ivy- draped trunk. Aligning the open sights on the commotion, a plump and somewhat confused wood pigeon finds his escape barred as he struggles to break free the tendrils of imprisoning greenery. The BSA pellet hits home with a resounding thwack, followed by an explosion of feathers. Slowing wing beats signal his day has started none too promisingly.
The fast rising Easter sun brings an even greater luminosity to the blue carpet surrounding me as I dislodge my prize from the rotting tree’s variegated death cloak. Momentarily glancing behind me, I’m mortified to note the damage I’ve inflicted to the woods’ all too brief change in hue as I move back to the well-trod path in search of that so prominent in my recent dreams. Reloading the .22 with a still elevated pulse, my once pale bumper boots glint accusingly with the bruised flora’s lifeblood, adding further poignancy to the soul-searching emotion of the moment. With my passion for the chase undimmed, but very conscious of the beauty in that whose life I would extinguish, I receive the first of many lessons in judging distance: something you ignore at your peril, and precludes – in my opinion – bestowing the title of Rifleman until grasped. Descending from the moral high ground, we return to our bluebell wood in the spring of ’69, just as I glimpse two grays skitting around a deeply furrowed chestnut. Finding my path barred by a wind-toppled chestnut of even greater age, I take advantage of the conveniently shoulder high rest to take aim. Their game of tag soon finds one horizontally spread-eagled on my side of the tree, although now quite a bit higher. Fully expecting my target to tumble at the shot, I am humiliated when the pellet impacts some two inches below the shoulder, as is instantly apparent from the accusing glint from grazed bark. Clearly I have a lot to learn! Pondering my first disappointment whilst studying the undisturbed progress of a nuthatch, I kick myself for not employing the field craft learnt whilst abroad with pebbles and elastic. Gaining as little as another 10 to 15 yards would not only have meant company for my rucksack-languishing pigeon, but would have been greater fun (sport) anyway. Before moving, I have several shots at the spot where my first pellet struck, altering the sight picture by varying degrees. I save-to-disc the image of my experiments as best I can, before finding a position of concealment to await further visits from our aerial acrobat.
Examining a little closer my chosen hollow, I realize I have entered the far end of what was once a fine garden, owned, I later learn, by no less than the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Sooner than anticipated, what is to be my first rifle-shot squirrel comes calling, by way of ground and leaf cover. Choosing to wait for an elevated shot, I make ready my aim by second-guessing his chosen path. My hunch proves to be pretty accurate, and with minimal movement of barrel I take up first stage trigger pressure as, text book-like, he sits paws raised to mouth. The rifle recoils, as only a spring powered one can, in time to an earth-bound crashing ball of fur. Hastily pushing through dense undergrowth to recover my quarry (yes, still lots to learn!) I find an old buck with a tiny entry wound just below the ear. Oh, if only all shots were so! Recovering my cycle from its prickly hide, a cooling blast of air roars in my ears as homeward I bolt, totally intoxicated by the experience.
Arriving thirty years later at a Greensand Ridge of Kent timber ravaged by our bark-stripping miscreant, many more such memories come flooding back, as I take aim once more at Nutkin’s ear. The only difference on this fine morning: some crystal-clear optics and a larger waistband! Crawling beneath some tricky undergrowth to claim my first client, the cool of its puffy paw pads transports me again to that confused area of long bulldozed garden, and an instant wave of nostalgia invades my calm. The next squirrel to fall amongst the Autumn leaf with a ‘thump’ has a similar weakening effect, and in that moment I fully realise how much I have missed what was, for so many years, my only sport with a rifle. But still some half-forgotten truth escapes my musings.
Finding a comfortable seat in the form of a once coppiced hazel, overlooking a deep ravine, I await further squirrel traffic between two of the few remaining stately trees to survive the heartbreak of 1987’s hurricane. With a late Autumn sun casting a glow on Palmer's "Golden Valley" as if his paints were still drying, it’s my roving binoculars that suddenly uncork the dormant message for all would-be Riflemen. For is not my spying aid trained in every plain, from the steepest of downhill propositions, to the swaying branch silhouetted against an inconstant moon? Confident in my assertion that no other quarry in the U.K. will develop your grooved-bore education quite so completely and with such safe fun, I concentrate on slipping a pellet through an assortment of timber to connect with our Autumn fruit hoarder as he rummages the leaf litter. Climbing back to my seat with enough squirrel flesh now for a family sized Brunswick style stew, I suddenly feel unusually tired and ravenously hungry.
Retracing my footsteps through this magic wood, I arrive twenty minutes later at the headland boundary, convinced that for the British sporting rifleman to be without such a bit of kit as now hangs on my shoulder, is to forego one of the finest aids to improved marksmanship. The white of my vehicle’s roof glows pink in the vale as if approving my thoughts, whilst acting as the perfect homing beacon for this weary Squirrel Hunter. To my left a hedge-mumping rabbit moves in the shadow of a false acacia, drawing my eye to its frail silhouetted beauty. Fixed in my starward and somewhat lethargic gaze, its woodcut inspiring countenance proves no friend to a late-feeding yearling squirrel. Taking further advantage of our ‘informer’, I snuggle into its amply ribbed girth, then try to steady the no. 4 reticle on a gently swaying ear. The adjacent horse chestnut does not instantly give up its diner as the pellet strikes, yet the rain-like splashes anointing its earth-scattered fruits proclaim a positive – if somewhat lucky – hit.
Kneeling to recover the unfortunate young squirrel, my senses are yet again assailed by an intense statement from Mother Nature as to the beauty of life, and the earth that supports it. Sinking closer to the autumn scented carpet with my thoughts, an all too familiar question of Mans’ existence flits before me, like a bat caught in the corner of my eye. Knowing that I too do not have the expanse of mind to enter what has been inspiringly called a ‘third meadow’ of thought, I resist its invitation; content though with the intense calm that is upon me, and the certain knowledge that only on a day such as this am I so blessed.
Adjusting the now buxom game bag before the final downhill stage of my journey, I soon arrive at the Land-Rover, despite the fast fading light, and Autumn’s persuasive invitation to stay. With each squirrel gutted, skinned and placed in a coolbox, the deeply welted tyres push homeward through the soft earth with a pleasing squelch as, Conan Doyle-like, a standing corn high mist inches its way across Underriver’s ethereal landscape like an incoming tide. The end to a perfect day? Not quite, for I swear, mingling with autumn’s perfume, borne of unhurried decay, I detect my favourite school dinner simmering gently atop the kitchen range. And hey, it’s not "Blue Trout & Black Truffles" good people!
"Happy days" and happy 2020 Autumn hunts to you all, especially those of an age to whom cleaning a rifle is still a joy, and no crosshair can be too fine!
K
Now with the picture I couldn't find at the time:
Pity I can't place it in the main post.
K
Lying restless in my Sanatorium bed, counting the minutes to the next meal (oh, the delights of boiled bacon and cabbage!), my young eye catches sudden movement in one of the many ancient beech trees that are such a feature of my "school upon the hillside". Forgetting for one moment the desire to administer maximum scratch power to the measles that cover my back, I hurriedly delve beneath long out of date copies of The Beano, emerging triumphant from my bed locker with a fork of alloy, emblazoned with those letters so familiar to even not-of-this-world Music Teachers.
With my MILBRO catapult in one hand and a marble in the other, I ease open a giant sash window. I can now hear, as well as see, my bushy-tailed target as he descends ever nearer the hooped railings some 20 yards from my barefoot and now crouched position. As Nutkin’s wizened-like claws sense the change from yielding bark to that of rust-flaked steel, I momentarily wince as I glance the less than secure binding of leather to rubber as maximum draw length is reached. Freed of its snug embrace, I watch the green-eyed gem impact and shatter, leaving a whitish powder mark no more than half an inch (yes, this is a sub minute of angle slingshot!) from where the squirrel had just clung. Fleetingly confused by this unwelcome intrusion, Mr. Gray regains his composure then, with more impudence than sense, makes known his annoyance with a clarity to rival that of the Stalking Directory’s abhorrence of “heads”.
The next childhood prize hits the beast square on the nose, knocking him clean off his soapbox and into an extended siesta. Just as I’m half way through the window to claim my prize (heaven knows what I would have done with it), the only other distraction during my enforced incarceration shouts my name. The pretty red-haired Sister in starched linen has my full attention as I am unarmed and threatened with yet another sound beating. Suggesting she would be better employed administering to my needs with much calamine lotion and cool hands is, for some reason, greeted with less approval than her delicious and always present smile signals to this newly born squirrel hunter! But enough of that other distraction of youth, for this is – I assure you – a story in praise of the four-legged chase!
Long freed from my sickbed, my first full day of uninterrupted school holiday freedoms finds me turning my back on the delights of all that is to be lifted bright of eye from a once fine Kentish chalk stream, and instead, heading for a now long-closed gun shop, with a view to trading my elasticated hunting aid for the most obvious upgrade – and in doing so, open a door that’s now seized on its hinges.
Entering this cozy retreat I am hit with a glorious scent from a collection of hand-rubbed pipe tobaccos, blended to perfection with the Young’s 303 that oozes, or so it seems, from every pore of the fine walnut & steel that lines the eye-level gun racks. The big-of-hair proprietor attends to my inquiry with a respect and patience that I feel sure my years do not command, greeting every schoolboy question about "power" ratings and "range" as if they were asked for the first time. In minutes I have set my heart on a .22 air rifle that meets with approval, but more by luck than design as I am - as indeed I remain - attracted to the figure that beams from the stock’s graceful lines. Even the tide-weary looking Extras from a Britten opera nod sagely before returning to their dreams of some Winter marsh and their mentor’s coffee. Watching the salesman slip the buff nametag through the trigger guard gives a warm glow within. However, before I can truly lay claim to my tiger- striped prize I must first negotiate a top-up to my Saturday job savings, such is my failure to keep within budget. Hey, what changes!
Rising from my bed long before the alarm indicates the need, I once more unnecessarily run an oily rag over the Webley Mark III before slipping it ‘neath its crisp new nest of Brady canvas. With a tin of pellets emptied into my army cadet jacket pocket, I set off for a wood I know to harbour many a gray-tinged squirrel. Concealing my steed of dubious parentage beneath the brambles, I enter this narrow band of woodland and am greeted by an all-invading carpet of dew-brushed bluebells that, even to my young sensibilities, are little short of jaw-dropping. Moving cautiously as my many catapult hunts had taught me, I noticed a sudden movement from an ivy- draped trunk. Aligning the open sights on the commotion, a plump and somewhat confused wood pigeon finds his escape barred as he struggles to break free the tendrils of imprisoning greenery. The BSA pellet hits home with a resounding thwack, followed by an explosion of feathers. Slowing wing beats signal his day has started none too promisingly.
The fast rising Easter sun brings an even greater luminosity to the blue carpet surrounding me as I dislodge my prize from the rotting tree’s variegated death cloak. Momentarily glancing behind me, I’m mortified to note the damage I’ve inflicted to the woods’ all too brief change in hue as I move back to the well-trod path in search of that so prominent in my recent dreams. Reloading the .22 with a still elevated pulse, my once pale bumper boots glint accusingly with the bruised flora’s lifeblood, adding further poignancy to the soul-searching emotion of the moment. With my passion for the chase undimmed, but very conscious of the beauty in that whose life I would extinguish, I receive the first of many lessons in judging distance: something you ignore at your peril, and precludes – in my opinion – bestowing the title of Rifleman until grasped. Descending from the moral high ground, we return to our bluebell wood in the spring of ’69, just as I glimpse two grays skitting around a deeply furrowed chestnut. Finding my path barred by a wind-toppled chestnut of even greater age, I take advantage of the conveniently shoulder high rest to take aim. Their game of tag soon finds one horizontally spread-eagled on my side of the tree, although now quite a bit higher. Fully expecting my target to tumble at the shot, I am humiliated when the pellet impacts some two inches below the shoulder, as is instantly apparent from the accusing glint from grazed bark. Clearly I have a lot to learn! Pondering my first disappointment whilst studying the undisturbed progress of a nuthatch, I kick myself for not employing the field craft learnt whilst abroad with pebbles and elastic. Gaining as little as another 10 to 15 yards would not only have meant company for my rucksack-languishing pigeon, but would have been greater fun (sport) anyway. Before moving, I have several shots at the spot where my first pellet struck, altering the sight picture by varying degrees. I save-to-disc the image of my experiments as best I can, before finding a position of concealment to await further visits from our aerial acrobat.
Examining a little closer my chosen hollow, I realize I have entered the far end of what was once a fine garden, owned, I later learn, by no less than the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Sooner than anticipated, what is to be my first rifle-shot squirrel comes calling, by way of ground and leaf cover. Choosing to wait for an elevated shot, I make ready my aim by second-guessing his chosen path. My hunch proves to be pretty accurate, and with minimal movement of barrel I take up first stage trigger pressure as, text book-like, he sits paws raised to mouth. The rifle recoils, as only a spring powered one can, in time to an earth-bound crashing ball of fur. Hastily pushing through dense undergrowth to recover my quarry (yes, still lots to learn!) I find an old buck with a tiny entry wound just below the ear. Oh, if only all shots were so! Recovering my cycle from its prickly hide, a cooling blast of air roars in my ears as homeward I bolt, totally intoxicated by the experience.
Arriving thirty years later at a Greensand Ridge of Kent timber ravaged by our bark-stripping miscreant, many more such memories come flooding back, as I take aim once more at Nutkin’s ear. The only difference on this fine morning: some crystal-clear optics and a larger waistband! Crawling beneath some tricky undergrowth to claim my first client, the cool of its puffy paw pads transports me again to that confused area of long bulldozed garden, and an instant wave of nostalgia invades my calm. The next squirrel to fall amongst the Autumn leaf with a ‘thump’ has a similar weakening effect, and in that moment I fully realise how much I have missed what was, for so many years, my only sport with a rifle. But still some half-forgotten truth escapes my musings.
Finding a comfortable seat in the form of a once coppiced hazel, overlooking a deep ravine, I await further squirrel traffic between two of the few remaining stately trees to survive the heartbreak of 1987’s hurricane. With a late Autumn sun casting a glow on Palmer's "Golden Valley" as if his paints were still drying, it’s my roving binoculars that suddenly uncork the dormant message for all would-be Riflemen. For is not my spying aid trained in every plain, from the steepest of downhill propositions, to the swaying branch silhouetted against an inconstant moon? Confident in my assertion that no other quarry in the U.K. will develop your grooved-bore education quite so completely and with such safe fun, I concentrate on slipping a pellet through an assortment of timber to connect with our Autumn fruit hoarder as he rummages the leaf litter. Climbing back to my seat with enough squirrel flesh now for a family sized Brunswick style stew, I suddenly feel unusually tired and ravenously hungry.
Retracing my footsteps through this magic wood, I arrive twenty minutes later at the headland boundary, convinced that for the British sporting rifleman to be without such a bit of kit as now hangs on my shoulder, is to forego one of the finest aids to improved marksmanship. The white of my vehicle’s roof glows pink in the vale as if approving my thoughts, whilst acting as the perfect homing beacon for this weary Squirrel Hunter. To my left a hedge-mumping rabbit moves in the shadow of a false acacia, drawing my eye to its frail silhouetted beauty. Fixed in my starward and somewhat lethargic gaze, its woodcut inspiring countenance proves no friend to a late-feeding yearling squirrel. Taking further advantage of our ‘informer’, I snuggle into its amply ribbed girth, then try to steady the no. 4 reticle on a gently swaying ear. The adjacent horse chestnut does not instantly give up its diner as the pellet strikes, yet the rain-like splashes anointing its earth-scattered fruits proclaim a positive – if somewhat lucky – hit.
Kneeling to recover the unfortunate young squirrel, my senses are yet again assailed by an intense statement from Mother Nature as to the beauty of life, and the earth that supports it. Sinking closer to the autumn scented carpet with my thoughts, an all too familiar question of Mans’ existence flits before me, like a bat caught in the corner of my eye. Knowing that I too do not have the expanse of mind to enter what has been inspiringly called a ‘third meadow’ of thought, I resist its invitation; content though with the intense calm that is upon me, and the certain knowledge that only on a day such as this am I so blessed.
Adjusting the now buxom game bag before the final downhill stage of my journey, I soon arrive at the Land-Rover, despite the fast fading light, and Autumn’s persuasive invitation to stay. With each squirrel gutted, skinned and placed in a coolbox, the deeply welted tyres push homeward through the soft earth with a pleasing squelch as, Conan Doyle-like, a standing corn high mist inches its way across Underriver’s ethereal landscape like an incoming tide. The end to a perfect day? Not quite, for I swear, mingling with autumn’s perfume, borne of unhurried decay, I detect my favourite school dinner simmering gently atop the kitchen range. And hey, it’s not "Blue Trout & Black Truffles" good people!
"Happy days" and happy 2020 Autumn hunts to you all, especially those of an age to whom cleaning a rifle is still a joy, and no crosshair can be too fine!
K
Now with the picture I couldn't find at the time:
Pity I can't place it in the main post.
K
