BACK TO MENU

SHOOTING GAZETTE - JULY

I want to speak severely to you Shooting Chappies. Lately – a parenthesis here – when I lived in Wiltshire, the traditional greeting, if you met anybody, as it might be, on the road was:

“Lately?” with a twist of the head and a wink. You are perplexed – I feel it. In this context - “lately?” was an abbreviated and demotic form of the question:

“Have you had carnal knowledge of a woman in the recent past?” I am sorry if this upsets you but that the way it was then and, for all I know, still may be; although I suspect that it is only a matter of time before DEFRA produces a 6 page form that you will be required to fill in under the ‘Lewd Thoughts Restriction Order, 200?’ before you can even think about such a thing. The old Wiltshire that I knew was full of funny little customs. There were two old men I used to know who whenever they met in the pub (daily) always observed the same routine:

Hodge A: “I looks to yer.”

Hodge B: “I ‘as yer eye.”

Hodge A: “I bows to yer.”

Hodge B: “ I likewise bows, winks and drinks according.” I suspect this to have been a routine whose origins were lost in the mists of time. But there I go, rambling on, as old men often do – back to you Shooting Chappies. Lately I have been travelling about, giving a presentation on the current political situation on behalf of the Countryside Alliance. It would be unnatural if Hunting did not figure in this, but the CA is also deeply concerned about the situation of Shooting and Fishing and if you Shooting and Fishing Chappies are not concerned then you jolly well ought to be. Yes! Yes! I know that the Government has promised that it has no designs on the future of Shooting and Fishing. But anyone who believes a word that this inept and corrupt Government has to say is indeed living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Let me quote to you the words of that great and good woman Kate Hoey (Feb 2003):

“If the “Utility” test (in the Hunting Bill) was to become law, shooting and fishing would be drawn in.” Let me also quote you the words of that neither great nor good woman, Jackie Ballard (Chief Executive of the RSPCA) also in Feb 2003:

“Game Shooting is horrid and nasty…the RSPCA will get around to try and end this.” Worried? Well you bloody well should be.

“Ah” you will say – “ but we have our own organisations to deal with this.” Two policemen friends of mine (keen shooting men) recently attended a meeting of one of your organisations. One described the organisation concerned as – “a waste of rations.” The other described the meeting as being – “all slather and shite.” So my advice to all you Shooters and Anglers is to ponder deeply and consider your position seriously. I will add to this the story about a friend of mine – a Londoner who grinds no axes over Field Sports. He was walking with a friend in rural Hertfordshire and on a public footpath. First they were rudely challenged by ‘a man with a gun in a camouflage suit’. A little later and right beside the footpath, they came upon what he described as a ‘mass grave’ (what I would call a ‘kett hole’) which contained the rotting carcasses of several Fallow Deer and ‘umpteen pheasants’. My thoughts on this are (1) this was illegal (2) what a sinful waste of good meat (3) what sort of bloody fool commits such an illegal sin in a place where it could be plainly seen by the general public? I cannot answer (3) except to say that such a bloody fool deserves to have his firearms removed and to be left to rot in his own kett hole. So for the future good of all Field Sports, all of us must ponder and ponder profoundly.

‘Kett’ is a Northumbrian word for rubbish. Before they became illegal, many Northumbrian farms had such a place for disposing of rotting carcases. You are now supposed to ring DEFRA, which is supposed to arrange for dead stock to be removed to an approved incineration plant. The problem with this is that I believe there to be only 5 licensed plants in England. DEFRA does not have the infrastructure to arrange removal, so it is still relying on hunts (which it wants to ban) to remove carcases. Outwith the Hunts, it relies of contractors, whom the farmer has to pay. I can best illustrate the stupidity of this by telling of a farmer in Hampshire who had a cow die. He rang DEFRA. For three weeks in the heat of last summer, the cow lay rotting beside the farm’s holiday cottage, until at last, the contractor turned up. He had to take to cow to the nearest licensed incinerator which happened to be near Bristol. As our American cousins would say:

“Go figure!”

BACK TO TOP

BACK TO MENU