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SHOOTING GAZETTE - OCTOBER

I went to the Scottish Gamefair, which I much prefer to the English version. THE Gamefair has just got too big; you would need a week to get round it all.

I like the SGF because it is just the right size to get round in a day and my bank manager always plies me with copious draughts of Champagne wine and how many of us can say that about our bank managers in these enlightened days? I expect that the cost gets added to my overdraft, but what the hell – business is business. Of course the problem with the SGF is that it is full of Scotsmen, all swirling their pibrochs and displaying huge calf muscles below their kilts. Not that I have anything against Albannachs, after all my tail-female line goes back to the ‘Red Comyn’ and the ‘Wolf of Badenoch’. I know that the Scots have always nurtured a romantic hatred for the English. This hatred is based on real, or imagined, grievances that go back into the mists of memory and also for the fact that Scotland depends on English handouts – who do you think will end up paying for the gross white elephant of the Scottish Parliament? Be that as it may, I have always got on well with the Scots on a ‘one to one’ basis. I would point out that I have had the honour of being appointed ‘Honorary Grosvenor’ to the ‘Pony Club’ – both of which require a little explanation. The Pony Club is a collection of landowners who maintain that the ‘Young Pretender’s’ pony was once billeted on their land. I say ‘pony’ because the poor bugger may have been Bonny but he only stood 5 foot 1 inch in his silk stockings. The ‘Grosvenor’ is used in its original Norman French of ‘Gros Veneur’ – for those of you who live in Dorset, that means ‘Great Hunter’. I am very gruntled by the compliment. On same theme, I had a most interesting conversation with an ancient Scot of ancient family. We were queuing for an ‘Aberdeen Angus’ beef bun, at the time. I asked my friend where he lived? He said that Thank God he lived in Eastern Scotland. Not for much fine gold would he live in the West – ‘amongst all those bloody Irish’ – his words not mine – ‘D’yer know’ he said – ‘we hate them much more than we hate the English?’ Well, after all, the Eastern Scots are mostly of Saxon / Norman descent. The ancient kingdom of Northumbria once stretched from York to Aberdeen. It was in Aberdeen that the Barclay family once boiled alive the Provost for attempting to impose excessive taxation – a point that Mr (Eastern Scot) Brown might like to bear in mind. Another point here – the Barclays are, in fact, an offshoot of the Norman Berkeley family – they of Berkeley Castle, the Berkeley Hunt (the origin of an interesting bit of Cockney Rhyming Slang for… well, something) and of Berkeley Square. A Berkeley of his time was disgraced for porking a royal Lady-in-waiting. He fled to Scotland and changed his name to Barclay – better for boiling officious tax gatherers and founding Banks - not to mention the Puckeridge Hunt, which I won’t. I am not one to gossip.

What else can I tell you about October – bearing in mind that this is being written in mid July? For one thing we may well be embrangled in a political and constitutional punch up by then, if Nulab goes for a Hunting Bill. You Shooting Chappies should remember that that great and good woman, Kate Hoey, MP, has pointed out that the Hunting Bill would also have a profound and damaging effect on shooting. So come the revolution, as I think it would, you should know on which side your toast is buttered. Remember that the ungreat and indeed, perfectly ghastly woman who now runs the RSPCA has said that shooting is nasty and once it has seen off hunting, the Society will turn on you. So think on.

There is one sad thing that I know will happen at the end of October. I shall be giving up the stalking tenancy on a bit of ground that I have stalked for 10 years or more. I have often written about it in this column. I have had great sport and pleasure there and, I hope, done a good job. But it is a wild and lonely place, very steep and rough in parts. Age, vice and unsoundness are catching up with me, not to mention the long hours spent in wet clothes and on wet saddles. In particular, my knees are complaining about steep and rough ground and this particular place is a black hole for mobile telephones. So were I to suffer a physical/mechanical breakdown, I might lie howling in the wilderness for a canny long time until I was found; or until the foxes came to pick my bones. Defra would then sue my wife for her failure to dispose of a carcase according to EU regs (as interpreted and gilded by Defra). If the Chancellor is looking for a place to make the first incision of his cuts, Defra would be the ideal place for him to start.

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