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SPORTING SHOOTER - MAY

It is hard to think of a happening in May, except for the Roe Bucks. Sir John who makes those lovely programmes with the Fat Lady told me of one of the many problems of mutual incomprehension that the redoubtable duo have with the Beeb. Nothing strange about that you might think – a lot of people have trouble with the Beeb, or rather with the people who work there, some of whom are pretty scaly creatures. Anyway, the Duo had a new producer – they get through a lot of producers – who thought it a spiffing idea to film some partridge shooting in May. Now I know I told you a partridge story in February, but don’t worry, Dear - this is quite a different story. Anyway back to the bold Sir John, who took his pipe out of his mouth just long enough to inform the producer, crisply, that it was quite impossible to film partridges being shot in May.

What then did partridges do in May asked the hapless Beeb Person?

“They f—k” said the Bold Sir John.

Moving swiftly on, or rather back, some of you may remember the time when the Independent TV companies came into being. Some of you may indeed have dug into the nursery piggy bank to buy a slice of the action. A professional TV person of my acquaintance went to work for one of the smaller companies, which was buried deep in the rural backwoods. My acquaintance admitted that he had some trouble adjusting to rural attitudes and mores – he was a townie, bred and buttered, who had once got agoraphobia in Hyde Park. In particular he found some difficulty in coming to terms with his Board of Directors. He described the Board to me as consisting of the sort people who spent their spare time shooting each other’s pheasants and killing each other’s salmon. They then put on velvet smoking jackets and invited each other to eat them – the pheasants and salmon that is, not the smoking jackets. There came a summer board meeting to discuss a certain drama series the company thought that it might make. One board member who not only owned a TV set, but also admitted that he watched it, on occasion (“Good for the racing yer know”) spoke up and suggested – ‘Young What’shisname’ for the making of it. He was very sound, he explained to the others - sort of chap you might have to dinner – Old So and So’s cousin. The Board poured itself another glass of wine and brooded on this idea. My acquaintance, who drank only mineral water, then stuck his professional spoke in the wheel of deliberation. It would not be possible, he said as he happened to know that the man in question was ‘shooting at Elstree.’ This produced a stunned silence until at last a member of the Board piped up to ask – ‘What the hell, the feller could be shooting at this time of year? What?’ – Good question, what?

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