Young in the field
The Twelfth is not just a celebration of shooting, writes Jonathan Young: it also encapsulates a heritage that we must defend
Archie found me in the gunroom filling my cartridge belt. “Thought you’d have done that last night,” he said, which made me smile. Archie is old school – shot since boyhood – and shares my childish excitement at the start of a new season.
Neither of us had slept much but managed to swallow eggs and bacon before loading up for the short trundle along the glen and up to the high ground, the river running thin below the deep pools of which held stalling salmon awaiting the rains.
happily for the shooting party, they’d be delayed today but with enough cloud to warrant a coat we trekked along the butt line, through bell heather and ling, each step releasing that heady tang of peat that signals another day in Arcadia.
i’d drawn Number Four and arranged a row of cartridges heads up on the butt’s side. Our host, mindful of stocks, had decreed single guns and whilst there’s a special pleasure in being alone on a drive, we’d need to stuff quickly to make a bag.
The horizon was short – 28 yards to 30 yards – but enough to clatter off two shots in front. having placed the butt sticks, i usually try to relax at this point if it’s a big moor with the beaters perhaps taking in two or three miles and little chance of a shot for perhaps half an hour, save the odd bird lifted by the dogmen as they take position behind the line. But this was a comparatively small moor so i started the lighthouse-light sweep immediately, watching for the flicker of movement that would signal the arrival of my first grouse of the Twelfth.
Bizarrely, an old maths master came to mind, the type whose teaching abilities did not equal a talent for pithy sarcasm on school reports. Well, he couldn’t have faulted my homework today. Within the last fortnight i’d blammed through 500 cartridges at one of my favourite shooting schools, a place with the willingness and ability to throw genuine “grouse” clays – fast and directly at head height – as well as endless permutations of going-away birds.
At that moment, the wind dropped and the midges, ignoring the first dose of repellent, started pinpricking my face and wrists. A fresh fag didn’t deter them so unwillingly i squirted on more and was shoving the bottle in my pocket when my neighbour let off two shots at a singleton crossing his bows.
Once again our sport, our world, had been under sustained media attack
he missed and the bird swung over to me, a simple shot really but one i also managed to miss handsomely with both barrels. “Git!” i admonished myself. “You over led him.”
Four minutes later and a covey of nine breasted the horizon flying directly towards my butt, in full sight of my host on my right. The simplest chance of a right-and-left but inexplicably i didn’t dislodge a feather. More bad language. This was not how the season was meant to start. And then the first horn sounded, signalling no more shooting in front and i had this awful vision of greeting the keeper’s enquiry with “Nothing to pick, i’m afraid.”
The grouse, however, had been collecting in the invisible ground ahead of the butt and seconds later, one quartered past me and those practice sessions paid off, the bird tumbling into the heather after a single shot, the first bird of a new season. There was hardly time to reload before another followed and by the time the beating line came through there were 3½ brace to collect for a respectable expenditure of squibs.
Slogging back to the vehicles, it seemed most guns had had a shot and some pheasant shots had lost their grouse virginity. There wasn’t much time for back patting though as the keeper was keen to press on for the second drive. This time, the horizon was even shorter but i made brisk work of those that presented themselves, killing them well in front and, after the first horn, sorting out a decent percentage of those behind.
At 1pm we sat in the heather and ate our pieces, packed by ourselves after breakfast. i went to chat to the keeper, who runs the moor single-handed but was surrounded by his keeper chums from neighbouring estates who’d come to help. The beaters were also enjoying their day, a mix of eastern europeans, locals, teenagers and a gaggle of smalls, kitted out in pink and spotted wellies, surreptitiously sliding crusts to the milling gundogs, the usual mix of spaniels and labradors with the addition of a Pennine pointer and a working clumber, an orangeand-white beauty with none of the excessive weight of show stock.
it was such a party that it seemed a shame to end it but with two more drives to fit in, our keeper called time and gathered his troops for the third drive.
Our host was confident that this would be fruitful but as the drive drew on the only sign of grouse was the odd wingtip and head as birds momentarily flickered into vision deep in front of the butts and collected on the dead ground.
They held their nerve until after the first horn, then cascaded down the port side of the line, leaving the guns to stuff frantically to keep up with the flow of birds.
A quick collecting of the fallen and we made to the final drive. Most of the action was to my left but i finished with two memorable shots in front and headed home, only to find a flurry of emails announcing that once again our sport, our world, had been under sustained media attack. i thought then of those small people in coloured wellies who’d also loved our day and renewed my vow to defend their heritage.