Time to celebrate?

Hello! And welcome to Bow’s 150th edition. You might even call it the sesquicentennial issue. Quite the milestone. For this one, I managed to round up all the previous editors who have sat in the hot seat at Bow Towers and asked them what they remember – the good, the bad, and the amazing. This will be my 28th outing at the helm of Bow, since I started in February 2018. During my time here, I’ve been lucky enough to speak to some of the world’s best athletes and interview some extraordinary people; I’ve had the chance to undertake some amazingly informative and interesting writing about the world’s greatest sport. It’s been a privilege.

This month includes a series feature on archery photography, a subject very dear to the editor’s heart and an underrated skill – even in today’s digital age. Am dead pleased with a long set of pieces that pack in an enormous amount of useful information. Next month sees proper international competition starting up again, for the first time in Guatemala (touch wood) in the build-up to The Big Dance in July, and Bow will be covering it for you as soon as we can. Spotting green shoots of recovery, both in our thing and everywhere else, has seemed like a thankless task over the past few months. It’s often seemed like one step forward and two back. Here in the UK, the successful rollout of a mass vaccination programme for adults – one of the few British national successes of the COVID era – genuinely seems like it might have turned the tide. Not all news is as good in every part of the world, of course.

Lastly, I should point out that I couldn’t do anything without my incredible list of contributors to the magazine, which number in the dozens and dozens, and the numerous design and production staff here at Bow Towers who make it all happen. Thank you all very much indeed, and here’s to the next 150 issues!

See you on the shooting line,