BY OUR SIDE

Vintage Times (It’s a baptism by fire, 13 January) by John Humphreys brought back memories. His story about the young gamekeeper mirrored my own introduction to shooting in the early 1960s as a boy of eight to 10 years old by my cousin Kenneth Smyth. It gave me the love of the countryside and a foundation in shooting that I still have.

Kenneth was a sergeant in the Ulster Defence Regiment and a former B Special, and was murdered by the IRA on 10 December 1971. I often think that he and I would have gone shooting and enjoyed our days together if he had lived.

John Humphreys was the writer whom I flicked through the pages to find; as a young man,

a country sports enthusiast, he transported me to the hedges and spinneys in pursuit of pheasant. I can recall all my days, and John’s stories made you feel that you were walking by his side, watching his dog and ready for a pheasant to jump. I often wished that I could be.

When he went wildfowling on the shore and in the dykes, I could almost smell the sea, feel the wind blowing and salt in my eyes. I just had to close my eyes to feel like I was there.

The 13-year-old trainee gamekeeper and his journey to become a headkeeper reminded me of the journey that he took, indeed that we all have taken. Shooting Times has been alongside us with stories that mirrored ours of success and missed opportunities.

John was my weekly constitution, my sporting information, his writing was incredible. Thank you for all of them, too many to count, writing of the most amazing sport in pursuit of fur and feather. The numbers were never important, but the respect for the quarry was. My favourite birds were pigeon followed by woodcock, which are great eating.

This week I relived some of those great moments with the writing of John Humphreys.

Jim Shannon, County Down