Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Replacing a ferret collar
I’ve been ferreting for many years I still use a Mk1 ferret-finder. The problem I find is getting new collars. How does the MK3M collar operate with the old knocker box?
A lot of my friends still refuse to ferret with anything other than the Mk1 knocker box. The problem everybody used to have was finding good-quality replacement collars for these Mk1 units, as Deben ceased making them years ago.
There are a few people making excellent replacement Mk1 collars — one I looked at was far better than the original. They come with a year’s warranty, giving peace of mind too.
Up until recently, I would have advised buying a MK3M collar and use that with your old Mk1 box, but the quality left a lot to be desired. If you got a second-hand one, you never knew how long it would last. When your ferret’s life depends on it, that is a bitter pill to swallow.
They do increase the range of the receiver from 8ft to around 10ft and you would need to test and mentally calibrate each depth reading. In the end, the best option is one that works and gives you peace of mind — and that is a replacement Mk1 collar. SW
For more on ferret-finders, see p50
a-s-i.co.uk
If you’ve picked up an AYA in the past 35 years, the chances are it was brought into Britain by Edward King. But despite more than three decades in the gun trade, it was not the career path Edward imagined as a boy. Like so many young men of the mid-1980s, he planned to follow up his education at Cambridge with a career in the City.
“I was just following the herd,” Edward admits. “I was actually planning to go and work in London in one or another of the financial institutions; insurance, stockbroking, banking or consultancy.”
However, after leaving university in 1987, with a degree in French and
German in hand, Edward made the decision to join the family company, Anglospanish Imports (ASI). “I wasn’t press-ganged, but it was a reasonably forceful invitation,” he adds.
Having grown up around the family business, including a childhood in the Basque country, Edward was perfectly placed to take on the business and its distribution of AYA shotguns. “My father went to live in Spain, from 1961 right through to
1977, so I actually grew up there. Spanish is my first language and I didn’t really speak English until
I moved to prep school when I was seven.
“You’d never tell from my strong Iberian accent,” says Edward ironically.
Having taken on the family business, Edward set about making his mark on the industry, first with the Shooting Sports Trust then the Gun Trade Association. His work with trade groups has since been rewarded.
“I was given a Lifetime Achievement Award some years ago. I always find it slightly bizarre that you get a lifetime award and the following morning you wake up and think to yourself, now what? It’s over now, that’s it. I think they are best awarded – if not posthumously – when the people are in retirement.
“While we’re on awards, I also got second place in the pole vault in my age group at school. But that was because there were only three people in it, so I was guaranteed a podium spot,” says Edward.