Faces

The Field’s French 75 Cocktail Party

THE Game Fair returned to Ragley Hall this

July to celebrate six decades of fieldsports fiestas. The Field, present and correct for 60 years, marked this diamond anniversary by showcasing our biggest-ever issue. The 216-page August edition impressed longtime readers and enticed plenty of new ones, with the stand a constant flurry of enthusiasts eager to sign up all weekend.

Long-observed tradition dictates that Friday is concluded with a bang at The Field’s French 75 Cocktail Party. This year’s sunsoaked shindig was held on the terrace at Ragley Hall, by kind permission of the Marquess of Hertford.

Amid blooming gardens and overlooking the Game Fair below, proper sporting sorts – from British shooters to ex-international rugby players, Field friends and family – gathered to catch up and plot the season ahead.

Startling temperatures north of 30°C ensured fieldsports’ jolliest party hotted up nicely, as did the return of The Field’s cocktail of choice. The much-loved but lethal French 75s greeted guests in the know and, as ever, took new friends by surprise. Their fabled kick encouraged surreptitious requests for “prosecco only”, a forgivable sleight of hand given that a day at the diamond Game Fair was a feat of endurance.

Having toured a tropical showground, carted a weighty Field around and escaped the French 75 sting, there was one remaining challenge for those in attendance: to avoid appearing on the terrace with a face as pink as the editor’s trousers.