Audio Transcription

This is the audio transcription of the initial interview shot with my dad, which can be found here.

I’ve always had an interest in field sports, and it stems mainly from, um, my upbringing, with my grandparents in Devon. They were both involved in hunting and shooting, and I suppose it naturally occurred that I’d follow along that route at some time, especially when I was very small and my mum’s brother, Uncle Denzil, used to take me out across the fields. Um, I was four and a half, and I used to go out with a bag with ferrets in, and another little bag full if the rabbit nets, Denzil carrying his shotgun and puffing on his fag, and we’d head off across the fields and lay out the nets, he’d put the ferrets down the hole, and we’d wait for the rabbits to bolt, and they’d go into the net, where he’d break their necks, any that escaped he’d shoot with his shotgun, and then we’d get back home by about 8.30 and have breakfast, which was cooked by my grandmother, and those were really happy days; that continued for me from when I was – 4 and a half up to I was twelve, before he very sadly had a very premature death. Um, I had many adventures with him over the years: fishing in and around Ilfracombe, collecting winkles and looking for cockles in amongst rockpools, and we’d go off fishing and he was, well, he was always very resourceful… chap, he’d used an old cast-iron rod rest that my dad made one day, poke it down inside a hole in the rock, he said to me “feel this, you’ll feel a gentle tug on the other end” and as he withdrew it, out came a great big lobster, which went off to a local fishmonger rather than having it for tea, because it procured him about 10 shillings, which is about 50p in today’s money, and when you think people were in about £8 a week in those days, that was quite a substantial amount. And another time, in exactly the same place, he pulled out a great big crab that went off to the same, uh, fishmonger. And we had, uh, fresh mackerel there one day, two mackerel had been caught, and he managed to scrunch up some newspaper that he had, find some driftwood, and in a crack in the rocks make a fire, rest the rod, the cast-iron rod rest above it, like a spit, and having cleaned the two mackerel out in a rockpool, he put them on there, and ten minutes later we were crunching into lovely fresh mackerel, and it don’t really get much better than that.

My grandfather, he used to rent some ground off of local farmers in a little village in Devon called Berrynarbor, and he’d lay traps, that were mainly gin traps – which were operated by a peddle to open them, and then some bait put there, and then when the fox or badger or whatever came along, the thing would snap shut and catch their leg. Sounds a bit barbaric, but that’s how things were in those days. And it wasn’t illegal either, it was perfectly legal to do that, it was, uh, a benefit for the farmer, because vermin was being caught, and it was a benefit to my granddad and his family simply because he could skin the animals and the pelts would go off to Birmingham where they’d be used in the fur trade, especially badger fur was used for paintbrushes for artists, and shaving brushes, which is the badger tail bristles were used for. Anything else that was caught in the trap, rabbits, hares or that, if it were the odd one, then the family would have it to supplement their diet; if it were several, then they’d also be sold because a rabbit fetched a shilling, uh, sixpence for the meat and sixpence for the pelt. If you skin the rabbit yourself, you got ninepence for the meat and sixpence for the pelt, and that all went to the same game dealer slash fishmonger in Ilfracombe who would pay them for it.

Um, my grandmother was an Exmoor woman, she was born and brought up in Simonsbath; her father lost his wife when he was, when she was three years old, and he was a shepherd so she learnt about the countryside from a very young age, tickling trout out of the stream, and taking Plover’s eggs, which apparently are delicious hard boiled, and my dad, who was Bristolian, was always told by his parents when he played in the fields around Dundry, if you find a Plover’s nest bring the eggs home, because they were part, again, of the supplementary diet.  

I guess that’s where my love of field sports, and generally, the countryside, that’s been a big benefit to me, the fact that I love bird watching and all sorts of British nature, and while you’re out shooting and patrolling the fields – and, luckily for me – working in North Somerset, you see all sorts of wonderful things, and I couldn’t count up all the marvelous things I’ve seen: birdlife, animals, um, even insects, some wonderful butterflies and stuff like that, and it’s always been something that’s been in me from, I’ve been encouraged from a very young age to take an interest in that sort of thing, and as I got involved with shooting, um, many years later when I was in my early twenties, I got an air gun, and then a shotgun, and I used to go poaching, um, up on the Mendips, and whilst I was up there poaching, you know, you would see all sorts of wonderful things, especially early in the morning when everybody else is still in bed. And apart from that, if keeps you fit. You, you walk for miles, and that was a benefit as well.

Eventually, I got caught poaching by the gamekeeper and the police, and, um, I was fined £160, £20 costs, that was in 1982, and, um, as a result I didn’t shoot for many many years up until this last year, 2013. Although I always retained an interest in field sports by buying books, uh, about shooting, fishing, hunting, so I’ve always been involved one way or another, if not physically, but then mentally thinking about it.

Six years ago, we had a lovely dog called Monty, a German Shorthaired Pointer, and we were invited to beat up at The Warren, a shooting ground up on, um, Shipham in the Mendips, and Monty took to it like a duck to water. He was, he was a great companion, very effective, but sadly we had to have him put to sleep because he was, he was not a well dog. And then this year, uh, this summer, in, um, July, of um, 2013, we’ve acquired Charlie, who is also a German Shorthaired Pointer. He’s not fifteen weeks old, and the plan is that over the coming years I’ll be able to train him up. He’ll be my companion in the field, and there’ll be lots of entertainment to come. Uh, so I’m really looking forward to that.

My mother used to, uh, fish, along with my dad, but she also used to go rabbiting with Denzil. In 1947-48, uh, before myxomatosis had such a devastating effect on the rabbit population of this country, they had one outstanding week where they averaged 154 rabbits a night. Now you imagine that at a shilling a time, that is indeed a lot of money to supplement the income, because, obviously, one family couldn’t eat 154 rabbits every night! Um, but that really was a, a boost to their finances, certainly, um, something she was proud of. She taught me hoe to skin a rabbit, how to prepare and dress pigeons, pheasant, partridge, so I’m a great believer in “anything you shoot you should eat”, unless it’s vermin of course, I mean, crows I wouldn’t eat, or, um, anything like that, uh, rats, even. At one point I, um, I had a little, it wasn’t a job, it was a request, to shoot the rats in a pigsty up in Dundry, that was in the 1980s, and me and a friend, Tom Fitzsimons, sat ourselves on a bale of hay inside this farmer’s pig run, and, um, as the rats scuttled along the rail at the back, we popped them off with an air rifle, and the farmer was a fellow called Roy Manning, “what shall we do with the, uh, rats?” and, he said “just leave them there, the pigs will eat them”. And sure enough, the next night, we went back to have another go, and the rats we’d shot the night before, yep, they were all gone. Another time, Roy asked us if we’d shoot some pigeons that were taking his peas in his garden, so we went into his kitchen, opened the kitchen window, and there was the washing up in the sink still, and I squeezed off the barrel to shoot this woodpigeon that was on his peas, I did hit the pigeon but ii blew some of his cabbages to smithereens, and the noise echoing around the kitchen, um, made one realise why you needed ear defenders.

Well, that’s how my interest in all of this has come about. Um, and I shall retain an interest in field sports, probably until the day I die. At the moment, I’m shooting with some elderly gentlemen, who are, um, very very keen, even though they’re in their eighties.