New Boots

A quick warning. Do not, DO NOT, get your teenage children into country sports. Especially if they are fashion conscious.The elder male is onto his second shooting season, with the benefit of an experienced slightly older top gun type to carefully guide and enhance his inherited skill. No, not Stuffer, me.

But this season the skinny cords and redeployed shirt will, so elder male tells me, not do.

Luckily my number three barbour is just nicely run in after 25 years careful use, so that has been cascaded.  I have also run to a pair of moleskin plus twos from RW's who also were able to supply a suitable shirt at not too painful a price. But a leather cartridge bag? Pshaw!  And  Du B boots?!  I can't afford Du B boots for me! In fact, the way business is, I'm not sure I can afford new socks at the moment, but that's another story.

Luckily though, remembrance of his sister's picking up day last season dissuaded him from the Du B's for this season. I took her to pick up for me last year, at a rather grand estate in the Midlands where the son and heir is four years older than her. Not, of course, that one would wish her to marry for any reason than for the honest call of her heart, but on the other hand a cottage and a few days free shooting from a titled and landed son-in-law might help out in old age, the pension isn't  going to pay for many high pheasants.

She is a pretty girl and the tweed mini skirt was an inspired idea.  Things seemed to be going along very nicely in the morning, even if I did have to pick up my own birds.  At lunch though, the vodka bottle seemed to get stuck at the young people's end of the table, and when she got on the shoot bus after lunch she was very giggly indeed and not entirely sure footed.

The long and bumpy drive to the top of the wood brought vivid and wretched, or rather, retching disaster. Most of it over the young heir's smart new Du B's. They don't clean well apparently. The dogs all flock to his shins still. So it will be rubber Hunter's for my boy for a few seasons yet.

Conspiracy Theory

Did I mention my partridge day on Tuesday? No, I thought not. Not a great day I’m afraid. First day new season on game is always a bit tricky. And the sun was in my eyes most drives. And I think the estate may have been breeding a new strain of partridges that fly twice as fast the traditional Frenchmen. And my socks kept falling down.

The host said to me on the third drive “Odd thing, but no one today seems to be able to shoot when I am standing with them”.  A small covey came over and flew on untouched. I reloaded and said nothing. But, I thought, maybe you should go and join the beating line.

Also, something had happened the previous afternoon which rather distracted me.   We are working on a very complex derivative instrument for a demanding and highly switched on client.  To assist with this and to negotiate all the fine detail (I do find getting bogged down in the detail distracts me from maintaining the core structure of the deal) the firm has brought in a top industry consultant. 

To make sure all was coming along nicely (you have to drive these chaps hard) I called my consultant about 4pm. “Can’t really talk” he said, “driving”.  Anywhere interesting I enquired, slightly sarcastically; that’s not what we pay him £665 an hour for. “Shooting in Somerset, back on the job tomorrow night, don’t worry, ooops, I think I’m going into a blackspot” and the phone cut off.

I rang the client to assure him everybody was hard at work to deliver what he needs by next week.  “Bit tricky to talk” he said, “on a train”.  “Coming up to town?” I asked. “No”, he said, “Off to shoot in Somerset”.  The phone went dead.

Obviously coincidence. Not good for steady concentration on superfast partridges though.

The New Recruit

The sporting life gives much pleasure, but never more so than when somebody else is paying for it. It is an odd thing that my mates who live in the country and have got the whole sheebang on their doorsteps generally have to pay for it themselves.  Yet those of us who live and work as far removed as can be from grouse moors and deep pheasant valleys, to say nothing of the wild woodcock ridden woods of Cornwall, misty snipe bogs in Ireland, and even the partridge stubbles of Norfolk, can usually swing a good proportion of the season at zero cost.

This is because of the vital City necessity of consolidating our client relationships by frequent and appropriate client entertainment.  “Appropriate” is now the appropriate word, certainly with the compliance department, who would not want any inappropriate expenditure on non-appropriate clients. The right sort of client is he (always "he", I am afraid) who would expect to be entertained in this way, in terms of his standing and normal life style.  This is fine by me, as those clients, if entertained to a day on high pheasants in a Devon valley, to say nothing of dinner, claret, and a comfortable ensuite the night before, are very likely to invite their generous host for a similar day in return. So a couple of days paid for by the firm, for seven guests a go, can result at least ten invitations back.

The recent unfortunate events have meant a new scrutiny on expenditure. We still have to keep our clients loyal, but budgets are been squeezed and guest lists checked for value. Golf and horseracing and a day at Lords are cheaper, not that I have any objection to any of these, and they do fill up the summer nicely, but they don’t quite yield the dividends of the winter entertainment.

Luckily, my old boss liked his cricket and Henley and Ascot, and even more luckily, keeping his feet dry in winter, so there was a tacit agreement that he did the summer stuff and I took the winter burden off him.  His retirement last year, early, after a slight accounting embarrassment on an unmatched trade, thus did cause me a little nervousness. If the new number one was a keen shooting man I could see my control of the shooting franchise slipping away; still worse, if he were an anti, the whole programme might get junked.

As it happens, he seemed to be just perfect – he had never shot, but believed it to be good marketing.  And is a complete workaholic, so was most unlikely to find the time. Bingo! So this years’ programme – two days, one in the west, one in the north, was approved without demur.

And then this week, out of a clear blue sky, a rocketing pheasant straight on the bowler hat: disaster!  Number One came in on Monday morning to tell me he had a shooting lesson on Saturday morning and loved it. His tutor told him he was a natural shot (don’t they all). He was changing his diary so he could come with us next week. He would have another lesson on Saturday and buy the appropriate kit; perhaps I could lend him a gun and cartridges.

Aaaagh. Is this the end of the good times? Or at least the free times?

Get Stuffed

Time to introduce Stuffer. Any successful soap opera needs its stars and characters.  Stuffer is certainly a character; maybe we can even make him a star. And he will pop up in these ramblings quite a lot, as he does in the glades and coppices of the southern Home Counties.

Why, might you ask, Stuffer.  Well, there are at least three reasons why a country sportsman might be known to his mates as Stuffer. 

Stuffer qualifies on all of them. His profession, a strange one, but no less strange than sitting in a hot room calculating basis points on derivatives, is that ancient and bizarre art of taxidermy. Cats and dogs, pheasants and salmon, Siberian goats and Egyptian crocodiles, all find their way to his door – to his backdoor, Mrs Stuffer does have standards – and emerge immortalised for ever in attitudes of resistance, or flight, or peace.  This esoteric spinoff from the undertaking profession is also a demonstration of the basic laws of economics – there are not many stuffers around now, and there are surprising numbers of rich folk who want to keep above ground their fireside comforters or wilderness triumphs.  This imbalance of supply, and demand backed by overloaded bank accounts, is considerably to Stuffer’s advantage.  Any City boy understands the equation perfectly.

Much of Stuffer’s business comes from the sporting gent, and Stuffer knows to keep closely in touch with his clientele.  Usually available at short notice to fill a gap in the line, he is a reliable gun, a friendly guiding hand to the novice, a raconteur of considerable wit and taste, (the taste carefully matching that of the audience).  He can be trusted with the beginner, with the low shooting foreigner whose previous experience is only with wild boar or walked up quail, and with the experienced rich sportsman who needs somebody to load his pair of Purdeys.

Hence his second stuffer qualification. The amiable quick fingered gimlet eyed flat capped obliging countryman who slips the cartridges quickly in and exchanges guns in one fluid swing is, of course, your stuffer.  For Stuffer it’s an opportunity well spent; sixty or eighty quid cash in his pocket and the ideal marketing opportunity. Many a high pheasant felled by a Stuffer loaded cartridge finds itself in turn rapidly stuffed, a permanent reminder of Stuffer’s skills to his new client and friend.

The third Stuffer designation?  That easy charm, cocky self-confidence, dirty laugh, and grinning handsome face should give you a clue. If not, a number of lovely ladies in the southern Home Counties could enlighten you further. Certainly, a surprising number of these ladies turn out to be well acquainted with the quieter parts, the green lanes and old woodlands, of several discreet sporting estates.  And not because they have taken up poaching.  

Heavy Keepering

The season has begun and the wildlife is starting to get nervous. Out in the fields of East Anglia the partridge coveys stir uneasily at the sight of men in strange green clothes. On the steps of the cathedral the dreadlocked protesters stir uneasily at the sight of men in strange blue clothes. Both of these species have a very limited season and both worry that the sombre steadily strolling men might be armed and on a mission.

There’s a lot to be said for sport which can be enjoyed from the high-backed chair in air-conditioned comfort. Outside the protesters move around in a nervous flock, whilst a few traditional London bobbies (mostly of more advanced years, a few bearded, some female) stroll between them, smiling and relaxed. The protesters offer them organic biscuits, strange coffee, and free hugs.

But what I can also see from my chair is four police vans hidden in a back-alley, windows steamed up, but not enough to conceal dozing police in heavy jackets with night sticks stacked by the door. These police are young, clean shaven, and very male. Occasionally young officers appear loaded with Subways or Big Macs which are passed into the vans. With the boredom and the diet they must be spoiling for a fight.

In the sun it is warm and comfortable, both amid the tents and along the hedges. The quarry sit tight and hope the threat will pass and they can go back to feeding and yawning and squawking to each other.

But if I were a protester I would ignore the friendly coppers and worry about those hidden police vans in the alley, and if I were a partridge I would wonder about the departing keepers and worry about tomorrow’s convoy of Range Rovers in the lane...

This Sporting Life

Sunday; northern France; Eurostar Premier Business at 200kph.  Flat neat farming country, a hot morning, bright sunshine, and a busy railway line. But nothing deters the sporting French gent.

Every couple of kilometres a row of battered cars on the edge of stubble (not a Range Rover Sport amongst them, no style these Frenchies). And nearby a line of men, various in shape, size, age and dress (no plus-fours of course), all holding shotguns at dangerous angles, pushing their way through sugarbeet or maize.

Every couple of kilometres I say, but in some places every half a kilometre. No doubt they were all out over the same land yesterday and last weekend and probably Wednesday afternoon as well, having played hookey from the office or workshop or bakery.  How can there be anything left to kill in these flat empty intensively farmed fields?

Except each other of course.