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.