Bagged

Any sportsman will tell you that one of the great joys and sorrows of any sport - indeed of any recreation, I am sure, is the endless opportunities for buying more and more equipment. Capitalistic vultures lie in wait to take advantage of the unwary and when it comes to shooting and fishing types there is an especially close attention to catching the prey. Messrs F, and Messrs P, and Messrs B, and indeed Messrs H&H, are just a few of those entrepreneurial types - or great grandchildren of such - who set up their traps for the unwary in the rabbit runs of the West End.

Your naive sporting gent goes off for an innocent lunch with a few chums, a little business conversation to ensure that the bill can be passed through expenses, and a lot of chat and gossip. Then after both bottles are empty and the light is failing, out of Scotts or Wiltons or the Connaught he staggers in a friendly and avuncular manner, and blow me, before he knows what is going on, Messrs F or P or B, or indeed H&H, have got him in their carefully bated trap and into the cage he is lured.

And then there is all that blasted business trying to smuggle some piece of kit into the matrimonial dwelling and into the bottom drawer or back of the wardrobe, and just when you think the domestic authorities have not noticed and you are in the arm chair with the G&T, the trick question:

"Do you really need three pairs of boots?"

"I am sure I got you one of those cleaning rod thingies for Christmas last year"

"Just how many pairs of breeks can you wear at once, darling?"

But when this is got over and the credit card bill winced at, and the car loaded with all this stuff that seemed so vital at 3.30pm one Thursday afternoon and may be not quite so useful now, when all this is dealt with, it does mean that one can proudly go out and stand in a wet muddy field in great style, glorying in the knowledge that one really does look the part, the envy of one's fellow shootists, and would have done credit to any of those great Edwardian top shots.

At least you can do this glorying if you actually put the kit in the car before you set off to the most remote parts of North Yorkshire. And not realise at breakfast at some small hotel in some tiny market town consisting of a bus-stop and fourteen pubs and a Co-op, when otherwise perfectly and immaculately dressed for the forthcoming day, that you do not seem to have any one of the four cartridge bags that ornament the shooting cupboard. And at that precise moment, presumably still do, because not one of them has accompanied you to Yorkshire.

But I am been churlishly rude about the amenities of this small town, because on peering out of the dining room window, there, right opposite, was a sporting goods shop. Jno. Woodall, whoever he was, or had been, had learnt at the feet of the F's and P's and all the rest of them, and situated his premises where no visiting sportsman could possibly overlook it.

And what is more Jno. Woodall, or his grandson, had already opened the doors and put the lights on. Your correspondent abandoned his toast and leapt across the road and into this heaven sent boudoir of pleasure.  Mr Woodall was behind his counter.

"Good Morning! I am so glad you are open".

"Well, I wouldn't sell much if I wasn't".

"No, indeed! Well, I left a bit of kit at home yesterday and I am hoping you might have a cheap cartridge bag to sell me this morning!"

Mr Woodall looked me closely up and down, with the keen and discerning eye of a Yorkshireman, from brand new and highly polished DuBarrys, up the tailored plus fours with pink socks and gaiters, the new seasons waistcoat (fresh from Messrs P themselves), the matching tailored jacket, to the Hermes silk tie, and not forgetting that rather snazzy silver tie pin.

"A cheap...", he lingered, "... a cheap cartridge bag?"

"Mmm, yes please".

"No. NO. Sold the last one yesterday.  But we have this nice calf leather one by H&H, silk lined"

I didn't have the heart to ask for a discount; I don't carry that much cash.

Rabbiting On

An enthusiastic and loyal reader - Stuffer, you guessed - with whom I was sharing a modest glass in The King's Wotsit off the Kings Road, has suggested that this column is a little too devoted to the pleasures of the countryside as seen with benefit of gun. He welcomed the recent brief excursion into the strange and dubious pleasures of fishing, but urged exploration of the yet wider shores of men hunting supper.

This threw me a bit, I  must admit - the old gun cabinet contains a modest range of shooting implements suitable for pheasant, rabbits, pigeons, geese, and even grouse - not much used that one. But what else did he have in mind?

"Bow and arrow, mate, bow and arrow".

This threw me no end. I mean, when was the last  time you saw a woodland edge with eight or nine chaps lined up in plus fours and flat caps with great bows and a quiver full of Hull Cartridge Company arrows? Though I suppose at least it would be a lot easier to resolve those disputed birds if each bow had his own coloured arrows.

I asked what had brought this on.

"Ah well, old son, it was actually a Welsh Rabbit the missus produced the other night for supper"

"Welsh Rarebit you mean" I responded rather primly (one likes to keep standards up).

"No no, Welsh Rabbit, that's what made me think of it. Welsh Rarebit is just your posh English name."

"Well, whether it's a rare rabbit or whatever it is, I don't see what it has to do with bows and arrows"

And he explained thus:

"Most people think that it was the English yeoman that developed the skill at the longbow that defeated the Frenchies at Agincourt, but actually it all began in the Welsh valleys. Lots of yew to make good strong flexible bows, and not much else to do in the valleys except target practice, let's face it. So, the Welsh got pretty good at it.  Then the English barons got wind of all this and started sending their fit young soldiers to improve their skills. They had always shot arrows for food in the fields and warrens but they weren't used to the much bigger yew bows of the Welsh.

This all went very well and soon the English had strengthened their right arms (well, except the left handed ones of course) and they suggested that it was time to practice under battlefield conditions. How about, the English suggested, an element of a sporting contest to sharpen the wits. And a sporting contest to fill the larder would be even better.

So a rabbit hunt was organised, two teams, Welsh and English. Along the valley and onto the hills. The English of course were used to rabbit hunting so they soon had a pretty impressive bag.  But the poor old Welsh were only used to standing targets and by the end of the day they had only a couple of bunnies between them.

So when that evening the soldiers strolled into the medieval thatched olde welshe village, naturally the English soldiers were hunks of the month and got the rabbit stew  with onions and...er...onions, whilst the Welsh with nul bunnies just got the usual cheese on toast.  As the English soldiers passed by on their way to stuff themselves with rabbit with all the extras they saw the poor valley boys miserably eating cheese on toast, and to cheer them up in that jolly English way, shouted sneeringly, "Call that Welsh Rabbit?!?!"   Absolutely true."

I looked at Stuffer and his empty glass.

"Do you seriously think I am going to put junk like that in my blog?"

He waved his glass at the barman and pointed meaningfully at the beer pump.

"Yes".