Stories from the Major
November 18, 2011
Fishing on the Frome:
In that same season and on the same river I took part in an amusing scene. I happened to have a new chauffeur, who had never seen a fish gaffed, and took him out as a ghillie for the day. As luck would have it I hooked a large fish and played it in a very deep pool. Finally getting it beaten, I instructed the chauffeur how to use the gaff, and ended by saying:”Mind whatever you do if you get the gaff into the fish don’t let go of it , but pull the fish right out at once”. After making quite a good stroke with the gaff he attempted to pull the fish out but, losing his balance, he went head first into the river and disappeared under the water.
Holding my rod in one hand I stepped forward to the river’s edge. The first thing to appear was the chauffeur’s cap, which came up bobbing like a cork. I remember thinking if the man did not soon appear the prognosis was unfavourable for him. But a moment after his hat appeared, up came his head, and one arm clinging to the bank. Leaning over, I grasped his coat collar and fortunately, as I was in those days a champion weight-lifter, I was able to yank him clean out onto the bank. But imagine my surprise to see that he had carried out my instructions to the letter; as in his right hand he still held the gaff, and on it was a fish weighing 32lbs. So I made a good haul in that effort! But I shall never forget the comic sight of the chauffeur’s cap coming up from the deep with no sign of its owner.
Newark Show
October 17, 2011
We went to the Newark show over the weekend. More of a dog show than a Game and Country show but worthwhile all the same. I came across another trader with whom we did some business and I came away with a small number of flasks for hunting. The flasks are 233mm long but 250mm long including the top. The top diameter is 50mm and the bottom diameter is 36mm. (Apologies for the metric measurement but the only ruler in the office is metric!) The photo above shows the retained top and general size and shape. If anyone would like to buy these we only have a few and I can sell them for £18.00 each but will have to charge for shipping. If there is a lot of interest I may be able to get a few more but they may cost about £23.00 depending on shipping to us. They are made of stainless steel and look the part. If you are interested please call the office on 01280 824855.
Stories from the Major
October 11, 2011
Grouse with Falcons:
I lived to be the last survivor of the big falconers of the last century, and my falconer, Allen, lived to be the last of the great professional falconers. When the old Hawking Club at Lyndhurst came to an end, and the Hon G Lascelles who managed it retired, there was practically no one to carry on that old institution. However , a friend of mine, Captain G. Blaine M.C., who had started many years ago with a lot of trained hawks, and the falconer Best to whom I have referred, nobly came forward, and Blaine supported the Hawking Club for a long time practically at his own expense.
Blaine, in partnership with another old friend of mine, Captain K. Palmer, late 2nd Life Gaurds, kept up by far the finest hawking establishment of recent years. Not only did they show good sport on the Wiltshire Downs, as we did in former years , but on the moors of Camster and Watten in Caithness they made bags of grouse which beat anything that Major Fisher and I, or any other falconers had done in former years. As these bags have never been publicly recorded anywhere, I give a few of them now, for the benefit of future generations who may be interested in this finest and best of our old English Sports and pastimes.
In 1913 at Barrogill Castle Moors they killed with hawks a bag of 406 grouse, 12 partridges and 7 various , a total of 425 head.
And again in 1922 on Camster and Watten they bagged just over 400 grouse besides other game. These two seasons were both recors for British falconers at grouse hawking.
Bisley Live
October 4, 2011Postmortem
It was a pleasure to see our customers at Bisley Live but I am fairly sure that I am not alone in feeling that quite a lot could have been done differently/better. Being just about the last stand in the food area we noticed more than most the fact that the food show and the gundog arena (supposedly the main arena) were way away from the shooting side of things. Given the amount of space available that seemed somewhat strange.
For those doing a post mortem on the show, the first at Bisley, I could suggest the following ideas.
Two days rather than three. No need to run a Friday until the show has momentum and grows in size.
Entrance fee too high- £22.00 on the day compared to £24.00 at the CLA Gamefair?? Lower the price and get more punters. If you are starting a new show you have to take a risk somewhere and, given that the trade stands will come again if there are punters but won’t if there aren’t, it makes sense to take risks on this front. If word round the stands was to be believed getting stand holders to turn up next year will be difficult. On which subject I would suggest to anyone running shows to arrange to take cards at the gate for entrance payment. Nothing is so galling to standholders as visitors who have been fleeced of all their cash before they even get to the stands.
Have a go on rifles- A great idea but spoiled by having to pay a large fee to register which according to users had to be renewed each day. Use some of the marketing budget to subsidise this and get visitors to pay for the ammo. The contrast with the free shotgun have a go stands was rather obvious.
On the subject of “have a go” I think a compelling draw would have been useful- ask the army if they could set up a GPMG in the sustained fire role on a tripod and let visitors have a go. i.e. something you would normally never have a chance to fire.
Children- Get something (rides etc) for children so that a family visit would be possible.
Of course like all these events it is easy to be wise with hindsight but the errors seemed at the schoolboy level. I hope the show does succeed as it was the first one I have been to that mixes both rifle and shotgun shooters and that has to be admirable as it helps open our eyes to what is going on in other fields.
Harrods and Bisley
September 28, 2011We are part of the Harrods British Food Fortnight and will be giving tastings of our wonderful high strength gin as well as our Sloe Gin. Do come and see us as Jo Simpson will be manning the stand and will be telling all and sundry about the development of our Gin.
Then on Friday through till Sunday we will be at Bisley at their Gun show and will be focusing on all our shooting products as well as our great sloe gin. This is the first year for the Bisley show so I do hope as many as possible come along to make it a great weekend.
See you there!
Simulated Game Shooting
September 21, 2011Ahead of the shooting season I have been lucky enough to have a day out on a simulated game day. I can’t recommend these enough as a great way to prepare for the real thing. However like all things preparation is the key. In this case it meant having the right cartridges. I was loading for my fellow gun who was shooting a 12 bore and using 28 gram or 30 gram loads. Given that you can easily go through 500 cartridges in a day it meant that his shoulder was seriuosly hurting by the end of the day. In addition his beautiful Boss sidelock found it hard to cope with the constant firing and one barrel ceased working near the end of the day. He was not the only one suffering on the day and a couple of other guns had to stop shooting to give their shoulders a rest.
Having done this form of shooting before I knew how painful it can be. So this time not only did I take my 20 bore OU but I also took 21gram loads. The result was that I could shoot all day and even fill in on other stands when others had to take a rest. Given that I was using 7.5 size shot (2.3mm) this light load still had over 280 pellets which is slightly more than 28 grams of 6 shot. Also by using an OU I avoided the burnt hands of those using a SBS (even if you do wear gloves the barrels become almost unbearable).
Midland Game Fair and Berkshire County Show
September 21, 2011We had a great show at the Midland Game Fair and met lots of new customers. The peg mini sets sold well and we had lots of orders for Flask peg sets as well. The Sloe gin is now moving fast and we have lots of orders coming in from shoots. We have a slight hiatus on the Damson and Plum gin front as we have got all of this year’s fruit under gin but we have sold out of all of last year’s damson and plum gin. So we are crossing our fingers that our new production will start being ready at the tail end of next week. At worst it will be the first week of October.
We had another great show at Newbury though the weather was somewhat against us. For some reason this show did not allow dogs in, which was also the case at the Suffolk show. Given that they are country events I can’t help thinking that this must put off a lot of visitors. Maybe my memory is off but I always remember dogs being allowed at these shows. Also there did not seem any problem with them at the Midland Game Fair.
Stories from the Major
September 9, 2011
Soldiering: The manoeuvres of 1898:
In these manoevres, which were long before the days of aeroplanes, balloons were much in use. One day a squadron of our cavalry galloped up to a captive balloon with the Duke of Conaught’s opposing forces, and shouted that its occupant was a prisoner: “Not yet!” and slipping his cable he floated away in the air. I believe when he finally landed he was several counties away from whence he had started.
If anyone is not a good sailor, I don’t recommend him to try sitting in a captive balloon in a strong wind. I have tried it, and the dipping and rising of the balloon in the gusts of wind produces the most terrible kind of sea-sickness, even in the case of hardened observers.
On one occasion the G.O.C. wished to hear what the observer could see beyond a high range of hills. An A.D.C. was sent with the message, and on arrival found a major of the R.E. in charge of operations on the ground, whilst an unfortunate subaltern was being spun around in the balloon above. This was the conversation which ensued:
Major (shouting through a megaphone). What can you see now?
Subaltern (aloft). Nothing Sir
Major. Well throw out some ballast and go higher.
(Then came down two or three sandbags from aloft)
Major. What can you see now?
Subaltern. Nothing Sir
Major. Well, damn it, throw out everything in the balloon.
(The down cam more sandbags, followed by a box and a lot of tools. Finally leaning over from the balloon, the subaltern was violently ill.)
Subaltern. I have thrown out everything in the balloon, including my guts, and I can’t see anything now.- All of which was in due course repeated to Sir Redvers Buller, much to his amusement.
Bucks County Show
September 7, 2011We had a wonderful day at the Bucks County Show and it was great to see all our customers as well as the President Elect George Anson. We sold lots of Gin and nearly all of the Family Reserve that we had taken with us. The last few bottles went at the Claydon House event on Saturday 3rd September. By the time the Winslow Farmers market came round on Sunday I don’t think there was anyone left in Winslow who had not tried something on our various stands over the last week. Sadly a trip to Vienna meant that we missed the Winslow Ball.
It really has been a very good summer for us but one thing has definitley stood out at all the shows. Our 48 Gin has been the outright best seller and it is interesting that this has become so popular. It shows me that people really are interested in a proper tasting Gin.
Stories from the Major
August 24, 2011The Great War
In October 1914, I was in France, and the first day I remember being anywhere near the front I was standing on a station platform, near the railhead, talking to a number of wounded men, waiting for an ambulance train to take them back to Blighty. A trainload of Kitchener’s boys , full of enthusiasm, passed us slowly on its way to the front. Seeing the wounded men on the platform they waved their hands and shouted:”Are we downhearted? No!” Whereupon a badly wounded old warrior with whom I was talking, said:”No, sir; but they bloody soon will be.”
On a sinilar occasion I was greeted at one of the railhead stations by a man whom I did not recognize, but who claimed that the last time he saw me was when I was floating on an iceberg in the Behring Sea. It turned out that I had met him at Nome in Alaska after my coming south from the Artic ocean. He was one of those globe wanderers we find at strange places all over the world, and incidentally was heir-presumptive toa Scottish Dukedom. But, as he was a bit over age for a soldier, they had given him a job as an interpreter. And he had a very amusing story to tell of a recent experience. He was remarkable for the free flow of strong langauge and this is what he said:
“Now I don’t know the first D___d thing about soldiering, but the other day I was up here at the railhead with nothing to do, and was watching a young R.T.O. (Regimental Transport Officer) trying to unload a train. But he could not speak the lingo and was not making much progress with his staff of foreigners. Seeing this I said: “Let me have a go at this job,”- and I got busy and cursed the French labourers in every known tongue, with the result that I soon got that blinking train unloaded.
“Another d___d train soon came in and I said to the RTO, “Here you had better get to hell out of it, and leave this job to me, as I’ve got nothing to do at present.” So he went off and I soon got that second train unloaded.
“Soon after this a lot of ofiicers rode up and one of them said to me:”Are you the RTO?” I said “No. I am only a bloody interpreter.” He said: “Why are you unloading trains, and how long have you been unloading this one?” I said: “Oh that d____d RTO can’t speak the lingo of these blasted fools, so I took on the job of unloading this train for him, and I unloaded two trains in about two hours.” He sad “Well, that’s not bad work, and what are you going to do now?” So I said: “Well as there don’t seem to be any more trains I suppose I can bloody well bunk off.” To which he replied: “Well, since you put it like that you can bloody well bunk off, but it’s not quite the way to talk to your Corps Commander, and my name is General Haig.” Nice for me said my friend, but how the hell was I to know he was a d___d General?”
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