Like a sort of bereavement

We often grow fond of the things that share our sporting lives, says Laurence Catlow

- Laurence Catlow

I am in mourning. I have lost a pair of very old friends. They shot with me for at least 20 years; they spent more days than I could easily count out at High Park, repairing pheasant pens, feeding pheasants, dogging them in and training — or at least trying to train — young spaniels. They missed very few High Park shooting days.

In the trout season they went fishing and spent long days on the Wharfe and the Tees. They flanked on the moor and they went for long walks in the hills. They shared in all these activities and the weather that accompanied them, days of burning heat or teeming rainfall, of raging wind or biting cold. There were, of course, days that seemed perfect for fishing or shooting, for pheasant care or lounging in the heather or striding out over the fells. And now, alas, they are no more; or rather their sad remains have been put in a plastic bag and given to the dustbin. I have thrown away my oldest and best-loved pair of breeks and the loss of them is a sort of bereavement.

I remember, more than 20 years ago, telling readers of Shooting Times how I had lost a frayed floppy cap that, whether I was waving a rod or swinging a gun, had sat on top of my head for years on end. It was a bitter blow but a blow with a happy ending because, some weeks after losing it, I found my floppy cap out at High Park. It spent several more years perched on top of me until it became so tattered and frayed that I decided the time for retirement had finally arrived. It still rests comfortably in the chest of drawers where it was deposited and now and then I come across it and feel glad it is still there.