An ardent and capable defender

In his short life, punt-gunner Archie Blackett achieved renown and fought for the sport he loved. His nephew Jamie Blackett pays tribute

The sun starts to disappear behind Criffel and as the poet Gray would have written: “Leaves the world to darkness and to me.” There are few more peaceful ways to spend an evening than waiting for a duck in the gloaming of a Galloway day with only the owls and the whisper of the wind for company.

And as the Editor has asked me to pen something for Shooting Times’s “Fowling in the footsteps of the greats” series, there is no more fitting way to mark this week’s great: my uncle, Archie Blackett. But for his untimely death in 1970 at the age of 37, I would not in all probability be sitting by what was once his flight pond.

Archie lived and breathed ducks and geese. Living by the Solway shore in what was then the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright — now part of Dumfries and Galloway — it is hard not to be aware of them. He spent every available moment studying them, painting them and shooting them.

His carefully annotated game book is still in use and is the possession I would save first in a fire. Specially made for him in 1960 by Webster & Co of 44 Dover St, London W1, it has columns for seven species of geese and 13 species of duck, as well as the usual game birds.

From his game book I am able to trace his exploits. He was a good Shot and it was his habit to keep a tally of the number of snipe he bagged — the last one not long before his death was his 488th, not bad for someone still in his 30s. One entry describes a particularly good drive at Whitfield in which he shot 54 grouse.

Most seasons he was out on more than 60 days between August and February, usually rough shooting and flighting. He fed four flight ponds and each flight is meticulously recorded with time and wind direction.