Devon lady guns is a group of female sharpshooters with their sights set on attracting new members and encouraging more women to take up the pastime. Sharon goble got fired up to meet them.
CURIOSITY DROVE ME to accept an invitation to attend a meeting of Devon Lady Guns. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from a group of women shooters. Would they be no nonsense ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ kind of gals?
As I headed towards our rendezvous near Tiverton, then waited for a 4x4 to take me down a steep track into a valley echoing with the sound of gun shots, I mentally prepared to meet the West Country’s equivalent of Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane. Of course, my imagination had got the better of me. They turned out to be a perfectly ordinary bunch of women of different ages and from different walks of life, who simply enjoy meeting up for a popular country pursuit and a spot of socialising.
I needn’t have worried about a dead rabbit or pheasant being laid at my feet either. This was a clay pigeon shoot, and the only perturbing thing was how deafening the gun fire was up close. A pair of ear plugs did the trick.
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