High and dry

Richard takes his son, Charlie, to bag grey squirrels with an airgun, but while wildlife abounds, the boy learns about its unpredictable nature

- RICHARD NEGUS

As a boy, my heroes were a mixed bag. No poodle-haired rockstars nor crumple-suited Hollywood detectives for me. My heroes were a gamekeeper named Tony Butler, a sporting parson called David Hopley and Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie.

Tony and David had country lore oozing from every pore, Ms Harry had fewer fieldsports credentials. My son, Charlie, has built up a similarly diverse array of champions. He holds evolutionary biologist Professor Ben Garrod in the highest of regard, equally the actor Sam Neill, largely due to his role as the heroic palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. His other man of the moment is my friend Jim Allen.

The erstwhile Royal Marine is a superb Shot and a philosophical, knowledgeable deer manager. Therefore joy became unbound in the junior department of the Negus household when he was invited to join his hero and I for a morning in the high seat. Jim planned to sit up on one side of a mixed, mature wood, while the boy and I were tasked with perching on the other.

Charlie’s role was to shoot grey squirrels with my air rifle and I had the .243 on standby should a muntjac cross our path. The boy became the proud owner of his own air rifle last month, which he dubbed Black Death, but it is a low-powered beast and to my mind unfit for shooting live quarry.

Thus with my Gamo slung across his shoulder, the youngster followed in Jim’s footsteps as we three set out in Indian file from our vehicles to pick our way through the Stygian predawn wood.

Ghosts and ghouls