Where the land screams ‘snipe'

Assorted dogs and a shared passion makes a day spent on the marshes paradise for Richard Negus

- Richard Negus

I have a first edition of a book called Red Letter Days. It was written in 1933 by M J Farrell, the pen name for the notable poet and author Molly Keane. The book is an homage to the Ireland Keane was a part of — a place of impoverished Anglo-Irish squires, hard-running hounds and side-saddle belles, twinkling-eyed rogues and the wildest of sport. Her rolling prose is accompanied with line drawings and watercolours by Charles ‘Snaffles’ Johnson Payne.

One painting, which partners the chapter “Me Two Feet in a Bog”, is a particular favourite. It portrays a lithe, felt-hatted figure. He wears thick breeks and gaiters with a sleek black labrador at heel, gun at the ready position. The Atlantic coastal landscape that stretches around him is wet, all reeds and winter. You can almost hear the wind whine, the ‘zeep’ of snipe and ‘weep’ of golden plover.

Snaffles has perfectly captured the wetland rough shooter’s stoop of expectation; his dog appears to have winded a bird forward and his excitement and anticipation is tangible. I recreated this delicious image, though my backdrop was the North Sea rather than the Atlantic and the land I strode was in Suffolk rather than County Kerry.

Chilling waves

‘Deadly’ Darren Sizer and I stood on the high ground that overlooks the marsh, our backs to a straggling hedge. Rain came down like a damp sponge; not so much a deluge, more a ceaseless sheet of pin drops. We discussed how best to walk-up the marsh using the wind; to have it gust in our faces we concluded would be most favourable. Almost half a mile away to our left, over the sea wall, the chilling waves could be heard — snare drum and radio static.