A countryman and a scholar

Sporting Gun recently caught up with retired professor and former Army captain Simon Denny to talk about his life and career

- Simon Denny

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Simon Denny has had a career as interesting and varied as some of the terrain he has enjoyed shooting on. His childhood was spent in Essex before he went to Sandhurst and joined the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. After leaving the Army he became head of corporate management development for the supermarket chain Tesco.

That would, perhaps, be enough for most people but not Simon, who moved into academia. He became executive dean: research, impact and enterprise at the University of Northampton. It was in this latter role that Simon was engaged in work of direct relevance to the Sporting Gun community of readers. This included work on the positive effect shooting has on well-being and, with his colleague Tracey Latham-Green, on the beneficial impacts a co-ordinated moorland management program has for these environments and the communities they sustain.

Here Simon discusses his sporting experiences and some salient issues surrounding shooting and conservation.

How long have you been shooting?

I first fired a proper gun (a Lee Enfield No 5 Mk I .303) in 1973, when I was in the Cadets. I bought a second-hand shotgun in 1977 but sold it when I went abroad with the Army in 1981. I did not own a gun again until 1999 when my son and I started air rifle field target shooting. I got my second secondhand shotgun in 2010.

How and when did you start?

There was a clay club at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and I wanted to join. When I was on leave from the Army, I used to shoot rabbits and pigeons together with the son of a local farmer. He used to sell the game on a stall at Hertford Market and it paid for his cartridges.