I have an aversion to guns, but it turns out I love shooting – and I’m actually quite handy at obliterating clay pigeons. Is it rigged? Or am I a natural?
Shooting a gun is like being prime minister – anyone with an overwhelming urge to do it should be given least opportunity. I’m the ideal candidate, because the idea of being near guns fills me with apprehension. I don’t know if they should exist. But you can’t try clay pigeon shooting without the shooting, or you would simply be looking at trees; that’s why I currently have my cheek pressed against the smooth comb of a 20-gauge Browning shotgun. I’ve worn a tweed coat to blend in – a mistake, as everyone else is wearing gilets and waxed jackets. I look like an ethnic Doctor Who trying to infiltrate the Countryside Alliance.
“Nobody minds if you’re a bad shot. Everybody minds if you’re not safe,” says Robbie Wilson, owner of Bisley Sporting Group in Surrey. He instructs me on how to carry a shotgun: broken, over the arm and pointing down. He shows me where to rest my trigger finger. I hadn’t realised how heavy guns are; I couldn’t hold this aloft for 10 seconds, let alone pick out a moving target. I try a 12-gauge – the smaller bore much lighter, albeit at the cost of the bigger gun’s stability. “People used to call the 12-gauge a ladies’ gun, but that’s completely incorrect,” Wilson says, trying to assuage a norm of masculine pride he has wrongly assumed I possess. Definitely this one, I say.
