Chapter 8: The Gun Club

By a relatively young age, Gerard's teenage son had a gun licence. I have had a driving licence and a TV licence in my time, but that was as far as it went with me and licences, so I was quite probably firing a gun illegally that week. I am sure the gun club wished I had never turned up at all, really. They were not warned as to what kind of person I was. The film crew did a brilliant job of disguising it. They knew damn well that if they had said in advance, they would never have got a show. They sprung it on them far more than they sprung it on me. I knew the score as soon as I walked into that place. None of the people I met there knew what the hell was going to happen.

When the film crew drove me to the gun club, I purposely wore a hood. I have always thought that the demonisation of guns in the hands of the poor and the glorification of them in the hands of the military, the police and the rich is one of the most pronounced hypocricies in British society.

I jumped out of the Armada TV 'People Carrier'.

'Where's the gun violence at?' I asked.

The gentleman who was to train me in the use of shot-guns looked a bit perturbed as he stood in the doorway of the club house. He quickly lightened up when I threw back my hood & replaced it with a black, Spanish, wide brimmed hat. He looked distinctly relieved when he realised that I was a polite, enthusiastic middle-aged man. I was surprised to find that he was a genteel, mild mannered, middle-class bloke with the countenance and deportment of an Alec Guinness or an English James Stewart. He was not from the macho stable like a Bruce Willis or a John Wayne.

I was probably making so many film comparisons in my head because of the dominance of gun culture in the cinema and the cameras following me around everywhere.

I was handed one of two shot-guns brought from the estate. In the club house, before a collection of gun fetishists and camera crew, I was put through my paces. I was introduced to a plethora of health and safety tips about what to do and what not to do while the gun was loaded. It must remain uncocked at all times, whether loaded or unloaded, unless you are preparing to shoot. It must never be pointed downwards once cocked and ready for firing. It seemed to me that one's own toes appeared more important than someone else's head in the discussions we had about appropriate direction finding.

In my introduction to this wholesome sport, I was belittled about my apparent near blindness as I tried to line up the site of an unloaded shot-gun with my line of vision and the gentleman's finger.

'Hang on a minute,' I said, 'wasn't I told that you must never cock a gun unless you are ready to fire it?'

It amazes me that some of the most emphatic statements almost always prefigure a sudden and complete violation of said rule by the very person holding stock in it.

Anyway I satisfied all those present that I wasn't about to destroy life and limb in a supreme act of Magoo-like blindness, cutting a swathe of shot through gun-club property like some out-of control android in some dystopean Sci-Fi movie. Mr 'Guinness' was quite surprised when I seemed to get the hang of the targeting.

'I am aware of how challenged my sight is,' I said. 'I have been wearing glasses since I was four years of age.'

'Everybody's eye-sight is found wanting,' 'Guinness' quickly informed me. 'The Gun-Club test merely ascertains in what way they are deficient.'

I was tempted to suggest that every high street opticians should have a shot-gun since it seemed that shootists were far more in tune with ophthalmology than mere opticians.

I detected an almost religious zeal. I could imagine that if the health and safety regulations were ever broken in this place then the punishment for putting oneself at risk could well be a load of buck-shot up the backside. The paradoxical nature of gun toting health and safety zealots made it impossible for me to conceal a spate of crazed grinning that must have done anything but inspire my hosts as to the sense in giving a dangerous weapon to a crazed imbecile like me. They were patient men as my hysterical excitement reached Thompsonesque heights.

'Shall we proceed to the range?' asked Mr 'Guinness'.

'Fantastic!' I replied, noticing a handful of faces visibly drop.

'I can't believe a self-confessed anarchist has been given a gun in the company of representatives of the British Establishment!' I said, as an aside to the director of the film crew. His facial expression seemed to suggest that nobody here knew that I was an anarchist at all. I realised that all this was about to change.

The crew, the shooting instructor, the eldest son of my life-swappee and myself walked to one of the places where one was to unleash deadly clouds of shot. Gerard's son looked a bit irked. I was being given far more attention than he was. At nineteen, he should never have been put through the series of humiliations visited on him by his father's decision to up and leave, being replaced by a Punk version of Norman Wisdom.

'Lean forward putting all your weight on the foot that is furthest to the front,' 'Guinness' told me. 'Contrary to popular belief don't squeeze the trigger. Where shot-guns are concerned pull the trigger with some force.'

'Check,' I said.

'Follow the clay pigeon with the upper part of your body making sure that you do not move your legs or feet.'

'Check.'

'Follow the target with your gun pointed just ahead of it as it moves through the air.'

'Okay.'

'Predict its course within a second or two and release the shot.'

'Got it.'

'Remember its all in the waist. Do not move your legs or feet! Act like a demented Dalek.'

On this piece of advice, he started doing an impression of a 'demented Dalek' making sure that the emphasis in his mime was on the fact that only the upper part of his body was moving.

Had I been drinking tea at this point I would have spat it everywhere. Act like a demented Dalek!? Did he not realise that the Dalek were a mythologised critique of The Third Reich? Surely he could not be offering me this level of political ammunition as well as a shot-gun?

'A demented Dalek?' I asked grinning.

'Oh yes!' he replied amused that I saw the humour in what he was saying.

'Are you ready then?'

'Go on.'

A button was pressed and a clay pigeon silently flew through the sky. Following the space just in front of the 'pigeon' the gun arced through the air.

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

Missed.

I did not like the smell. I did not like the recoil. I did not like the noise. Admittedly, I had been given ear-protectors, which I initially mistook for head-phones. Prolonged gun use leads to partial or total deafness in the ear furthest from the shoulder the gun is resting on. My instructor was amused when I put the 'phones' under my Spanish Gaucho hat. I could not fit them over it and I was buggered if I was going to fire a shooter and not wear a cowboy villain's hat. Of course, I say 'villain' but truth be told I had a fixed image of Lee Van Cleef in For a Few Dollars More in my head the whole time I was at the gun club.

It was a revelation when I realised that I did not enjoy firing a shot-gun. Considering the huge variety of toy guns that my generation of boys were given to play with, I half supposed that I might like this rather more than I should. I was pleased to find it onerous and uncomfortable. I realised that I must be far more naturally peaceable than I had, at first, suspected.

Incoming...

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

Horror of horrors! A seagull flew behind the clay pigeon at the exact moment I pulled the trigger.

'Bloody hell!' I shouted as I realised I had missed the clay pigeon and the seagull. 'I nearly killed a sea-gull!'

Everybody laughed, except me.

I think the instructor realised that I was a tad disgruntled.

'That sea-gull couldn't have been safer, judging by your performance so far,' he said, trying to cheer me up. I think it was at that moment that my brain shifted gear. For some primal reason I suddenly decided I would try and surprise everyone by excelling at this infamous pass-time. I have to admit to being not at all bad at balance and I have never been short of the target when throwing projectiles.

Incoming...

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

The target exploded. Now I understood the requirement to wear a hat. Shards of clay pigeon showered down. Personally I did not favour the American baseball hats that seemed in vogue amongst shootists. I was tempted to draw comparisons between the head gear of your posh gun-club owner and your Brixton Yardie or Mancunian Chavvy but I thought I would let that lie.

Incoming...

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

'Another kill!' shouted the instructor in an obvious state of surprise and excitement. Gerard's son eyed me suspiciously. I reckon he thought I had done this before and was winding everybody up. I was as surprised as anyone that I had hit two in a row.

Incoming...

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

A miss. Good. I did not want to appear braggardly.

Incoming...

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

I winged it and half a clay pigeon spiralled to the ground.

'It's alright. That's regarded as a kill.'

I was tempted to say the poor thing was injured and in pain. I was tempted to suggest I walk up to it and put it out of its misery. I didn't. I remained polite.

I remembered what my instructor had said about the table-sized circumference of shot that the prey has to try and avoid when one of these things goes off. Hardly a fair fight against an unarmed robin redbreast or a baby grouse...

Incoming...

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

Missed again. My instructor was very reassuring and told me I was doing very well. He said my results were similar to a regular shootist. I felt that this must be due to the familiarity of pointing and firing, whether it be children's toys or grown up ones like this. I had to concede that my tutor was top-notch. He seemed all too aware of his ability to educate.

'Most of my pupils progress very quickly,' he assured me. I remained a bit sceptical. I had now sunk to the level of your common or garden gun-nut. I felt I had something to prove and, after all, it was all being filmed.

Incoming...

Follow... follow... follow... follow... BANG!

A hit!

'Right let's try two at once.' His suggestion shocked me. He obviously wanted to see what I had in me.

Incoming...

Follow... follow...

Incoming...

Follow... follow...

Nothing. Not even a bang.

'Don't worry. Relax. You're leaning back too far. Remember what I told you. Lean into the shot-gun. Put all your weight onto your front foot and remember... demented Dalek!'

Incoming...

Follow... follow...

Incoming...

Follow... Follow...

BANG! BANG!

Two saucers exploded. The instructor and the camera crew all cheered. Even the heir to the manor looked impressed.

I decided to end on a good one and called it a day.

The nineteen year old son and heir then had a go. I was ready to be humiliated. Here was a fellow who had not only done this before but was someone who might actually be into this. I had begun to wonder how much of his father's life he was actually interested in. He seemed to be doing a lot of what his father did out of a sense of duty rather than because he was genuinely interested in it all. Truth be told he was typical for his age. Where car maintenance, washing up, cooking and the job in the factory, yard or office might drive a working class nineteen year old to boredom it seemed that shooting, riding and Polo was driving this nineteen year old to boredom. Where a working class lad of nineteen would seek relief in a social life of live music, raves, football or the local pub this teenager did not seem to have an independent social life at all.

Regardless of my sympathies for him, I was shitting myself as to the out-come of his experienced marksmanship.

First up. A hit! I felt like swearing. Surely in a combative sense the upper classes can't be seen to have the edge on prime time telly.

Second up... A miss!

Third up... A miss!

Fourth up... A miss!

'Concentrate!' shouted the instructor visibly irritated by the fact that my results had been better.

I did feel sorry for the kid then. This one incident seemed to symbolise the whole life that he was expected to lead. Constant competition, no mates and eternal stoic aloofness in order to avoid showing any weakness. What this kid needed was a bloody good belly laugh or an emotional bout of tears on a friend or relative's shoulder. I winced thinking that he may never get the chance in his whole life.

Eventually he bagged a clay pigeon. I clapped, relieved that his day hadn't been quite as bad as it could have been.

I turned and faced the tutor. 'I reckon you may well be shooting at robot birds in the future.' The comment was supposed to be a subtle hint concerning the dwindling numbers of all species since the Industrial Revolution.

'I can see that happening.' he replied. He seemed excited by the prospect.

'I'm a bit surprised that hitting the clay pigeon is referred to as a kill.' I said.

'A figure of speech that has survived the transition from actual hunting.' he replied.

'But you still hunt.'

'Oh yes.'

'Do you enjoy the killing? Is it a hunter/gatherer thing. Keeping the tradition of obtaining your own food for example?'

'Oh no I don't enjoy the killing. In fact I don't see it as killing at all.' I was shocked and appalled.

'So, for you, it is merely a moving target. Merely a sport?'

'Quite right.'

I shot the director a look of shock. He seemed to be in accord with me. It seemed to me to be a worse excuse for destruction than the 'food' excuse.

'If it weren't for shooting parties,' he went on to inform me, 'some of the species that we hunt and their natural habitats would disappear. If it weren't for strict guidelines then the protection gun clubs afforded to many species would disappear and so would the species.'

I find it appalling that the only way in which human society can ensure the survival of certain indigenous varieties of bird and beast is to have them ear-marked for slaughter just to satisfy the compulsions of an age obsessed with the fire-arm as a symbol of strength and power. How sick that we must harass and murder in order to prevent a greater threat to habitat.

I remembered the scenes from the helicopter. An arial view that made The Vale of York look desert-like. These gun clubs hadn't done that good a job in protecting natural habitats. The shooting range and various hunting courses were pinpricks of green in an otherwise flat, depopulated agrarian nightmare.

Before I could mention the 'Beverley' irony to our shooter tutor he mentioned something about a gun club visit to Zimbabwe. My ears pricked up.

'You been to Zimbabwe recently?'

'Yes.'

'It's not good there at present is it?'

'It certainly isn't.'

I was under no illusion as to the colour of skin his Zimbabwean hosts would have had. He seemed very much of the white gentleman farmer mould.

I bit the bullet and waded in with what for my tutor would certainly be a contentious line of questioning.

'Do you reckon it's worse under Mugabe than it was under Iain Smith in former Rhodesia?'

'Oh much worse.'

'Really?' I purposely looked surprised.

I remembered reading reports of extreme acts of savagery and exploitation visited on the poor black farm-hands by white supremacists in the old British Empire days. I remember seeing a bit of TV footage from the time after UDI, with a couple of white farmers enthusing over the killing of black 'communists' as if it were some sort of sport. Personally, I saw Zimbabwe's present horrors as a direct result of the British Imperial legacy.

'Why do you think things are worse now?' I asked. I felt like I had his bollocks in the palm of my hand. He had trusted me and made the biggest mistake of his life. In front of a full-on camera crew he was about to launch into a form of 'genteel' racism that would be about as popular on prime-time telly as a fart in a diving bell.

'Well things are worse now because the blacks can't manage the land without ripping each other off and fighting over the remains.'

'So, let me get this straight. You believe that the only way that the problems in Zimbabwe are gonna be resolved is if white people owned the land and the blacks work the fields without any control over the means of production.'

'Just so.'

I kept my cool. He had said enough. I figured that the public would be able to make the relevant leaps of consciousness all by themselves. I just couldn't believe that, in 2005, some people still thought like this.

'So I suppose this view of yours were extended to any country on the planet. You must hold that what is true for Zimbabwe must also be true in every other African country, that if whites owned the land and blacks worked it, we'd have everlasting peace.'

'Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as that.'

I smiled innocently. Job done. Another racist exposed on mainstream TV. I turned to the cameras. The sight I beheld infuriated me.

'What the hell are you doing!?' I shouted. They had lowered the cameras and turned them off.

'We thought the conversation was getting a bit extreme.' said the director looking worried.

'Extreme!?'

'Well once you'd stopped talking about hunting, I didn't see the point.'

'You didn't see the point!? Are you mad? We were discussing one of the most pressing issues in the world today and you haven't even got the journalistic vision to keep the cameras rolling! You disgust me! I feel betrayed!'

I threw the shot gun to the floor and stormed off.

The director ran after me. I got back to the club house and sat outside it on a wooden bench.

He sat down next to me.

'I want to go home.'

'What? To Ingols Hall?'

'No. West Wales! You don't want cutting-edge telly. You just want trivial, interpersonal differences in order to excite rather than inform the public. You've betrayed my trust in you. If you don't fucking sort me out a goddamned ride, I'm gonna drive his hundred thousand pound motor all the way home and tell the bastard to sling his hook. I'd already asked you not to swap my family with racists because I didn't want my little girl put in danger. You've brought me to goddam Nazi central! The least you could do was document it.'

'I'm sorry I didn't realise he'd have views like that.'

'Are you mad!? Of course he's got views like that! See anybody with dusky skin around here? They'd be about as welcome as Michael Jackson at a Klan rally!'

'Look, I was worried that if you stuffed him in an argument about race he wouldn't sign the release form and then we wouldn't be able to use any of the footage we got here.'

'You mean to tell me that you let me loose in an environment like this and you havn't even got him to sign the release form yet!?'

'We're hoping to.'

I was flabbergasted. Right, what was I to do?

'Alright,' I said, 'I won't go home. It's conditional though. You go and get him to come over here so I can tell him that my anger is not directed at him but at you. I have to be honest with you that I am more angry at you which is something you don't wanna be too proud of. Once I've apologised for my outburst I reckon he'll sign your form. Deal?'

'Deal.'

Off he went.

The shooter tutor came and sat down next to me.

'I'm sorry I lost my rag,' I said. 'It wasn't at you. Regardless of our differences of opinion, I ain't about to fly in the face of your hospitality. As far as I'm concerned we're just gonna have to agree to differ and let the public decide. That's why I'm so disgusted at the film crew's cowardice. They're not even giving the public an opportunity to analyse our arguments. It seems to me that both your opinions and mine are kept in the shadows by a mass media that'd rather have trivia on our TV screens than something with a bit of substance to it. The director reckons that he was worried you wouldn't sign the release form if they filmed a discussion about race. I saw it as an opportunity for the likes of you and me to come out of the shadows and have it out in front of the general public.'

'You're a decent chap,' he said, 'I've learnt a lot today about the likes of you but I must say,' and at this point he leant over and whispered in my ear, 'I think I'd rather stay in the shadows if it's all right with you.'

Could it be true that, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the British Establishment, with all of its views and past-times, now saw themselves as a repressed minority that had to hide in the same way that Anarchists like me have had to for over a century? Here I was, an extremist, who could walk into any pub in the country and extol my views with little chance of reproach and here he was, a member of the 'ruling' cultural hegemony who felt compromised about the popularity of his own views within the confines of his own gun-club!

'I had a nasty experience on the radio recently,' he said as he drew away from my ear.

'How so?'

'Well you have to be careful with these media types. I'm not surprised that they've angered you. I went on a radio station based in Hull some weeks back. Every time there's gun violence in Hull a link is made to this club. I get invited to speak regularly on the issue of banning guns completely. I went on this station and they said that I'd be able to hear the final edit before it went out on air so if I had any problems with it I'd be able to thrash it out with them.'

'And did you?'

'No. They had failed to tell me at the last minute that it was going out live on the day of recording.'

'Jesus!'

'Indeed.'

A cruel trick! It did show, however, that there were many agencies who had it in for the Establishment.

'Surely that kind of thing is illegal?' I asked showing more concern than I felt.

'You tell me.' he replied.

He grinned at me, got up and walked away. Here I was, caught between the right wing in one corner and The Church of the Mass Media in the other. Who the hell do I trust? Both institutions had about as much respect for working class liberty as a Roman had for an early Christian in the Circus. Here I was bouncing between them trying to make sense of it all.

It has always been said that the first casualty of war is the truth. I bore this in mind as it certainly felt like this TV experiment was becoming a bit of a battle-ground.

The director returned.

'Did he sign it?' I asked.

'Yes. He did. Thanks for talking to him. I'm sorry again for upsetting you.'

'Don't worry. You're alright. You didn't know how a lot of this was going to pan out. I suppose I'll have to admit that I'm more like Richard Burton than I thought. Threatening to storm off the set and everything. We're only half way through the week. I'll be ordering my own Winnebago by the end of it.'

He laughed. 'Craig, even though I know you are further away from being a physical threat than a lot of people I still reckon you're one of the scariest people I've met. When you lose it you really lose it.'

'I suppose I've a rather large axe to grind.' I replied.

I wanted to apologise to the heir to the estate because he must have felt uncomfortable with the prospect of a hot-head taking up residence in his dad's house. He had, however, already left in one of his dad's cars.

I had this creeping fear that I was being too pleasant in the face of ideals that I had violently opposed for over twenty years. I was worried that there would be an insufficient amount of confrontation by the end of this project. I was worried that I might even look like a sell-out if the final edit favoured the more humorous moments.

Anyway, we still had the polo club ball to go and I was holding out for an opportunity to present my band of Heavy Metal Punk Anarchists to the invited multi-millionaires and their hangers-on.

Jonty {executive producer & cameraman} had been one of those who had been filming at the gun club. At the beginning of the week it had been him who had innitially reminded me that if I didn't use this project as an opportunity to say what I really think I'd be kicking myself for the rest of my life. Of course he wanted confrontational TV to some extent but I firmly believe that he was concerned that if I relaxed into over-politeness then I would be compromising my reasons for doing the show in the first place. I grew to like Jonty. He was on fire. His dynamism totally overshadowed any pretention he might have acquired during his public school education.

A people-carrier pulled up just as we were about to leave the gun club car park. Some really heavy looking dudes got out. They gave me and the director a suspicious look and walked into the club-house.

They came back out with shot-guns. They certainly were not carrying them in the appropriate manner. One even had his gun casually slung over his shoulder and it definitely wasn't uncocked. As they swaggered around the corner of the building and made their way to the range the director looked at me.

'I don't like the look of them.'

'Nor do I,' I said. 'No prizes for guessing where their political affiliations lie.'

'We'd best get you out of here, sharpish.'

'I'd appreciate that.' I replied.

Having been on the arse-end of Neo-Nazi skinhead violence in the early eighties it didn't take a crystal ball for me to be able to spot street-level trouble when I saw it coming. We left in the Armada people-carrier like a bat out of hell.

As we pulled out of the car park we drove past two aquatic military personnel carriers that were stationed in the grounds of the club.

'I didn't realise that wild-fowl were that much of a threat to life and limb,' I remarked.

Once we hit the road back to Ingols Hall I reflected on a comment that one of the gun-club owner's aides came out with in the club house. Almost surreptitiously this fellow had got my attention with a grin. He then made the remark that he'd rather be shooting peasants than pheasants.