MIKE YARDLEY’S POSITIVE SHOOTING

Some 35 years ago, I decided I wanted to be a shooting instructor. I had already been shooting since I was a kid on my grandma’s farm in Kent, at various target clubs and at Bisley. I learnt serious shotgunnery in my teens at the Boss Shooting Grounds with Bill Lees, then with Michael (and later Alan) Rose at West London. Both meant saving up the pennies and long treks on the underground from my central London home.

I continued shooting in the Army, where I shot in both pistol and clay teams at Sandhurst. In the Army, QMSI Jim Cairns, a Commonwealth Games pistol medalist, taught me a lot about competition as well as physical technique. With his help I was awarded ‘Colours’ for shooting at the RMAS – a bit like an Oxford Blue – and unusual because no similar award had been made for many years.

Studying the best

My interest in