Pull your socks up

SHOOTING folk take fashion seriously. Even on the rough, terrier-infested farm shoots where I grew up as a beater, guns paid attention to their appearance. On shoot-day mornings, the local digger driver would appear in his grandfather’s three-piece shooting suit, which had been let out in a system of darts and folds to accommodate his expansive waistline. It was a standing joke that our neighbouring shepherd had only two outfits: summer and winter. However, when shoot days came around, he would impress us all with a moleskin waistcoat and old-fashioned shooting socks, which rose around his calves in a foam of knitwear.

These were the days when wool was truly wool, long before the advent of highly processed, machine-washable fibres. The shepherd’s socks came straight