Shooting Times & Country

It’s time to look again for that bit of rough

On my desk as I write this is a rather yellowed and crumpled letter from the Forestry Commission offering an annual shooting lease over 1,003 acres at West Tofts, Norfolk, for the princely sum of £50. The letter is dated November 1971, a time when my father and a group of his friends were looking for a new piece of ground to shoot over and had contacted the Commission in the hope that some rough shooting might be available in or around Thetford Forest.

They took the lease. I remember accompanying my father on several days walking-up the edges of the big forest rides and hunting out the odd wild pheasant, pigeon or rabbit as we did so. Game

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