10 days in DECEMBER

A brief comment in Maurice Stanbury’s email intrigued me: “This must be a record.” Maurice – chairman and spaniel field trial secretary for the North Devon Working Gundog Club – was referring to how Peter Avery, a respected handler, breeder and A Panel judge, had made up his two-year-old springer bitch Shiveck Beretta of Deepfleet (Tess) from an unqualified novice to a field trial champion in the space of 10 days.

There is so much more to this story than those 10 days in December, however. Peter, a former Metropolitan Police detective, grew up close to the Essex Marshes, wildfowling forming a major part