Well, Mr Old, you seem like an eminently sensible gentleman,” said the firearms enquiry officer (FEO) as he rose to leave. I suppressed an urge to laugh. No one’s ever called me that before. “I’m happy to say I’ll be supporting your application for a shotgun certificate,” he continued. “It’ll need to be signed off by my sergeant but, all being well, you should see it in a couple of weeks.”
I’d waited a long time to reach this final hurdle standing between me and my licence. When I’d first completed my application on the Metropolitan Police website, there had been a warning that grants could take six months to complete. I’d scoffed at this, thinking it couldn’t possibly take
