How many men, I wonder, have shot a grouse, a woodcock, a pheasant and a blackcock in a single day? Quite a few, I imagine, but if I restrict the location to England the number will no doubt drop sharply.
One recent autumn day, I found myself struggling into waterproofs for what promised to be a very wet and squally day’s shooting in a remote Yorkshire dale. A bad draw for my butt number did not make me bend into the slope of the hill any more cheerfully. After 20 minutes I was several hundred feet up when the first of a series of really heavy rainstorms swept down from the high fell.
I crouched with my back
