he Christmas period is a special time for many sports, but none more so than game shooting. Boxing Day is synonymous with sport and certainly involved shooting in most years of my life. As a boy, the Saturday before Christmas was traditionally the day that we shot ‘The Middle’ — all the best drives in the centre of our shoot. My father and grandfather shot on the Hilton Park estate in the Midlands, then a beautiful area and once the home of Admiral Vernon. At the top of a rise was a tower to commemorate his taking of Porto Bello in Spain, and I remember my grandfather shooting a very tall cock pheasant
