Bang Bang

By JM Remmer

Frances Flight an eager, country girl bags a job at Shooting Weekly and throws herself into the life of a London journalist and the arms of Henry Black the magazine’s heroic Editor. When Frances’ glamorous world of gameshooting collides with her animal rights activist cousin’s, her romance, the future of the magazine, and even her own life become endangered. As Frances, and the wonderful motley crew at Shooting Weekly, bang their way through grouse shoots, muddy wildfowling and elegant pheasant shooting, they face enormous challenges to save the sport they love.

Bang Bang is a fantastic romp through the British countryside revealing the thrilling, boozy, bed-hopping world that is British gameshooting. Set in 2001 at the time hunting was being banned Bang Bang offers a brilliant portrayal of the wild side of English country life.

Bang Bang does for shooting what Jilly Cooper did for riding.

The novel deals with issues of animal rights and wrongs, the frictions between tweeds and townies, and the exhilaration and heart ache of falling in love.

A thrilling countryside bonkbuster!

• Language: English
• Publisher: JM Remmer
• Release date: Jul 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476264721

JM Remmer

JM Remmer is a London based novelist - Bang Bang is her first naughty novel about shooting (hunting for my American readers)

Book preview

Arriving at PublishingHouse should have seen Frances looking sleek but instead the rain was torrid as she emerged, expectant, from Blackfriars tube station. Her new heels stepped on a pavement running with an inch of water, some of which seeped upwards to her tight less toes.

‘Oh heavens,’ she said as she opened her umbrella which rather pleasingly, she thought, had an end in the shape of a pheasant’s head. Her Barbour kept her dry as she dashed across the bridge, barely able to take in London river views. Focusing on the tower, she skipped down the steps on the south bank, walked past Containers House and arrived in the dry entrance of PublishingHouse. She was beaming. Fifty-six letters of interest to magazines, eight concrete job applications, three stints as a work’s experience dogsbody on different titles and now finally, a full-time, well paid job as News Editor at Shooting Weekly. This country girl had finally made it to London. And she was determined to have fun.

Waiting for the ever unreliable lifts she stood eagerly next to the sexy guy from Smart, the hapless mother from Nine Months and the austere publisher Ms Coberstein, who interviewed Frances and proudly announced her severity by wearing her mother’s Auschwitz ring. Yikes. But she was here and as the lift soared upwards, Frances couldn’t have been happier. She was in London, with a good job. Only next on her list was a husband and she was looking forward to a bit of big game hunting amongst PublishingHouse’s country list of magazines. Alighting at the 30th floor she walked through the Horse & Hunter office, peopled with jolly girls from Harper Adams and into Shooting Weekly’s messy office space.

‘You’re the first one in. Don’t ask me what they want you to do, but I think you’ll be sitting there,’ shouted an already exasperated Madge The PA. She didn’t look up from her Sun newspaper website. Frances hung her dripping wax jacket on the rather nice red deer antler hat stand and walked to Madge’s desk.

‘Really pleased to meet you again Madge, if no one’s in I’ll make a coffee. Would you like one?’

‘Go on then. Black and strong like my men.’ I love this woman, orange Rottweiler of a woman, thought Frances. Handing her the coffee, Frances sat at ‘her’ chair, swivelled in Madge’s direction.

‘So what’s happened? It’s press day, where is everyone?’

‘Oh, of course I managed to get in from Windsor and you did from...?’

‘Shepherd’s Bush,’ said Frances.

‘Shepherd’s Bush but Clapham seems to be beyond the reach of civilised society and as that’s where the rest of the staff live; we’ll just have to put the news pages together ourselves. It’s the weather apparently.’

‘Oh so they’re my pages that go today?’

‘Yes four of them. The rest of the magazine went to the printers on Friday but the news pages wait for the weekend and last minute events. We send them at three o’clock. It’s ten now, nothing generally does happen over the weekend so we’re done and dusted by one. For a booze up lunch at Studio Seven. I think Henry’s written something.’

‘Henry, the Editor?’

‘He’s won’t be in today. Shooting in Devon. It’s the first day of the pheasant season.’

‘Well I suppose he has to occasionally, it being a shooting magazine.’

‘You don’t see me going shooting.’

‘No. Well, um, perhaps I’ll see what I can do.’ Frances swivelled back to her desk with astonishing if rainy views over London, spotted the cranes working on the lower levels of what had already been dubbed ‘the gherkin’, and turned on ‘her’ computer. ‘I love this job,’ she thought and soon found a word document entitled, ‘News 5 October issue’:

Dear Frances, welcome to Shooting Weekly, I’m sorry not to be there to meet you. I’m writing a shoot report about the first day of the pheasant shooting season – whether 1 October is too early and the date should be pushed back to 1 November (or at least that’s my excuse for a day out of the office)! Madge will let you know if any urgent news occurred over the weekend, otherwise here’s the news, please help Georgie the art editor (you can’t miss her, she has tattoos) choose some pictures. She’ll design the pages, Vienetta (Venetia and Etta the two sub editors) will sub them. Have a read and then Jana will give the final OK. She, as deputy, will write my Editor’s Column today. Please have a read of it but there should be no need to query anything on that front. I’ll be back in the office tomorrow when perhaps I could take you for a drink after work. Henry.

‘He sounds hot,’ thought Frances. Not yet appointed Editor when Frances was interviewed for the job of News Editor, Frances had had ample opportunity to admire his editor’s photograph, and in spite of the prominent dark quiff, his blue eyes, firm nose and heart shaped mouth gave him a certain raffish quality. She read on, the news consisted of a story rubbishing the Sacrifice Hunting Save Shooting (SHSS) finding on the cruelty of fox hunting, the Essex Wildfowling Club was celebrating its 100th birthday by buying up yet more coastline from the RSPB coastal marshland and then a smattering of smaller stories about gun makers opening stores on New York’s 5th avenue and moving premises in Mayfair followed.

‘Hummm, not great,’ thought Frances reluctantly, she wanted Henry to have written pages of cutting-edge news not this rehashed press release dirge.

‘Halloooo, Frances. I’m Georgie, your Art Editor,’ she said appraising the new member of staff – tall, blonde with a snub nose and pond green eyes, ‘It’s a brave woman who wears lime – but I like it.’ Georgie on the other hand was a heavily obese woman of about 40 and wore camouflage.

‘Hi Georgie, I like your....camouflage bomber jacket....’ Frances brushed down her new blouse self-consciously, ‘I think I need to help you choose some pictures.’

The two women, one dressed in a smart black Jigsaw suit ruined by the lime green blouse and the other doing a seriously good impersonation of a male pigeon shooter, shook hands. Frances glimpsed a tattoo of a swallow on Georgie’s palm. Georgie smacked her around the shoulder and said,

‘It’s about time we had a good looking girl with decent highlights on the team. Vienetta as eye candy just don’t cut the mustard. Too mousy. But you. I could look at you all day.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Georgie, leave her alone you filthy old rug muncher, what would Katherine say?’ shouted Madge, now looking at a bingo website.

‘Why she’d invite her home for supper,’ purred Georgie. She rolled back to her desk on the ‘art’ side of the office.

‘And there I was, wondering if Shooting Weekly would be a den of unreformed cavemen!’ laughed Frances.

‘Sorry Madge, sorry everyone, it’s the dreadful weather. The overground was closed for half an hour. We sheltered in Costa so here are some cakes to make up for our tardiness,’ said either one of ‘Vienetta’ handing a box of cakes to Madge. The Clapham contingent had arrived. The first to hang their tweed Oliver Brown overcoats on the hat rack were quite obviously Vienetta, Venetia and Etta both of whom had lovely mousy bobs pinned back; one with an alice band, the other with two butterfly clips. On first glance they looked like two 40-year-olds from the 1980s but their luminous skin, gleaming teeth revealed them to be in their early twenties, fresh from Cirencester Agricultural College. Venetia was the slightly taller of the two, Etta erring on the side of dumpy: too many Aga stews. They greeted Frances and turned on their computers at immaculate desks. The subbing department, next to Frances and opposite ‘art’ was the only tidy area of Shooting Weekly’s office.

‘What have you got for me then Donovan?’ asked Madge to the black dread-locked designer who was putting a Missy Elliott CD into the player.

‘Sorry Madge,’ he mumbled, ‘I’m the lowest paid member of staff here. I can’t afford cakes.’

‘Oh my poor pet, come here and have a snail bun’ said Madge as she threw it over the subs’ desk, over Georgie’s head and onto Donovan’s lap.

‘Thanks,’ he smiled as Missy Elliott started singing at a reasonable volume.

‘I’m next in the queue with the ‘Beautiful South’ said short Vienetta.

‘Oh Jesus,’ muttered Donovan. He rummaged in his bag for his headphones.

Frances introduced herself to everyone and thought tall Vienetta, as chief-sub, would be most interested in the progress of ‘her’ news pages.

‘I know it’s now 11 o’clock and the news pages are ready to go. Georgie and I have chosen the pictures but I’m worried there’s not enough of a real story, explained Frances.

‘Oh how wonderful that you’re interested,’ said a slightly shocked Vienetta.

‘Well, it’s my first day, I should be a least a bit keen!’

‘OK, well if you can get a better lead story on page 4 by 12, we’ll run with it.’

‘I’ve been thinking about the weather. Surely these storms must have affected the weekend’s shooting. It’s the opening day of the season they must be worried about their insurance. I’m sure if I did a ring-round, got some quotes together...’

‘Yes, what an excellent idea. News isn’t one of Henry’s strong points.’ Interrupted a small Dutch woman who seemed to have wondered accidently into the Shooting Weekly office from a smart lifestyle title.

‘Sorry Frances, this is Jana Mitchell our Deputy Editor. Jana, Frances our new News Editor.’

‘Good good,’ she replied walking past Madge without saying hello and into Henry’s office.

‘She’s a bit brusque – arrived recently from the Daily Looking Glass, Henry thought she added a bit of substance to the team. She was his first appointment as Editor, been here a month,’ explained Venetia somewhat conspiratorially.

‘Right-ho then, I’ll get cracking,’ said Frances.

‘Oh I love an eager beaver,’ shouted Georgie from the other side of the office.

The previous News Editor had left when the previous Editor and Deputy resigned amicably to set up a fieldsports travel company. Nevertheless, he had generously photocopied his contacts book and left it on the desk with a note:

Dear my replacement,

As so many of the senior staff left all at once, I thought it only kind to leave my address book. Please plunder at will. Estates are marked E, gunmakers GM, gamekeepers GK, sporting agents SA, game farmers GF etc. The fieldsports organisations are self-evident. I tended to rely a lot on the Countryside Federation for inside information about how the hunting bill is progressing and for the United Shooting Organisation (USO) for techy shooting stuff. The Gamekeepers Association GA is brilliant at telling us what the everyday shooter thinks and the Country Estate Owners Association CEOA, what the nobs think. Best of luck here, so long as you keep Madge on side you’ll have a blast.

Thomas

Within 30 minutes she had written 700 words describing how this week’s shooting had been the worst since the 1987 storms, trees down, beaters unable to attend, shoot parties marooned in the ‘big house’, birds completely unwilling to fly, what should have been 500 bag days reduced to an embarrassing and financially wounding 120 birds shot. Frances included quotes from gamekeepers describing the torrential rain in earthy tones – ‘Wet as a lib dem’s piss’, but she still needed a comment from someone who was actually caught up in the storms.

‘Hello, is that Henry Black? Yes hi, my name is Frances Flight, your new News Editor and I was wondering if you could help me with a story I’m writing?’ asked Frances in her professional alluring tones. She had butterflies.

‘What’s that? I can’t hear a damn thing,’ said Henry Black his head and telephone buried in the armpit of his Musto coat. ‘Sorry, it’s the rain and wind.’ Frances repeated herself until Henry understood.

‘How wonderful to talk to you and yes it’s a bloody nightmare. We should have been shooting all day Saturday but managed one drive and then this morning we’re only just venturing out and to be honest I can’t think we’ll see another pheasant.’

‘Please could I quote you?’ Oh, Frances loved this job!

‘By all means, has Jana written her piece? If you’ve decided to write a news story on your first day rather than run with my crap, then you must read Jana’s column. OK.’ And with that the line went dead.

Frances handed her piece to Vienetta at 11.45, Georgie sourced some photographs of storms clouds and weather vanes and it was whisked off to Donovan to design. Frances had successfully written her first news story. Her telephone rang.

-Frances, can I have a word?

The fact that Jana telephoned from only feet away caused Frances to enter Henry’s office somewhat cautiously.

‘Henry has asked me to show you my Editor’s column. I can’t think there will be any changes,’ said Jana still working away at Henry’s laptop and only moving to adjust her bright red rimmed glasses. Frances didn’t know whether to sit down at the other table in the office, the one bearing a large glass case filled with stuffed snipe or to read the document standing up. She sat down and attempted a spot of banter,

‘You don’t look as if you belong in an office with taxidermy.’ Her comment was met with silence, so she read instead:

Welcome to this week’s issue of Shooting Weekly filled with your favourite columns about rural craft, cookery and countryside history. Robert Carpenter has written an excellent column about trying out vegetarian cookery on a shoot day, Arthur Anderson explores how true countrymen only shoot what they could eat and Nigel Fielding explains how to make the best pair of shoelaces you’re ever likely to need.

What most interests me however as newly arrived Deputy Editor is the findings of the Sacrifice Hunting Save Shooting (SHSS) group – a group of 100 MPs attempting to preserve shooting by banning hunting. Before we all attack them as anti-hunting Parliamentarians we should acknowledge the validity of their study which independently revealed hunting foxes to be more painful to the animal than having them shot with a rifle. As this Hunting Bill progresses through the House of Commons we would do well to engage with all sides of the debate.

Enjoy the issue, Jana Mitchell (Deputy Editor).

‘I shall send this to Georgie and you can all go to your favourite haunt for lunch by one o’clock, no?’ said Jana, still impervious to Frances’ by now bemused gaze.

‘Obviously this is my first day and I have no wish to disagree with you so early on in proceedings...’

‘Yes?’ interrupted Jana.

‘But, um, there are two aspects of the column that strike me as curious. Georgie’s shown me the book of the issue and there are really great pieces about how to skin a pheasant in 30 seconds, a lovely shoot report about Norfolk partridges and a controversially bad Beretta shotgun review. Why have you highlighted these rather gentle articles?’ Her heart was beating, Jana still hadn’t moved.

‘To broaden the readership.’

‘Righteo-ho’ said Frances buoyantly, but she ploughed on, ‘The other is that Henry has rubbished the findings of the SHSS Group. They are attacking our readers who support fox hunting. Surely it’s magazine policy to defend what is still a legal and legitimate form of pest control?’

‘I do not like your use of the word ‘surely’. You hope to become a journalist...’

‘Well I am a journalist,’ said Frances who suddenly felt extremely brave. Jana turned to face her and lent on Henry’s desk.

‘I don’t know if Worcestershire Life or Exeter University News are published in Fleet Street but I certainly hadn’t heard of them until Henry showed me your CV. If you are to become a journalist you must never assume anything and always keep an open mind. Hunting and shooting whether we think so or not are controversial and you must always be on the side of the angels if you want your sport to continue. Understood?’ Frances sat up straighter, pressed her molars together and refused the urge to cry.

‘I admit I’ve only worked on rural magazines and clearly I’m not the smart London journalist yet but, I grew up on a shooting estate and I understand this world. What you have written about the SHSS is wrong. It was not an independent report, it was written by a vet who had previously been employed by an animal rights so-called charity.’ Frances paused as Jana’s silence continued. ‘And I’m sorry this has got so heated, I’m only trying to help.’

‘I could possibly take you seriously if you didn’t dress like a lime tic tac.’

Embarrassed, Frances left the office to be greeted by the unusually silent Shooting Weekly team.

‘Don’t worry Frances she’s a Dutch twat, can’t think she’ll be around long,’ smiled Madge as she handed Frances the last of the Costa cakes.

Frances went outside for a breath of fresh air; she didn’t want the rest of the office overhearing her conversation with Henry. Somewhat extraordinarily the austere publisher in chief of PublishingHouse was outside too having a cigar.

‘Hi Henry, it’s Frances again, there’s a bit of bother with Jana’s column.’

‘Right. We’ve been rained off so we’re inside enjoying some dead men’s dicks.’

‘What?’

‘Oh sorry, sausages from a thermos flask, a shoot day snack that didn’t quite work! What’s up?’

Frances explained the altercation with Jana.

‘Right then, this is what to do.’ In spite of everything Frances couldn’t help thinking that Henry was sounding appealingly commanding.

‘Please re-write the first para and include the juicy articles we’re running but leave the second para.’

‘What? But that’s the most damaging bit.’

‘I appointed Jana to give Shooting Weekly a bit of gravitas. As the hunting debate hots up in Parliament we need someone on the staff who can view the situation with a cool, objective eye. We’re going to have to trust her judgement.’

‘You might but I don’t,’ said Frances becoming cross.

‘I’m the Editor and that’s my decision. See you tomorrow,’ said Henry as he hung up.

Chapter 2, Hanbury Castle, Devon

Henry put his mobile away as his best friend Hubert Smythe handed him a cup of beef tea. They, with the six other Guns, were in the gunroom of Hanbury Castle, Hubert’s ancestral seat, cleaning their shooters after a washout of a morning. The rain was still hammering away at the thin Elizabethan windows. The gun room, walled with almost black oak panelling and discrete gun cabinets, was made cosy with an enormous fire, blazing in the gaping Tudor fireplace. The friends sat on green padded benches and armchairs dissembling their guns, drying them, poking wire brushes into the barrels and oiling the stocks with linseed to prevent any permanent weather damage. The bantering and laughter was pretty much continuous. All in their early 30s and unmarried, they were men who loved shooting, loved the countryside and crucially, loved each other’s jokes.

The eight Guns consisted of Henry and Hubert’s roving syndicate, a group of friends who shot together six times a year, mostly for fun, this time to supply Henry with a decent article about high Devon pheasants and whether they were ready to fly in early October. Good job for the birds that the rain was so relentless, for they represented some of the best Shots in the country. Sebastian was a Major in the army, Edward a clerk of the course for the Jockey Club, Simon an ex-para private detective, James a computer technician, Sam a farmer and Adrian a sporting artist. They fell in together over ten years of being invited to the same shooting house parties, having boozy lunches at the Game Fair and bumping into each other at sporting art auctions. Henry was a slightly later addition to the gang as his previous jobs on Fieldsports Monthly, Football Today and Rugby Globe had taken up so much of his time. With his latest editing job combining his passion for sporting journalism and his lifelong hobby of gameshooting, he was in his element. If it wasn’t for the dreadful weather this would have been his perfect day. Sebastian was now putting his Holland & Holland 12 bore into a new Bill Amberg leather gunslip causing James to issue whistles of jealousy.

‘What’s up mate?’ asked Hubert who was the epitome of perfect English gentleman. Red, balding and ever so slightly running to fat. They’d met years ago when Henry as Commissioning Editor of Fieldsports Monthly, gave Hubert his first job drawing cartoons – Henry had recently poached him for Shooting Weekly.

‘The new News Editor’s been on the blower about Jana, remember I mentioned her?’ said Henry putting his Mirouko over and under into its canvas gun slip.

‘The new Deputy?’ Hubert’s Purdey side-by-side was still being cleaned by his loader.

‘It’s too boring to go into, but she’s written the Editor’s column in my absence. She comes out in support of the SHSS groups’ stance against hunting.’

‘What utter rot.’

‘Well we might think so, but if we, by that I mean the one million strong shooting community, want to limit the hunting bill to hunting and not an attack on all fieldsports, then we might be wiser to side with the SHSS group.’ Henry took a sip of the piping hot beef tea.

‘It’s bloody good isn’t it? We’ve got a beef stock pot that’s been bubbling away in the kitchen since 1871. Sorry, Henry. I’m not great on the minutia of hunting / shooting politics. I can only think that we must always defend all aspects of hunting, shooting and fishing. What we do is perfectly ethical.’

‘Oh I agree, I agree. I’m just,’ he rubbed his temples.

‘What?’

‘I agree but I’m not sure if our publisher does. I’ve been summoned to a meeting with her next week. I just sense that all this fuss about the hunting bill is putting unwelcome attention on the magazine.’

‘Oh cripes. I mean if things get really sticky and she wants shot of the title then I’m sure I’d be able to collect a few coppers together...’

Henry laughed and pushed out his long sturdy legs, his green and yellow shooting socks still sopping wet.

‘Hubert, you are too generous!’

‘No, I mean Daddy’s always suggesting I really get to grips with a project, doesn’t have much faith that my cartoonist talents will bring in enough to keep this place and the one in Yorkshire going...’

‘Hubert, I’m sure they don’t want to sell, I just sense that something big is up,’ said Henry pausing to squeeze his friend’s shoulders, ‘and being bought by so hopeless a business man as you would be sure to sound the death knell of Shooting Weekly.’

Abashed but in agreement Hubert said, ‘but it is a going concern isn’t it?’

‘Oh yes, Shooting Weekly sells 30,000 a week and is the tenth most profitable of Publishing House’s 96 titles. They won’t sell us to you for a few coppers but they might just bear down on our editorial direction.’ Henry stood up give his empty beef tea cup back to the butler. ‘Thanks Mike, delicious.’

‘Oh don’t worry. Anyhow, your new News Editor sounds as if she’s got the steel to fight your corner.’

‘Yes she needed some balls to take Jana on. I just have a feeling, that for all of her European ways – you know, flat shoes and all that, Jana might be right.’

The two friends joined the others around the fire, listened to Ed’s latest lamentable effort to bed a woman with pedigree, Sebastian’s ranting about Tony Blair and Simon’s ravings about the new iPod. Henry thought to himself, ‘If I never marry, edit Shooting Weekly into my 80s and keep shooting with these guys I will be, apart from Hubert, the happiest man in England!’

Sebastian’s voice boomed out, ‘Henry, you didn’t fall for Hubert’s rot about the stock pot did you? I saw cook coming in with a bag from Somerfield, filled with oxo cubes!’

Chapter 3, Oakdene Farm, Worcestershire

Oakdene Farm was once a beautiful house set on the edge of Worcestershire’s finest oak grove. Reputed to be over 1,000 years old, Druid’s Walk now included 28 trees in various states of decay but all of them breathtakingly beautiful. Now closely resembling bent old men, the gnarled oaks only sprouted the occasional shot of new growth on the upper branches. No-one but the local villagers knew of their existence and until Oakdene Farm was bought by Earth’s Children Co-operative, the grove was free from ramblers and hippies. For the past three years the inhabitants of Oakdene Farm had hosted Summer and Winter Solstice and Equinox parties which always left a sprinkling of what they called ‘recycling’ and the nearest farmer, ‘rubbish’.

The farmhouse itself was an eight-bedroom half-timbered pile with dairy, barns, garages, sheds and now, two static caravans and one corrugated iron bender on site. Earth’s Children Co-operative bought the site in 1997 and for the past four years its 15 acres had fallen into further disrepair as a succession of members of the commune had come and gone depending on how national campaigns such as the Newbury Bypass were faring. The storms of the recent weekend had