A woman only knows she’s a good shot when the men stop telling her she is…

 Sir Joseph Nickerson

Shooting grounds are literally crawling with lady guns, especially the ones in the Home Counties, at around 9am after the school run.   Over the past 10 or 15 years the different shooting schools have really pushed their marketing at women and it’s worked.  Shooting instructors report that women learn a lot faster and listen more carefully to instructions than male shots – they really do get very good at it much more quickly.  Some go on to become competitive clay shots and say it’s the perfect antidote to a stressful home life bringing up young children!  The knock on effect is that lady guns are no longer so few and far between on the shooting field these days.    This is great for the sport, and shooting certainly cannot be accused anymore of being a purely male preserve.

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Gavin Gardiner Ltd’s first auction of 2014 of Fine Modern and Vintage Sporting Guns and Rifles comprises over 200 lots including a rare pair of 12-bore Hammer Ejector shotguns by London-maker James Purdey & Sons, that were built in 1895 for the Hon. Harry Stonor. Estimated to fetch £20,000-30,000, the guns will be part of the auction, which will take place on Wednesday April 16th 2014 at Sotheby’s, 34-35 New Bond Street, London. Read more…

Sir Joseph Nickerson, Joe to his friends, was an extraordinary man, and I was therefore delighted to be asked by Robert Jarman, the editor of The Vintage Magazine, to write an ‘Appreciation’ of him in this, the centenary year of his birth, which seems particularly fitting.

As his youngest daughter I sadly only had the privilege of knowing him for 21 years, but he moulded me into the person I am, introducing me to shooting and conservation from a young age, instilling the importance of etiquette on the field – and off it.

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When The Field magazine published a feature on the 75 best game shots of 2012, eight of them (over 10%) were female, a situation which did not exist even a few years ago, and which reflects the increasing numbers of ladies who shoot, and shoot well.  However, women were not always so willingly accepted on the Shooting Field, and Queen Victoria once opined ‘Only Fast Women Shoot’!

Meanwhile Sir Joseph Nickerson once famously, and accurately observed that, ‘A woman only knows she is a good shot when the men stop telling her she is’ – this quote is taken from his daughter, Rosie Nickerson’s book on shooting etiquette entitled, ‘How to be Asked Again’, published in 2009 by Quiller.

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Imagine my barely concealed delight at being invited by Robert Jarman, the Editor of The Vintage Magazine to write up an article about this leading gun company, when the automotive industry is really my subject. Why then the excitement? While I have spent a lifetime thus far eking out a living doing what I enjoy, shooting is my pastime and my passion.

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‘We few, we happy few, we band of Brothers’ – One of the well-known lines from the St. Crispin’s Day Speech of Shakespeare’s Henry V.

This photographic Essay is comprised of all the elements that make this the most enjoyable of shoots, namely my fellow guns, our families and friends, children, and dogs, who come and beat, and our ambitious Keeper, and his supportive wife and friends, and the team of pickers-up, and the incomparable countryside in which we are fortunate enough to enjoy our sport.
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