A nice neat three inch slit and two guy ropes cut, on the store tent, another serration and the flysheet unzipped, on the other tent, when I got back. Weather rotten - but not cold.
The shooters were out in the rain on the 12th. They shot both sides of my field in the afternoon, when it brightened up for a while. The shooting owner came over to see me, my first direct encounter with him. I told him he'd just walked into my copyright, he told me I was a true Hillman. I set up my tripod and camera and took about 25 Kodachromes of the dynamic grouse blasting scene, as it happened. I'll probably process them around Christmas - the beaters were in one large group, rather than in the more usual two small ones, and so were close together and keenly flapping their white plastic sheets, in the heather - photogenic. They get very close to the guns before the ceasefire hooter goes.
I'd wondered where the man's money was coming from and now realise it's showbiz. He seemed vaguely familiar, David Essex-ish, and must have a substantial back catalogue to be to afford the wages. Sounds a little like Sean Rickards. If I knew who he was I'd be able to sing twisted versions of his hits the next time they shoot. The keepers won't tell me who he is! His loader, who worked 'like the clappers', resembled a middle-aged roadie. They came shooting again on Friday - it's strange that the same beats will be shot twice the same week. The little birds go into shock for days after - yet the grouse themselves seem oblivious.
What's the megalithic content? Well, they've punched a new road through a roundhouse site, for one, and allegedly prevent people from exercising their Right To Roam, on the moors, with some 'Sheriff of Nottingham' Landrover tactics, for two. Luckily the owner just owns a couple of small cairns and a fallen standing stone - the important sites are owned by larger farmers and the Featherstone Estate, still.
The wall continues apace - and it's not over till it's over. My preamp had gone flat, with the damp, but I've found the keepers use CB Ch.1 to communicate on shoot days. I've patched a lead to bridge a walkie-talkie with the minidisc - it'll be too much to expect to intercept anything, but I'll try. I'm sending Mark Radcliffe a spoof Show And Tell tale. Knowing him, he'll refer to it, and not play it! It's an Arthur Brown classic - 'Sunrise' - and I say that I was the guy that put a plug on Arthur's first drum machine ...
