When we were growing up in Bristol in the sixties we had much more freedom than youngsters these days. When we were ten or eleven we would often pack a sandwich and disappear all day. When we had bikes we would cycle; when we didn’t we would walk.

 My Dad and my Mum’s brother bought a boat together which they kept in the boatyard at Wyke Regis in Dorset. This was before we had a car; it is amazing what you can pack into a motor bike and sidecar. During the weekends and the Summer holidays we camped on the beach; not allowed to do it now. We ate mackerel; pollock; whiting; bass; flounders; conger; john dory; wrasse; cockles; prawns; winkles and limpets. That is the start of the list!

My Mum’s relatives – not too sure how we are related – bought a small-holding in South Wales when I was ten; 16 acres of swampy ground, a tin-roofed house and outbuildings.

Bill and Harry went to live there, rearing pigs and keeping a house cow. Chickens, muscovys and geese wandered around. A small stream went through the farm. There was no running water; the toilet was a plank across a dry ditch that was flushed when it rained. The walls were corrugated iron and it rattled in the wind. Pigeons, rabbits and hare abounded, and we made friends who knew the country well.

Sid stayed in Bristol; ferrying stuff between Bristol and Llangain; he kept pigs up on the A38, opposite the airport. Rats abounded, and as soon as I was fourteen and able to legally shoot on my own I spent hours up there, lying on the roof with an air rifle, shooting the rats as they ran along behind the buildings. Fifty yards from the airport boundary. Would probably bring out the Armed Response Vehicles now.

By the time the boats wore out and my Dad nearly drowned I had moved down to Plymouth; spent no time fishing or shooting there; got into parachuting. By the time I moved back to Bristol Dad had forsaken boat fishing for the trout fly. Some pigeon shooting took place over the next few years, but I had very little time for sport for a few years.

I bought a Jack Russell terrier in memory of Dinky from Llangain; my fiancee insisted she should have a spaniel; thus we got into dog training. When the contract market collapsed in the early nineties, we moved lock stock and barrel to Scotland. There we got into ferreting, did some falconry and got a pair of German Short-haired Pointers.

So this website, what is it going to be about? Just about everything I have discussed here; people, sport, rats, dogs, pigeons and whatever else springs from my memories. I just hope someone out there enjoys sharing them!

Ken