Firearms safety and security has an excellent record in the UK. Richard Ali, chief executive of BASC, explains how shooting organisations have been working with the Home Office to maintain it.

Firearms safety and security is an issue at the forefront of the modern shooting world. Whether you enjoy rough shooting, driven pheasant or grouse shooting, are keen on the history of the shotgun and shooting or hanker after one of the world’s 20 best shotguns, firearms safety and security is paramount.

We’ve all seen newspaper headlines calling for further legal restrictions (and sometimes outright bans) on firearms safety and security. They tend to follow the sort of outrage that today’s world has spawned. Organisations such as my own and others that are members of the British Shooting Sports Council, spend considerable energy explaining why sound and evidenced processes can maintain public safety and the sporting freedoms and values that Britain is famed for and why yet more statutory controls are not the answer to every threat, however real.

This principle underscores shooting organisations’ approach to the firearms safety and security guidance developed by the police and Home Office, which looks to provide a framework governing unannounced home visits for police to check and advise on security arrangements. The guidance makes clear that visits, which should not be at un-social hours, must be “based on specific intelligence in light of a particular threat, or risk of harm”. The guidance also states that no new power of entry has been created and that certificate holders must be provided with a clear and reasoned explanation for the visit.

FIREARMS SAFETY AND SECURITY: WORKING TOGETHER

BASC’s dedicated firearms team is working actively with police forces across England and Wales to ensure that visits are in line with the Home Office guidance. The same is true of other organisations. This is good for responsible certificate holders, who welcome the reassurance it brings, and good for the police, who must make the best use of their resources.

Targeting resources is important given the actual number of firearms stolen or lost. At year end March 2014 there were 1,837,243 shotguns and firearms on certificate. During 2013/14, 330 shotguns and 85 firearms (including sound moderators) were stolen. In the same year 120 shotguns and 42 firearms were lost. This shows a declining trend in England and Wales over the past five years. The five-year total of 3,296 shotguns and firearms lost or stolen represents 0.18% of licensed firearms.

Shooting bodies are supportive of firearms safety and security, and crime prevention activities as everyone wishes to see those numbers fall further. Some unannounced visits will be made for reasons of threat, risk or harm that do not relate specifically to the certificate holder but may concern such factors as local rural or urban crime.
While all shooting organisations understood the Home Office guidance, we all questioned the need to expand the Crimestoppers family of telephone lines by establishing one dedicated to calls about firearms safety and security or sudden changes in the behaviour of certificate holders. Concerns were raised about whether a Crimestoppers line could sow confusion and lead to the sort of consequences we should all be seeking to avoid (such as malicious reporting by those opposed to shooting). In each case we highlighted that what might seem like a simple idea could actually hamper the efficient and effective use of resources.
Shooting organisations continued to work with the relevant authorities on firearms safety and security, suggesting alternatives to a separate Crimestoppers line that our members and certificate holders support, and using the power of shooting networks to help deploy resources centred on intelligence and risk. This work bore fruit.
As ever, the lesson from this episode is, I believe, for policy makers to give more thought to establishing the exact nature of the problem they seek to address and then ensure the selection of the right mechanisms to achieve results and avoid unintended consequences.

5 PRINCIPLES OF BETTER REGULATION

Help is at hand for government and other public bodies in the form of the Five Principles of Better Regulation. The principles were identified by the Better Regulation Task Force in 1997 as the basic tests of whether any regulation is fit for purpose. The five are:

1. Proportionality: regulators should intervene only when necessary. Remedies should be appropriate to the risk posed, and costs identified and minimised.
2. Accountability: regulators must be able to justify their decisions and be subject to public scrutiny.
3. Consistency: government rules and standards must be joined up and implemented fairly.
4. Transparency: regulators should be open, and keep regulations simple and user-friendly.
5. Targeting: regulation should be focused on the problem and minimise side-effects.

While not specifically designed to address the crime prevention objectives of the Crimestoppers lines, I would suggest that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ Better Regulation Framework Manual, published in 2013, could nonetheless serve as a useful blueprint in the design of policy tools. Indeed, this 90-page document styles itself as practical guidance and includes a wealth of information, including the use of impact assessments to help policy makers fully think through and understand the consequences of possible and actual interventions.
Responsible certificate holders support the police in their efforts to help firearms certificate holders maintain the excellent record of firearms safety and security. Where there is specific intelligence of threat, risk or harm then the police should act. After all, it is in our interests and in our nation’s interests.

Best hunting country can raise passionate avowals. Do the hedges of the shires or the unexpected challenges of Exmoor and Dartmoor make for the best day, asks Michael Clayton.

Best hunting country – is it over hedge or moor? Whichever holds firm in your hunting heart, ensure you are on the best hunting horse and take our advice on what to wear out hunting before you start. And if you have never experienced the thrill of the chase, cherishing gun rather than horseflesh, take inspiration from those who have switched from breeks to breeches; from shooting to hunting, and mount up.

When Captain Ronnie Wallace announced suddenly that, after 25 years hunting the Hey­throp hounds, he was going to take the Exmoor pack, some wise­acres said, “That’ll be a nice rest for him.” How little they knew about moorland hunting. Many of Wallace’s former followers in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire began visiting him on Exmoor. They soon discovered that beautiful mornings cantering over the heather could swiftly become arduous rides in the teeth of gales sweeping in from the Atlantic. Perhaps this was the best hunting country after all?

BEST HUNTING FOR A HUNTING CORRESPONDENT

For me, as a hunting correspondent, no season was complete without spring and autumn hunting over heather and gorse – and I soon discovered that exciting, and sometimes hazardous, riding was far from ruled out.
Moorland hunting is not a fringe activity in the hunting world. Historically, the wild moors have offered some of the purest venery and made heavy demands on the stamina and horsemanship of those riding after hounds. Suerly a mark of some of the best hunting.

The best hunting happens where one can watch hounds work. Can you keep up with them over the shire hedges or Westcountry inclines?

It is a major error to assume you will never “leave the ground” riding to hounds on moorland and the weather may offer another challenge. I fell off a wiry little mare three times in one day when jumping walls on Dartmoor in teeming rain that utterly soaked me and my saddle. I recall an Exmoor day when the wind was so strong that my horse, and others in the field, refused to turn their heads into it. No wonder Wallace began to appear on wet days in a hunting coat made of red waterproof plastic.
Following the locals across such boggy ground as the Chains on Exmoor requires a certain act of faith. It is a distinctly nasty feeling when your horse flounders, staggers and finally subsides in a bog. The first time I saw another rider suffer this, I had distinct visions of Carver Doone disappearing forever in the Exmoor drama Lorna Doone.
Six Exmoor foxhunters dismounted, attached two girth straps together and slid them under the belly of the horse. They pulled hard and, eventually, with a sucking sound, the horse got to its feet and staggered out, plastered in black mud. A major grooming job awaited someone on its return to the stable.
As for the threatening, and reputedly bottomless, bogs of Dartmoor, I always followed the guidance of field masters with great care when riding round those dark morasses. Although Dartmoor in rough weather can bring to mind the hound of the Bas­ker­villes, I have enjoyed some of the best hunting in lovely weather there, as well as those glowering days. Granite stonework among the gorse often clatters under your horse’s feet but there are also many acres of springy ground offering a great ride.

MOORLAND THRILLS

Although jumping is generally rare on the Westcountry moorlands, if you have never before ridden fast down a one-in-four gradient, you will find that moorland hunting can offer plenty of unforgettable thrills.
I was once put on a wonderful galloping thoroughbred by that great producer of event horses Bertie Hill, Master of the Dulverton West. The potential competition horse romped down steep hills at a long-striding gallop I could not always check. As a chronic sufferer of acrophobia, I sometimes closed my eyes and ingloriously hung on to the mane, which is not a proper horseman’s response to a puller.

The breadth and beauty of the country can be enjoyed at its fullest when hunting in the moorland country

The lure of moorland hunting for the visitor in spring and autumn is the opportunity to enjoy the best hunting on mornings bathed in balmy sunshine, watching hounds in the purple heather. Even then, as I learnt one beautiful morning when cantering behind the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, there are lurking hazards. We seemed to be floating over purple heather when I was suddenly somersaulted over my horse’s head as he lurched to the ground. “Ah, you’ve found one of our old bomb holes under the heather,” said a friendly staghunter, who had caught my horse for me to remount.

SHIRE DASH

It is just as important in moorland hunting to concentrate hard on what the hounds are doing as it is in high Leicestershire. In the shires, among a keen mounted field, getting a good start is vital if you are to enjoy the thrills of a “quick thing”, say a 25-minute burst over fly fences. This is to many the best hunting imaginable.

Full throttle over fly hedges. The best hunting there is?

I once dashed ahead of the field and jumped the first fence alone, only to be politely invited by Quorn field master David Keith to jump back. With a big ditch before me, and an uphill take-off, this proved a challenge and much amused the rest of the field, especially when my horse refused twice before clambering through the fence.
As a new “Pomponious Ego” (Surtees’ term for a hunting correspondent), I was perhaps excessively fond of riding over obstacles in grassy country and paid for it once by breaking a leg by jumping on to hard ground while supposedly cub-hunting with the Belvoir. Yet, after a season competing in big moun­ted fields, I also delighted in the far greater sense of freedom hunting in wide expanses of moorland. I found it thrilling when a fox got up out of the heather far ahead of the Exmoor pack, hunted by Joint Master Jack Hosegood.
One day, hounds were drawing, heads down, in the white grass that bedecks some of those lovely Exmoor hills. Suddenly, as one, they lifted their heads and caught the scent of the distant fox on the breeze. They feathered, then accelerated and surged forward over the moors with a crash of hound music. We shortened our reins and cantered after them.
Hosegood, an excellent horseman and huntsman, made crossing the moors at speed look easy. I have never forgotten the sheer charm of following him that morning over the heather in the sunshine, as the hunt progressed from a walk to a canter for more than an hour until the hounds caught up with their fox.
Equally memorable, for entirely different reasons, were my above-mentioned three falls on a Dartmoor day. They occurred in a tremendous hunt with the Spooner’s and West Dartmoor pack, hunted by Major Michael Howard, one of the most genial of hunting personalities. We met at Princetown and hounds ran under the frowning walls of Dartmoor prison on the line of their first fox of the day. Then came the rain, heavy and inexorable. We came to a moorland area divided by granite stone walls and some of the locals on cobs and ponies made popping over these formidable obstacles look easy.
The sharp grey mare got right under the first wall before buck-jumping over it, catapulting me out of the side door. This happened twice more at successive walls, pro­viding entertainment for those who had sensibly gone through gates. Thereafter, wet through, I grasped the mare’s mane with one hand and the saddle pommel with the other to jump a few more walls. Not very Leicester­shire but it kept me in the plate. The mare had reared and bucked when I first mounted her that morning and I learnt later she had been bought for a “bargain price” at a local market the week before. A hunting correspondent’s life wasn’t all port, lawn meets and the best hunting.

When hunting on the moors you need to be prepared to deal with the mercurial weather.

Mike Howard blew for home after thick mist descended. I asked him, “What do you do when the worst Dartmoor fog comes down like a curtain?” “I just go home and leave them to it,” he replied cheerfully. “Hounds always come home to the kennel safely on their own. There’s no point in looking for them.”
There is much pleasure in riding on moorland as far from hounds as you please, staying on tracks and going home when you wish. I soon found that to ride a hunt to the end, you had to be prepared for long hours in the saddle and I took to carrying a small compass and binoculars after I once got lost hacking home late into the evening after a staghunt.
Riding hundreds of miles over the British Isles in pursuit of hounds and the best hunting every season, I relished the beautiful moorland hunting in the New Forest, Derbyshire, Wales, Yorkshire, Cumbria, the Borders and Scotland.
At the end of a season with the Quorn in Leicestershire, I would often take my hunting mare, Josephine, up to the grass and moorland country hunted by the South Notts and farther north by the High Peak Harriers.
We fastened protective knee boots on our precious hunters and perhaps this encouraged Josephine to knock several stones off a wall. I laboriously complied with the hunt’s policy of dismounting and replacing the stones. Josephine was not amused when we were left far behind the hounds.
The best hunting: hedge or moor? In the ideal hunting season, they are complementary. I wouldn’t give up a golden moment in either of these Elysian fields.

The Burn's Night haggis is the Cheiftain O'Puddings. Even though it's not purely Scottish and can be eaten without whisky, we'd recommend serving it in all its glory on 25th January

The Burn’s night haggis comes to the fore on 25 January, when diners around the world raise a glass to the “Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race”, as Robert Burns eulogised the haggis. Often eaten with a dram of whisky  and piped in with ceremony, the haggis makes a great winter supper too. Although our top 10 best pheasant recipes and best trout recipes are there to turn to if haggis is not to taste.

HOW IS HAGGIS MADE

A Burn’s Night haggis is made in many different ways but usually includes the pluck of a sheep (lungs, heart and liver), onions, oats, fat and seasoning, all stuffed inside a sheep’s stomach. Why is this curious dish still on the table? A Burn’s Night haggis is not quite what it seems. First, it’s not just Scottish. Eminent food historian Ivan Day has a blog that challenges the false histories that grow up around food. He says that haggis is a pan-British dish rather than solely from north of the Border.
Day has found 11 medieval recipes, all of them in manuscripts from England. Half refer to haggis and some have other names such as an “entrayle”. The “hag” part of the name comes from the Old Norse “to cleave”, describing the chopped-up offal. The dish was originally made to preserve the perishable innards of a slaughtered animal and is closely related to the original puddings, which were boiled dishes that weren’t necessarily sweet. In this way, haggis is similar to black pudding.

“One of the reasons we moved away from haggis in England is that we cooked puddings in cloths rather than animal skins and stomachs – in a sense, we eventually found them disgusting. We changed and the Scots didn’t. The haggis got marooned and then became a symbol of Scottishness” says Day.

Friends of Robert Burns gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the poet’s birthday. The tradition of the Burns’ Night supper stuck and the Burn’s Night haggis became the centre of a celebratory meal. Despite its seemingly humble ingredients, haggis was always a dish fit for feasts, according to Day.
But chefs and home cooks are now using the Burn’s Night haggis as an ingredient all year round, not just on Burns’ Night. Gastropub chef Trish Hilferty offers a haggis toastie as one of her bar snacks at The Canton Arms in Stockwell. Stephen Bull, one of the first good chefs to go down the gastropub route, serves haggis fritters in beer batter with a beetroot relish at The Butchers Arms in Herefordshire. Haggis also features in his “farmer’s breakfast” fry-up. “It’s got an intense flavour and when you get it from a good butcher it’s better than most black puddings you find,” he says.

Cook with haggis all year round, not just on Burn’s Night. These tartlets make a delightful starter.

Bull’s haggis comes from Macsween, a family company based in Edinburgh, that sells to supermarkets and butchers. Unusually, the Macsween recipe doesn’t use liver and this may be one factor in its success.
In 1984 John Macsween invented veggie haggis using pulses, nuts and vegetables. It now accounts for one in four of the haggises the company sells. To woo younger home cooks, it has now created the one-minute haggis, a quick-cook slice for the microwave. Macsween sells haggis all year, although a third of its sales are in January when the company shifts an impressive 300 tonnes of the stuff.

Macsween’s haggis comes has a vegetarian option too, made with mushrooms.

Trish Hilferty’s haggis comes from The Blackface Meat Company, a high-quality online butcher based in south-west Scotland. It is also sold at one of London’s best butchers, C Lidgate in Holland Park. Danny Lidgate describes the haggis as deliciously peppery, rustic and full of flavour.
Ben Weatherall of Blackface says haggis is a taste that translates to other cultures. When some Italian chefs came over for a shoot, they made their own haggis ravioli. “It was really good,” says Ben. “They think haggis is delicious.” His innovation is to stuff pheasant breasts with haggis to counteract what can be a dry meat.
The adventurous might like to make their own haggis. But be warned, it’s not for the faint-hearted. Fergus Henderson of St John restaurant in London, famed for its nose-to-tail eating, starts his recipe, “Do not be put off by the initial look of your ingredients”, before telling you to leave the windpipe of the lungs hanging over the edge of a pan with a dish below to catch what the lungs expel during cooking.
This sounds like some sort of hocus-pocus joke but F Marian McNeill, author of the classic cookbook The Scots Kitchen, recommends the same technique. Fergus Henderson likes Dijon mustard with his haggis, a nice reference to the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland. Food writer Christopher Trotter echoes this by sometimes partnering haggis with claret rather than whisky. “Leith Docks were where barrels of claret came in from Bordeaux,” he says. “People would have had whisky but claret was drunk at the grand tables.”
Trotter is hard core about how haggis is eaten, perhaps jaded by seeing it used to stuff chicken breasts as a sop to the tourists in Scottish restaurants. “In my opinion, haggis should be served as haggis, with bashed neeps and mashed potatoes,” he concludes.

A less traditional way of eating haggis.

When it comes to this curious remnant of the medieval table, some like to play around and many will want to stick to tradition. But, however you catch and cook your haggis, here’s to honouring the chieftain.

The Around the Farm naked charity calendar shows that it's not just the hunting hotties who can cause a stir.

The Around the Farm naked charity calendar 2015 is another of the top notch naked charity calendars raising money for a good cause featured in the pages of The Field. Each month The Naked, Strewth pays homage to the thoroughly country based penchant for baring embonpoint for a good cause. This particular shooting image gives the hunting hotties at the Holcombe Hunt naked charity calendar (which has proved particularly popular) a run for their money.

AROUND THE FARM NAKED CHARITY CALENDAR 2015

The Around the Farm naked charity calendar came about when Georgie Fenn had a fall from her horse in May which required assistance from the Air Ambulance Service. After a week in hospital for a collapsed lung Georgie’s mother – Mary- carried out a bit of research and found out each call out for Air Ambulance Service costs them in the region of £1700. They rely purely on donations to keep running.

So Mary organised a Barn Dance which raised £2000 and now Georgie with the help of her friends including photographer Katie Ingram has put together a rather racy but fabulous calendar.

Where it lacks in clothes it makes up for in creativity, they say.

The Around the Farm theme seemed suitable as all the calendar stars are from farming backgrounds. “And there aren’t too many passers by!” says Georgie.Any regular Field reader knows the Young Farmers have a particular penchant for removing their clothing in a good cause. Just glimpse the WFYFC naked charity calendar.

Anyone who lives, works or plays in the countryside will know the vital importance of the Air Ambulance Service. What better way to support the cause than buying an Around the Farm calendar.

The Around the Farm naked charity calendar costs £12 including postage. They are available by email from Georgie Fenn.

Luxury skiwear can looks good, answers the technical questions and wears well. Make sure you are kitted out correctly in the best available.

Luxury skiwear that fits well, lasts for eons and looks stylish is always a plus on the slopes. We know what to wear out hunting and what to wear when shooting, but that unerring sense of what’s right comes unstuck on the slope. The best luxury skiwear brands have the technical know how that makes them just the ticket for moguls or the St Moritz. But of course, if you’re attempting The Cresta Run then tweeds lead the way.

And if you are heading to the slopes a nip of something tasty can do wonders when presented with a mogul field. Take note of The Field’s Hip Flask Championships 2013. Winner – Off-piste: Beetroot and Horseradish Vodka which packs a punch, or for a quick and fun idea to take on your alpine expedition try The Field’s Hip Flask Championships 2013. Highly Commended – Off-piste: Toffee Vodka. It will be sure to keep the chill out.

A man who can handle a pair of skis is a reassuring companion. If he can balance a pair on each shoulder, so much the better. But even one who can handle the Vallée Blanche with ease will come unstuck if he insists on hauling out the rather dodgy all-in-one that has seen better, foxier days.

LUXURY SKIWEAR FOR FIELD FAMILIARS

Most sporting blades are familiar with Schöffel in the field, and their luxury skiwear is a great place to start. The Whistler jacket in blue (£490) is made from windproof and waterproof Venturi two-way-stretch material with a zip-off padded hood and a wealth of extras. Apart from standard snow features there is a goggles pocket with spiral cable and lens cloth with press studs for easy fastening, a key hook in another pocket, a zipped pocket on the left arm for the lift pass and the Recco system on the right arm. More than 600 resorts and rescue services use this system. The reflector on the jacket bounces a signal that directs the rescue party. Team the jacket with the Irving Dynamic II salopettes (£200) in black for a purposeful look.

Cut a dash in the Moncler Alben Jacket

For the stylish skier Moncler luxury skiwear combines fashion with performance and will be on show in the season’s hot spots. It has been producing its famous duvet jackets since 1952 and uses only the best down. The Alben jacket (£1,135) is made from nylon laminate with and ultra-lightweight, high-performance membrane, sheepskin inserts and feather/down inner. The sleek look won’t suit off-pisters (there is only one internal pocket) but for those cruising the red runs in Les Trois Vallées it works. The casual trousers (£450) are slim fitting and suitably technical.

Swiss luxury skiwear brand Mover works with natural fibre in its skiwear using wool rather than synthetic padding material in its Gore-Tex jackets and trousers. “Wool is important because it works,” says Mover CEO Nicolas Rochat. “It is sustainable, long-lasting, odour-resistant. There are no disadvantages, only advantages for the skier.” The Mover Swisswool jacket (€990)comes in black, blue, an understated olive green or a “make sure you’re up to the job” neon and comes out on top for breathability and warmth due to the natural fibres. Mover’s wool trousers (€600) are merino wool lined. Pair them with a merino T-shirt (€85) or longjohns (€95) and even the early season chill will be kept at bay.

The Mover Swisswool Jacket uses wool rather than synthetic padding

And the best place to take your Mover kit this year? “For safe free-riding, Verbier, the backside of Mont Fort. Or, for safe heli-skiing, Betren in the Spanish Pyrenees,” says Rochat.

The right base layers are essential, and for home-grown comfort go to Dhu. Launched in December 2012, Dhu designs cashmere performance base layers that are manufactured in Scotland. The perfect addition to your luxury skiwear wardrobe. The pieces have been rigorously field tested and fill the gap between high-end fashion and traditional knitwear. “Dhu is unique in that it combines traditional knitwear expertise with innovative cashmere garment design,” says director Ian Moore. “We fuse performance cashmere with technical clothing components more commonly seen in outdoor and sporting wear. The result is active-wear cashmere clothing which offers innovative design and modern function.”

DHU cashmere base layers are a necessity.

Cashmere was used on the British Antarctic Expedition 1910-13 and the British Mount Everest Expedition in 1953. The Dhu men’s Performance Jersey (£229) and men’s Touring Gilet (£235) are covetable pieces and sensible investments for the skier and would not be amiss in the field on an icy shooting morning.

The best luxury ski gloves are also home grown. Alexski is based in Hampshire and has a wealth of discerning advocates (look at those Royal ski snaps). The black leather men’s gloves (£285) are lined with possum fur and Gore-Tex, maintaining an extraordinary level of warmth and comfort for even the most cold-fingered. The women’s version (£265) comes in a chic range of colours. To crown the look many now don a helmet on the slopes, but if you still ski au naturel the William & Son Inverni wool hat lined with rabbit fur (£270) hits the mark.

Crowning glory. An invernini wool and fox fur hat from William and Son.

And if you are looking to update your ski eyewear then Costa’s renowned fishing glasses double up as great lenses for the slopes. “The Blackfin and Permit [from £199 to £269] with wraparound frames and vents to aid airflow are the best,” says Steve Chance from Costa. “And the 580 Silver Mirror lenses are perfect for snow conditions as are the 580 Green mirror.” For selfies the exceptional Zeal Optics HD Camera Goggles (£319) makes sure all your action on the slope is recorded and can be relived.

First published in The Field February 2013

Luxury slippers can entertain with leisure at home. But they are also bang up to date and reviving as a modern alternative to the loafer.

Luxury slippers have several guises and multiple personalities. From summer staple in fashionable linen to state occasions in full patent shine, it can hold its own amid the Oxfords, Derbys and even the best brogues. It has its own place in the gentleman’s wardrobe and looks well with best evening wear. The Albert slipper (named after Queen Victoria’s consort) is a style statement. Put on a brogue and you join a club. Don a pair of luxury slippers and you start your own.

TRADITIONAL LUXURY SLIPPERS

Bowhill & Elliott has been making luxury slippers in Norwich since 1874 and is run today by Roger Jury, a direct descendent of the founder. “The firm started out making hand-turned slippers [soft leather] but now specialises in Albert luxury slippers,” says the company’s Ben Grint. “You can choose from our stock, which includes cashmere, velvet, tweed and six colours of quilting, but we can source most things.”

Lasted slippers at Bowhill and Elliot’s factory.

A pair of Albert luxury slippers made-to-order can cost from £180 to £395, and the ready-to-wear range starts at £180. “For a pair of luxury slippers to be bespoke you would have to have your own last made, and that is a much more expensive process, starting at about £1,000,” he says. “We have two lasts: one a narrower, slightly more elegant fit; the other (used for the majority of British slippers) a wider, more traditional look.”

The luxury slippers are bench made by hand in the small factory, which employs 10 people, and take eight to 10 weeks to make. “I go to work in my slippers every day,” says Grint. “They are navy velvet with gold quilting and binding. Our best-selling luxury slippers are the skull and sabres, plain black velvet and a customer’s own monogram.”

LUXURY SLIPPERS WITH WOW FACTOR

Fiona Dreesmann is passionate about luxury slippers. The author of The Gentleman’s Slipper and founder of My Slippers in 2010, she offers fantastic made-to-order and ready-to-wear ranges. “I have worn slippers for years and after I started writing the book I decided to have a pair made. I had so many positive comments I started the business,” she says.

My Slippers’ primary selling point is the sheer exuberance of colour and trim. “I love the colours,” says Dreesmann. “If you are going to wear black slippers, why not go for a shocking pink trim? My best seller, however, is still a traditional navy version.”

The luxury slippers are handmade in England. “There are only three companies still making these slippers,” she says. “I have my own last, which ensures a certain individuality.”

My Slippers offers more than 300 colours in velvet, linen, flannel or vintage fabrics. The website allows you to create your own luxury slippers temptingly easily. “The number of clients embroidering their own needlepoint and using that to create their own slippers is increasing. Alternatively, we can create the needlepoint for you. I have just created a pair for a client as a thank you for a holiday,” she says, “the embroidery showing different elements of the trip.”

My Slippers spice velvet with fox’s heads are a hit with the hunting crowd.

From the ready-to-wear range there are some covetable choices, particularly the spice velvet with fox head (£325) and dark-green linen with lobsters and red trim (£345). So difficult is it to select a style, you will probably have to settle for a brace.

“Our Sandringham slipper (£165) is far more like a shoe than a slipper,” says Adrian Herring of Herring. “The tweed fabric is a bespoke design made for Herring by Fox Brothers and the slipper is handmade in England. Because it is made on a last, like a welted shoe, it has a proper shape and structure. Out of the house, it is usually worn without a sock or with a thin sock if you are going to your club.”

Herring’s Sandringham slippers in tweed are a country classic.

For a vibrant take on luxury slippers try a pair from Pammie-Jane Farquhar’s Nomad Ideas. “The company started 11 years ago and sources unique and beautiful Kilim from Turkey,” she says. “The slippers (£135) are handmade in Turkey and go with everything.” Available up to a size 14, they add a jazzy kick to any outfit and work well as a weekend shoe, too.

Nomad Ideas’ Kilim designs, made in Turkey, are rather jazzy.

Some of the traditional Northamptonshire shoemakers produce both Albert luxury slippers and a turned slipper. Crockett & Jones’ Lion Rampant in black velvet (£215) has a black satin quilted lining, a hard-leather sole and is available in an E-width fitting. The company also offers semi-bespoke special orders (from £215), which take from six to eight weeks. The Ritz slip-on mule (£120), an ideal house slipper, is available in black calf and dark brown suede.

“Our best-sellingstyle of luxury slippers is the Tumbled Calf Black Mews Moc (£298),” says Robert Switzman of Harrys of London. The luxury shoemaker combines traditional craftsmanship with the latest in footwear technology, and boasts an array of skins for its slippers. “The Kudu Suede version (£298) is a country favourite,” he says, “perfect to wear with your feet up by the fire in winter.”

Harry’s of London’s ostrich slippers use specially sourced African ostrich leather.

The slippers are handmade in Italy and take four to six weeks. “Our Ostrich (£615) luxury slippers are made with exceptional attention to detail.”

Whether you are stuck on navy or hanker after shocking pink, prefer them restrained or resplendent, be sure you buy a pair of slippers this season.

The Cresta Run in St Moritz is a sport with a thrill like no other. So grab your tweed and head for the mountains.

The Cresta Run is held every year in Switzerland’s glitziest town. So when the shooting has finished and the hunting frozen off reserve your place on the Cresta Run, for thrills and spills aplenty. The St Moritz Tobogganing Club (SMTC) is over 125 years old, and only those with suitable dash and a dollop of vim seek out the thrill of the ultimate downhill ride.

The St Moritz Tobogganing Club

The Cresta Run, indeed, all winter sports in the Alps, have their origins in a bet made in September 1864 by Johannes Badrutt, the proprietor of the Engadiner Kulm hotel in St Moritz, to four English guests.  The hamlet had an average of 322 days sunshine a year, a dry, invigorating climate and mineral springs renowned for their curative properties, and was a popular summer destination for Britons seeking the thrill of mountaineering or suffering from tuberculosis.

At the end of the summer Badrutt attempted to convince his guests that winter in the Alps was just as attractive as summer. If they returned in December they could stay as long as they liked at his expense and if he were wrong he would reimburse their travel expenses.

The Englishmen had a glorious time in the sunshine, skating on the lake, wallowing in the baths and tobogganing on schlittli; they returned home to spread the word that winter in the Alps was an experience not to be missed. Thus the Alpine winter season was born and with it an enduring Anglo-Swiss relationship.

THE CRESTA RUN, THE BEGINNING: RACING THE STREETS OF ST MORITZ

Until skiing started in the 1890s, tobogganing was the principal entertainment and newly established winter resorts reverberated to the hoots and yells of Brits of both sexes racing one another down the busy, winding streets of towns such as St Moritz, Davos, Aros and Chamonix.

Clubs and committees were formed and races organised on the icy downhill roads. At one time, there were more than 40 “village” pistes across the French, Swiss and Italian Alps, the most challenging being the steep 3.2 kilometre post-road from Davos to Klosters.

In 1883, John Addington Symonds, the British author and poet, founded the Davos Toboggan Club and organised the first international races.  These took place over a week of balls and dinners, with seven nations represented among the 21 competitors. This led to the Symonds International Challenge Cup and, a little later, the Freeman’s Trophy for women competitors, named after Edith Freeman who rode her toboggan, The Behemoth, with total disregard for her own or anyone else’s safety.

Edith Freeman on The Behemoth, rode her toboggan with total disregard for her own or anyone else’s safety.

Among the St Mortiz contingent in Davos were members of the British Winter Residents Outdoor Sports Committee. Realising that Davos had stolen a march on St Moritz, they enlisted the help of Peter Badrutt, Johannes’ son, who was now running the much-enlarged Hotel Kulm, to build a toboggan run.

They staked out a three-quarter mile course following the contours of the valley from the Hotel Kulm, past the hamlet of Cresta to the outskirts of Celerina, and when the snows arrived in November, they set to work.

SKELETON RACING ON SNOW. CREATING THE CRESTA RUN

Roger Gibbs, in The Cresta Run 1885-1985, describes the committee, their boots swathed in coarse bandages and arms linked, trudging time and again along the staked-out line until the snow was trampled down for the frost to harden.

Creating earth banks for a framework on which to pile snow was a drawn-out business and icing the Run required endless buckets of water but with labour and materials provided by Peter Badrutt, it was completed in January 1885.

The first official toboggan races took place in Davos.

The Davos Toboggan Club was invited to compete in the first Grand National Cresta Run on 16 February, and, to the chagrin of the course builders, the visitors won. However, the celebrations in the Kulm’s Sunny Bar eclipsed anything seen in Davos.
The Cresta Run was a rough-and-ready affair down which men and women careered sitting upright on their schlittli and steering with their heels or wooden picks, but improvements and innovations were quick in coming.

A Mr Cornish astonished everyone by lying head-first on his toboggan to ride the 1887 Grand National Cresta Run, a position universally adopted, except by women, in 1888.

That year a skeleton-framed toboggan was introduced to the Cresta Run, with steel runners and a pad on which the rider lay, using metal rakes on his boots to brake and steer. This was further refined in 1902 with the sliding seat, which allowed riders to move their weight backwards and forwards as they negotiated the banks.

By now the design of the Cresta Run was established as a serpentine ice tube of 10 banked corners, approximately 1,212 metres in length with a drop of 157 metres and a gradient of 1 in 2.8 to 1 in 8.7, down which experienced riders hurtled at speeds approaching 112kph.

The Kulm Hotel is rather grander than inthe days of Johannes Badrutt, who started the fashion for winter sports.

THE MODERN CRESTA RUN

Open from just before Christmas until the end of February, the Cresta Run is still hand-built from scratch every year with costs met by the SMTC and its 1,300 members plus active support from the Kurverein, the St Moritz town council. It follows the original route and is recognisably the same as the 1885 construction, although constant upgrading of bank design and icing quality enables riders to reach speeds of 128kph on the modern Cresta Run.
The Cresta Run has survived partly because it is unique and riding it is probably the last truly amateur sport; partly because over the years the Kurverein has supported the Club through financial vicissitudes; and partly because the Run is an extreme sport that provides a thrill unlike any other. The SMTC is generous in providing time and expertise to encourage beginners, many of whom become devoted members.

In February 1973, I was in St Moritz for the last race of a season’s bobsleighing and thought I would stay on to try the Cresta Run. I remember my first ride far more vividly than any of the runs on various bob tracks – even the one by moonlight on an old practice bobsleigh with a pot-valiant Frenchman at the helm.

At 8am I was at Junction, two thirds of the way down (where beginners start), clad in leather knee and elbow pads, gloves with metal plates, helmet, chin guard and spiked boots. Air Marshall Ramsay Rae, the SMTC secretary, announced over the tannoy that the Run was free and with a series of kangaroo hops I pushed the toboggan off. Immediately things went awry. I landed too far forward and was badly out of alignment, banging from side to side as I picked up speed down Junction Straight, slithering round the first corner, Rise, like a drunken crab, hitting the wall an almighty thump as I came out.

Battledore was negotiated rather niftily but then the Run dropped away and Shuttlecock, the long, raking left-hand bank, was upon me. I slewed dangerously to the left, dug my right foot in frantically, almost became unseated, bounced round Stream Corner and wobbled down Bledisloe Straight, entering the sharp left-hander at Bulpetts too high and earning myself another clout as I exited.

Down the long straight to Scylla I whizzed with surprising grace and on to Charybdis, with the ice rumbling inches below my face and an unbelievable impression of ever-increasing speed. Heart in mouth, I cleared Cresta Leap to cannon painfully from wall to wall down the last stretch, arriving at Finish to hear the Air Marshall announce that J Scott appeared to have arrived in one piece.

It was a deeply humbling experience, made all the more so when some of the Cresta Run riders presented me with a cup inscribed, “Johnny Scott, Cresta King”, but the abiding memory is of having achieved something remarkable.

Over the decades, the lure and excitement of the Cresta Run has attracted people of many nationalities and backgrounds, a loyal following of millionaires and nobles, commoners and royalty. Yet it has always been democratic. Membership of the SMTC is by no means exclusively aristocratic or even particularly wealthy.

Indeed, two of the very best riders were St Moritz shopkeepers – the great Nino Bibbia, a grocer, and Paul Felder, who owned a clock shop. From its beginnings the SMTC has been a partnership between the people of St Moritz and the British, and the town would not be the same without it.

11 Pheasant shooting tips to guarantee great sport before the end of the season.

Pheasant shooting tips are useful at any time of year, but in the last few weeks of the season you should be putting them all into practise. Numerous pheasant may have been bagged, but there is always room for improvement. With the Editor’s top tips end the season on a high.

Once you have bagged your birds make sure you know just what to do with your pheasant at the end of the day with the top 10 best pheasant recipes, guaranteed to please even jaded palates. And vote in our poll: which month is the best month to shoot?

11 PHEASANT SHOOTING TIPS for the best season’s shooting, courtesy of The Field’s editor, Jonathan Young.

1. When you arrive at your peg, mark carefully your neighbours’ positions and select the slice of sky that will legitimately hold your birds. Stick to that zone unless it’s to dispatch wounded birds. Shooting birds that another gun has already missed with both barrels – known as “wiping his eye” – is commonplace among friends but do not overdo it with strangers.
2. Always use a second barrel if the bird is not killed outright with the first. Don’t select another bird until the first is dead.
3. Another pheasant shooting tip is don’t take a pheasant that’s too low unless it’s on a back-end, clear-up day. You will either miss, which is embarrassing, or hit, which is worse, as you may smash the bird.
4. Don’t try and shoot birds that are out of range for your equipment or level of skill. For most people 45 yards is the limit.
5. Pheasants become harder to despatch cleanly as the season progresses. Many guns switch from 30gm No 6 to 32gm No 5 after Christmas. And make sure your guns fit  – the heaviest loads are ineffective if they are in the wrong place.
6. Unless they are very high, try and take the birds in front, somewhere between 45-70 degrees. The birds are more likely to be hit in the head and neck and there is more time for a controlled second shot.
7. If they are steeple-scrapers, consider turning sideways and taking them as an overhead crosser – it can be easier to gauge the necessary lead.
8. Count your birds down on each drive and mark them carefully, especially any runners. Make sure a gundog handler knows exactly what’s to be gathered.
9. Be courteous to everyone on the shoot, especially the keepers, beaters and gundog handlers. Without them, we could not have driven shooting.
10. Always take your brace of pheasants home. The essence of our sport is harvesting food for the table.
11. The final pheasant shooting tip is simple. Subscribe to The Field in our January sale, for the best in shooting tips and techniques, and save up to 39%.

Hungry for more? Here are some more shooting tips – and some ways to cook those birds!

Jason Lowes spent his childhood in the north Pennines and summers beating on the moors. He has an enduring love of both the gamebirds and the landscape.

Jason Lowes is based in County Durham. The watercolourist’s sporting art teems with coveys of grouse or partridges but what really draws you into his evocative work is the quality of his landscapes. Heather in bloom on a low horizon blurs to grey; autumn sunshine strikes a copper glow from dying bracken – it’s clear the man has lived on these moors all his life, although he has never been grouse shooting.

“I’ve been here in Stanhope for the past 12 years and, before that, I lived for 29 years in a little village not far from here called Rookhope. I was brought up with the grouse moors, they were always there on the tops of the hills surrounding my home” says Jason Lowes.
Although his father wasn’t involved in keepering, Lowes’ older brothers and sisters all went beating and as a teenager he relied on beating for summer holiday work. “I think my parents were quite glad because it kept me out of trouble. After five days in a row of beating you are far too exhausted to think of doing anything apart from sleeping,” Lowes admits.

“At that stage I didn’t have the love of the grouse that I do now. I was into the moors and the wildlife generally. My favourite moor is Reeth, where the Nickersons have their shoot. But all the moors have their own individual topography and characteristics that make them special.
“When you are painting a grouse moor you need to get those particular landmarks right, a rocky outcrop or a burn, otherwise a moor can look a bit nondescript. For me, the light is really special. On a breezy, showery day you get these dramatic cloud formations where half the moor is in deep shadow and the other half bathed in sunlight. Of course, they look very pretty in the snow but I think the best time of all is in the late season, in October or November, with the sun very low on those last couple of drives and you get an orange glow, which is very atmospheric.
I have a print called November Grouse – I was out on a day late on and there were these wonderful russet colours. The season only lasts a few months, yet the landscape changes so quickly from month to month.”
Sporting artist Jason Lowes studied graphic design at college but “did ‘normal’ jobs for the first 10 years and ended up working in a place that produced decorative lead crystal figurines. Their designer retired and they knew I painted a bit and I wanted to try it, so they let me have a go and I ended up sculpting the designs.”
But the company went into receivership, leaving Jason Lowes, who was recovering from a car accident at the time, out of a job.

“It is not the easiest thing to jump into being an artist, with all the naysayers who are convinced you won’t make it. As with anything creative, you more or less have to be self-employed. When you’ve been used to having a good job, the whole thing feels a bit risky but I decided to have a go at it. And 14 years later, here I am.”

Starting out was tough, although a £50 enterprise allowance did at least cover his sandwich money. “It was a bit daunting but I did the rounds of the agricultural and country fairs and the commissions started trickling in.”
Shoot and moor owners love the fact that Jason Lowes’ paintings have the painstaking detail you would expect from a leading wildlife artist, combined with a sense of place that makes them very personal. “I think any artist who paints gamebirds cannot help but be influenced by Rodger McPhail and, of course, Archibald Thorburn. I am always out and about with the binoculars observing and getting photographs. Every painting reflects all the different aspects and knowledge of the landscape. I am doing a partridge painting now and there are more than a dozen different photographs going into it, as well as all the detail.
But grouse remain Lowes’ first love. “I have never shot but when you are there on the moor on a day and you see the first lot of birds after such a long wait, it is amazing. You never tire of it. I still watch them all through the winter and then into the spring with their chicks.”

Pheasant sausages are an inspired way to use up game at the end of the season. Freeze them and fling them on the barbecue once the weather improves

Pheasant sausages are probably the last thing one thinks about when presented with a brace. You might consider our top 10 best pheasant recipes or ring the changes with a pheasant kiev (they are delicious).  But have faith, turning your late season birds into sausages is the perfect way to use pheasant without the threat of another casserole.

I have come up with a recipe in collaboration with my friend and master butcher, Alan Hayward of Vicars Game in Berkshire, that you can make at home or ask a butcher to do for you. If you offer to buy enough, your butcher will make them for you. After all, sausages freeze very well.

PHEASANT SAUSAGES

Makes several kilos

• 3 pheasants, boned out
• 1 chicken, boned out (skin on)
• 3 hot red or green chillis
• 1 bunch fresh coriander
• 75g (3oz) fresh ginger
• 2 limes
• Sea salt and black pepper
• 100g (31⁄2oz) panko breadcrumbs
• Sausage casings

Firstly, you must understand that these pheasant sausages will not be pheasant alone. You need some fat to make it work, and in this case we are going to use chicken. Do not remove the skin of the chicken, since that is where the fat lies.
For this recipe I am going to go to Thailand, and make a spiced Thai-style sausage, which really works.
Start by finely dicing the pheasant and chicken, making sure no shot gets into the mix. Place the meat in a large bowl. Finely chop the chilli, coriander stem and leaf, and dice the ginger as small as you can. It’s a good idea to use a fine grater. Grate the zest of the limes; add the juice and breadcrumbs. These ingredients go in a second bowl.
Run the meat once through a medium mincer, then mix with all the other ingredients by hand. Season evenly, with more salt than pepper.
Allow the mixture to rest for an hour, then make into sausages using fresh casings.

If you do not have a sausage machine or attachment (they are cheap and available), cross your friendly butcher’s palm with silver.
Allow the sausages to hang in a cold fridge for 24 hours before use. Cook as you would any good banger.

A fishing and stalking week beautifully captured on film. This atmospheric short video documents a week in the West Highlands.

Fishing and stalking for a week in the Highlands is top of many to do lists. The sporting break has long been a Field favourite and after watching this video you will be keen to book your own week on hill and stream. If you need a guiding hand The Field has chosen some of the best sporting lodges perfect for a sporting holiday.  And can offer best advice for those keen on going deer stalking, salmon fishing – be a Laird for the week.

FISHING AND STALKING ON FILM

This video beautifully documents a weeks salmon fishing and stalking on the Nonach Estate in Ross-shire near Dornie. The river Ling is a small but classic West Highlands spate river in a spectacular setting which runs into Loch Long. The beat is six miles long and offers fisherman large deep pools and fast moving rapids which can be fished from both the bank and from the middle of the river. A good week will see 30 or so fish caught but all depends on the water levels which can rise and fall in a matter of hours.

The video was shot and edited by Will Holloway who runs a London based video production company called Voop Productions if you are keen to have your own week filmed. The video features friends and family enjoying a week fishing and stalking, and a wonderful shot of Will’s father Edward playing and landing a fish with the help of Will’s older brother Nick. Edward and his party have been fishing the river since 1978 with the younger generation joining in more recent history.

We hope you enjoy the film and it allows you to escape to river bank, glen and hill for just a few minutes!

This fishing and stalking sojurn is a diverting delight for the deskbound countryman.

The best way to cook pheasant breasts will leave them succulent and delicious. Nobody wants a disappointing dry old breast.

The best way to cook phesant breasts sometimes appears to be a closely guarded secret. It isn’t, one just requires the little know-how below. So whether you use this advice to improve upon the top 10 best pheasant recipes or want to try reviving a dry bird – Roast grouse recipe this method produces top notch results.

We have all eaten pheasant breasts that are dry, tough, stringy and vaguely disappointing. This is because, unlike chicken (with which we naturally compare pheasant), the pheasant lives a real, free-range life and, especially by the end of the season, has flown a fair bit, thus exercising its flying muscles (the breasts). Thus, the only way to ensure a great result is not to overcook it. To this end we will get a little Heston and cook the breasts in an unusual way.

THE BEST WAY TO COOK PHEASANT BREASTS

Serves 4

• 4 undamaged pheasant breasts (skin on)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Black pepper
• 1 large ziplock cooking bag
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 drinking straw
• 100g (31⁄2oz) butter (for later)
• Sea salt (for later)

This is more about the cooking of the meat than the actual recipe, and you can serve it with any sauce you like. Mainly, you will be amazed about the juiciness of the meat and how easy this is, once you get your head around it. Essentially you need to know that meat changes from raw to cooked by about 65°C (149°F), so if the cooking temperature never exceeds that point, and we seal in the moisture, then (a) we cannot overcook it and (b) it will be perfect. Try it.
Marinade the breasts in the oil and pepper and slide them into the bag. Add the sprig of rosemary and lay the bag flat. Zip it almost shut, and poke the straw into one corner. Suck out the air, then zip it completely shut. Pop the bag on a roasting tray and put it in the oven at 65°C (149°F) or a pan of water at the same temperature; use a thermometer. Leave it for an hour (more does not matter – it won’t overcook) then remove. The meat should feel firm with no wobbliness. If there is, put it back in the oven.
When done, remove from the bag and pat dry on kitchen paper. Then heat the butter in a non-stick pan. When the butter foams, pop the breasts in skin-side down, then sprinkle over the salt. Cook for one minute, continually spooning butter over. They are ready when golden.

Inundated with a freezer full of game? Don't despair. The Field's top 10 best pheasant recipes will come to the rescue

The Field’s best pheasant recipes are the answer to a game cook’s prayers. Whether you have a freezer full of birds from the season or a single bird someone has given to you, one of these pheasant recipes will do the job. How about a Valentine’s game supper for two? Parmesan pheasant breasts with crispy ham will definitely hit the spot, and can easily be scaled up if you prefer your St Valentine’s Day with pals.

For ravenous hoardes and a clutch of old birds pheasant guidwife is hard to best. Three ingredients, one pot, minimal effort. All you need to do is concentrate on cooking the rice.

And when all else fails, go old school and add spices for the perfect Devilled pheasant .

For those who have tried to cook pheasant breasts but find them dry, perhaps it’s time to get a little ‘Heston’. Mike Robinson’s secret to the perfect pheasant breast is revealed in the best way to cook pheasant breasts.

Choosing which best pheasant recipe to use will depend on the bird you bag. You will also be able to tell by looking if your bird is young or old, a cock or a hen. If you are more familiar with a pheasant from your game dealer, ask him.

And if it comes from the supermarket you will have to take your chances. A good game dealer or butcher should be able to tell you everything you need to know about the bird.

So take your pick of these best pheasant recipes and put your bag to use.

Top 10 best pheasant recipes

Pheasant Guidwife

Parmesan pheasant breasts with crispy ham

Pheasant Normandy

Pheasant and vegetable stir-fry with a black bean sauce

Pot roast pheasant with Fennel

The best pheasant stock and soup ever

Perfect roast pheasant with white wine and charlotte potatoes

Pheasant “Prueski”

Gennaro’s pheasant

Devilled pheasant

For those who might prefer fish to fowl then try our Top 10 best trout recipes for the definitive fishy feast.

Italian pheasant recipe. A delicious rustic take on pheasant

• October 20, 2014

An Italian pheasant recipe should be included on the list of the top 10 best pheasant recipes. It melds the …Continue reading »

The very best pheasant stock and soup recipe. Making stock is simple.

• October 13, 2014

The best pheasant stock and soup recipe is a stalwart on the the top 10 best pheasant recipes list. The other …Continue reading »

Perfect roast pheasant recipe, with white wine and charlotte potatoes

• October 13, 2014

This perfect roast pheasant recipe was developed after adding wine to the pan to keep the bird moist and experimenting …Continue reading »

Pheasant Guidwife recipe

• October 7, 2014

This pheasant guidwife recipe combines the strong taste of the game bird with peach or mango chutney and is cooked …Continue reading »

Devilled Pheasant recipe

• October 4, 2014

Devilling means covering the meat with spices and flavours before cooking. This devilled pheasant recipe opts for ginger, curry powder …Continue reading »

Pot roast pheasant recipe with fennel

• October 4, 2014

Pot roast pheasant can be delicious. Fennel is not to everyone's taste, but it melts into a buttery stickiness when …Continue reading »

Parmesan Pheasant breasts with Crispy Ham

• September 30, 2014

This Parmesan pheasant recipe is perfect for a romantic dinner for two. Easy to prepare it is zingy and delicious, …Continue reading »

Pheasant Normandy recipe

• September 30, 2014

The pheasant Normandy recipe is a classic. And if you have a bottle of Calvados in the house then don't …Continue reading »

Pheasant stir fry with vegetable and black bean sauce

• January 6, 2012

The top 10 pheasant recipes. Country chef Prue Coats selects her top pheasant recipes for The Field. …Continue reading »

Recipes: Pheasant “Prueski”

• December 21, 2011

The top 10 pheasant recipes. Country chef Prue Coats selects her top pheasant recipes for The Field. …Continue reading »

Subscribe to The Field today only to save 52% and receive a £10 M&S giftcard. It's the deal of the year. Happy January.

January might seem grim, with the shooting season ending and the weather turning sour. But we have the best way to jolly the situation along. Subscribe to The Field today in our FLASH SALE and save a whopping 52%. And not just that. Everyone who subscribes today will also receive a £10 M&S giftcard to really beat off the back to work / end of season / things are looking a bit grim, blues.

The Field is like a great party in print. We have everything the discerning countryman and woman could possibly want. So whether it’s 11 Pheasant shooting tips for a stellar end to the season, or what makes the best hunting horse or where the best fishing huts are, the pages of The Field are a delight for fieldsports fans.

Keen to dress your best in the Field and out? Then look no further than features on vintage hunting and shooting clothes, best brogues – which to wear and where to buy and luxury country hats.

And for food enthusiasts the regular cookery column and features reveal delights such as the top 10 best pheasant recipes and everything from haggis to honey, savouries to shoot lunches.

The Field’s technical know-how is second to none, from everything you need to know about shotgun choke to the world’s 20 best shotguns in the world.

And of course there’s the fun, from sporting streakers to wild swimming.

So join in, and take advantage of our incredible one day deal, saving 52% on a subscription to The Field and receive a £10 M&S giftcard in our one day flash sale. The offer ends at midnight, Wednesday 28th January.

Fabbri, Italian gunmakers, may well make some of the best guns in the world. Fashioned from titanium, stainless steel and walnut they are 21st-century works of art.

Fabbri, Italian gunmakers, were the subject of a whispered heresy from one of gunmaking’s heaven born: the Blessed Trinity – Purdey, Holland & Holland and Boss – no longer made the best guns in the world. The keeper of that Holy Grail was now Fabbri Italian gunmakers, a family-owned gunmaker based in Brescia, Italy. Fabbri Italian gunmakers have a deserved place on the list of the world’s 20 best shotguns and feature in the 10 most expensive guns in the world.
Who makes “the best of the bests” is endlessly debatable. What’s indisputable is cost. Purchase an over-and-under from Purdey and you’ll part with £108,700, including VAT; you’ll pay £98,400, including vat, for a Holland & Holland Royal; and upwards of £105,500, including VAT, for a Boss. All re-assuringly expensive, one might think. But order a Fabbri Titanium from the Italian gunmakers and be prepared to hand over £150,000 including VAT – and that’s without bespoke engraving.
Yet, despite that price tag, the order book is full for the next six years. Partly it’s because the Fabbri Itlaian gunmakers’ guns have attracted a starry clientele, such as Clapton, Selleck and Spielberg; partly because the technical processes in their manufacture are so involved; but mainly, and gloriously, it’s because the Fabbri family does not wish to make more than 20 a year, compared to a London firm’s output of around 70.

Ivo Fabbri founded the eponymous company in 1968.

Ivo Fabbri founded the company in 1968, eight years after he began working with Daniele Perazzi. Their dreams differed. Perazzi wanted to create the best competition gun in the world, something he realised incontrovertibly at the London 2012 Olympics, when Perazzis won 12 out of the 15 shotgun-sports medals. Fabbri, however, was inspired by the traditions of London gunmaking and simply wanted to make the best.
What comprises “the best” is a moot point. The classic definition is a gun that cannot be improved by additional time or expense and it’s one that has served the Mayfair makers well. But they use methods and materials that differ little from when they were founded centuries ago. Computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools now do much of the basic work but the factories still resemble Victorian workshops in form and function, with metal-to-metal tolerances checked with soot from a blacking lamp. Yet, with steel, wood and a thousand man-hours, London continues to fashion the world’s best guns – or at least, the best in traditional gunmaking. For, with the exception of the Purdey Damas, which uses a powdered steel process to create a gun with great strength but with Damascus patterning, British bests have not embraced new materials. In contrast, Fabbri rejoices in them.

Fabbri rejoice in using modern materials for their guns.

FABBRI, ITALIAN GUNMAKERS, EMBRACE MODERN MATERIALS

I visited the Fabbri factory last October, apparently the first journalist ever to be admitted. It lives off a roundabout in Nave, Brescia, in a building that could serve as a pharmaceuticals HQ in Slough. And inside, the comparison still serves. There are no oily benches, no jackstraws of files and turnscrews, an absence of ladies struggling to stay in the borders of girlie calendars. Instead, there’s white space and the companionable hum of CNC machines.

Ivo’s son, Tullio Fabbri runs the business with his wife Gisela (above) and the son from his first marriage, also named Ivo.

Tullio Fabbri, Ivo’s son, now runs the business with his wife, Gisela, and the son from his first marriage, also named Ivo. In traditional gunmaking businesses, Ivo might be a stocker or finisher but at Fabbri he is, unsurprisingly, a computer programmer and therefore in charge of production. We walked over the spotless floor to a row of silver bars and Tullio Fabbri became almost messianic at this altar of technology.
“We do not build the guns in batches,” he said. “Each goes through the factory separately. Our barrels are made from aeronautical-grade stainless steel, which is 80% stronger than the carbon steel used in most guns. They are proofed to 1,370kg and the steel is so hard that you can fire Hevi-Shot or steel shot through them, full choke, with no damage whatsoever.
“They start off as bars of isotropic steel that we drill through to create the tubes. We don’t forge them, as that would create stresses in the material. Our aim is to produce the strongest and most accurate barrels by using stainless steel that has a low coefficient of expansion and so avoid the distortion that comes through extremes of temperature, either through a period of rapid fire or by using the gun in cold climates.
“We then attach them to demi-blocs [chopper lumps] before joining the tubes to form a pair of barrels. And that took us years to perfect,” he continued, with a brief smile. “You can’t join stainless steel with solder, so you can’t use the same process as most gun barrels. That’s an advantage, because solder can come apart, as it has a relatively low melting point, and change the aim of the barrels, as the solder heats up more quickly than the barrel steel. So, we use the same stainless steel as our barrels to make tapered side ribs that we know will angle the barrels so that each of the pair shoots to the same point of aim. We then insert them and laser-weld them, so that the barrels are essentially one piece of steel – super strong, super accurate but also, of course, shiny.
“Because bluing and blacking are essentially rusting processes, you cannot use them on stainless steel. So we use a system developed to reduce friction of piston rods in F1 cars. We put the barrels in a carbon plasma, which leaves them with a diamond-like coating, 2,000 microns thick, that is very attractive and extremely hard. ”

TITANIUM ACTIONS

The barrels are next matched with titanium actions. Using titanium can transform a gun’s handing qualities. It can remove as much as a pound in weight from a 12-bore over-and-under without any sacrifice of durability or strength. So, a titanium gun can be built with the pointability of a trap model coupled with the speed and agility of a game-gun. British makers are aware of this and are sometimes asked to make titanium-actioned guns, but using the metal would require investment in additional machine tools. At Fabbri, the demand for such guns is high enough to warrant this expense.

A Fabbri lock plate.

After the barrels are fitted to the action, the guns have to pass a test; the tolerances must be so fine that a single sheet of thin paper in-serted between barrels and breech will prevent closure. Once they pass, they go to Marco, the head stocker, whom we met as he applied one of the 15 coats of oil used on each gun.

Head stocker Marco Arrighini applies one of the 15 coats of oil used on each gun.

The temperature-controlled walnut stockroom, some 40ft long and 12ft high, is lined with wonderfully figured blanks, mostly in pairs, and in every colour, from honey to burnt caramel. “Different nations prefer different colours,” explained Tullio Fabbri. “The Americans like lighter, the English darker. Most of our orders are for pairs, so we buy blanks accordingly. And when we deliver the guns, there’s less than one gram difference in weight. Just one gram.”
Looking round the room, I estimated there were 700 blanks there. “Wrong,” smiled Tullio Fabbri. “There are 900.” Rather a lot for a company determined to make 20 guns a year? “Well, this is a family company,” he said, “and I must invest for my sons.”

Oiled stocks for future Fabbri guns.

The following day we took some of the guns and shot with Dario Anguissola, Fabbri’s marketing director and a world champion at helice, a sport that replicates live-pigeon shooting. The Fabbris worked well, as expected. Better than London guns? Not really. But then, I don’t expect any guns to work better than my bog-standard workhorses that are fitted to me.

Dario Anguissola, Fabbri’s marketing director, shoots helice, at which he is world champion.

The buyers of luxury guns are not looking at performance alone but at that seductive mix of exclusivity, pride of ownership and, perhaps, investment. With a London gun, there’s also the joy of heritage and, sometimes, that unquantifiable magic that’s been bestowed by a thousand hours of craftsmanship. A London best can be almost alive, a creature not an object; and “it” can become a “she”.
With a Fabbri, the beauty is also there, though it’s coupled with the technical élan of the best of modern materials fashioned by a family that will not compromise. It is as a modern sculpture to London’s Old Masters. And, like many modern works of art, it commands a price that equals or exceeds others’.
So, for all its expense, is a Fabbri the “best gun in the world”? It’s certainly not a claim Tullio Fabbri would make. “Best” is too subjective a superlative and his respect for the London makers is enormous. But, modesty aside, his guns may have joined the ranks of those that have worn that exclusive badge for a century or two. The Holy Trinity might have become a quartet.

Ice driving is tremendous fun and a jolly useful skill to have for a British winter. Even if our conditions are a little less extreme.

Ice driving requires the same skill set, just tailored slightly differently, whether you are negotiating a dicey commuter run, or ice driving hell for leather on specially crafted ice race tracks.

This video shows fast and frenetic ice driving in Kuusamo, Lapland in Finland courtesy of four time Rally World Champion Juha Kankkunen and D1 Ultimate GT. He puts the Lamborghini and Maserati through their paces on the ice. Supercars on ice, definitely something to put on the bucket list.

For more mundane circumstances, when ice on the road is likely to scupper your sport unless you proceed with caution, follow the tips below.

ICE DRIVING: THREE GENERAL RULES

1. Keep your speed lower than when driving on snow.
2. Avoid spinning the wheels.
3. And avoid over- or under-steering as much as possible.

And when the weather worsens and the snow falls, ensure you know how to drive in snow, best tips for safe driving. You may have a four-wheel drive with electronic traction control but that doesn’t negate knowing how to handle a situation when the weather turns hostile.

Anything with rear wheel drive is best left at home. I doubt the elderly BMW that served as a Shire runaround (3 series, white, fully embracing the 80s vibe in the mid-noughties) would count as a supercar. But it did inspire a deep seated affection with its scrappy attitude to the worst of the British weather. It was nothing less than lethal on snow and ice, but with old school driving skills it bested some very inclement winters. The drive through the snowy wilds of Leicestershire to make it to the hunt quiz was the apex of its career.

Any car can cope with the cold weather conditions if you know how to drive them correctly.

When you do have to drive in snow or on ice your vehicle will act differently, therefore you have to drive differently. Think ahead and try and keep a constant speed, even if it is slow. Be deliberate and try to limit tight turns, accelerating and braking

Point to Point fixtures for February 2015. There may be a chill in the air but the racing is bound to heat things up. Find your local Point to Point.

Point to Point fixtures for February 2105

Sunday 1st February 2015

Cambridgeshire and Enfield Chace point to point

Horseheath. 4m W of Haverhill on A604 (Exits 9 or 10, M11). CB21 4QF

Mid Devon

Black Forest Lodge. Kenton, nr Exeter of A380. EX6 8HR.

South Durham Hunt Farmers Club

Howe Hills, Mordon, Sedgefield. TS21 2HG

South Dorset

Milborne St Andrew. Nr A354 ½m SE of village, midway between Blandford and Dorchester

Saturday 7th February 2105

Cambridge University Draghounds point to point

Cottenham. 4m N of Cambridge nr B1049 (Exit 14, M11). CB24 8RG.

Sunday 8th February 2105

Dumfriesshire & Stewartry point to point

Overton. Off A72, 3m SW of Carluke, accessible from J8 M74. ML8 5QF

South Midlands Are Club

Whitfield. Just off the A43, two miles north-east of Brackley. NN13 5TQ.

South Wold

Brocklesby Park. Nr A18 10m W of Grimsby (5m E of Exit 5, M180).

Southdown & Eridge

Godstone. 1m from Junction 6, M25. RH9 8DB.

Combined Services

Larkhill. 5m NW of Amesbury, 10m N of Salisbury, nr A303, A345 & A360

Saturday 14th February 2015

Western point to point

Wadebridge. Royal Cornwall Showground. PL27 7JE.

Sunday 15th February 2015

Midlands Area Club point to point

Thorpe Lodge. 4m SW of Newark-on-Trent. NG23 5PY.

Percy

Alnwick. 3m NE of Alnwick (signposted from A1). NE66 3AE.

Sinnington

Duncombe Park. ½m SW of Helmsley off A170. YO62 5EB.

South Pool Harriers

Buckfastleigh. On A38 at Dean Court Farm. ½m S of town. TQ11 0LT.

Vine & Craven

Barbury racebourse. 3m NW of Marlborough. SN8 1RS.

 Sunday 22nd February 2105

Albrighton & Woodland (North) point to point

Chaddesley Corbett. Between Bromsgrove and Kidderminster. DY10 4QT.

Countryside Alliance Club (Wessex)

Badbury Rings. 4m NW of Wimborne on B3082.

Curre & Llangibby

Howick. 2m W of Chepstow. NP16 6BL.

East Cornwall

Great Trethew. 3m SE of Liskeard. PL14 3PZ.

North Norfolk Harriers

Higham. 8m NE of Colchester. CO7 6NG.

South East Hunts Club

Charing. 12m E of Maidstone. TN27 0JD.

Saturday 28th February 2015

East Devon point to point

Bishops Court. ½m SW of Ottery St Mary. EX11 1RJ.

Thurlow

Horseheath. 4m W of Haverhill on A604 (Exits 9 or 10, M11). CB21 4QF

How to drive in snow is much more than slowing down and taking it steady. We tell you how to avoid ending up in a ditchwhen driving in hazardous conditions.

How to drive in snow is not usually a skill that comes top of the British agenda. In the US they have proper winters, feet of the white stuff engulfing whole towns. We’re accustomed to something a little more restrained. That makes it a bit more dangerous, as we don’t know how to drive in snow. So whether you want to get to your shooting, hunting or have a desire to embrace full throttle winter speed and go ice driving (watch our video: ice driving in supercars), take heed of the advice below.

Ice driving in Finland. A full throttle way to drive in snow.

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW

As English winters have progressed from mild, wet affairs to the violent cold snaps of recent years, getting from A to B has, at times, proved something of a challenge. Every year images of abandoned cars on snowy motorways grace the front pages of various papers. We need to know how to drive in snow.

Knowing how to drive in snow, on ice or through mud doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Add to this the ever-increasing reliance on electronically controlled traction assistance on cars, and drivers are gradually having their skill set eroded. Less is more when driving on a slippery surface: gentle throttle, subtle steering input, steady braking.

ROOT CAUSE: LOSS OF TRACTION

The root cause of all challenges drivers face in difficult conditions is always loss of traction. At some stage, most cars lose grip. The tyres spin and the vehicle won’t go forwards; it might even begin to slide in an elegant but uncontrolled arc across the road. The various drivetrains affect the car in different ways.

FRONT WHEEL, REAR WHEEL OR FOUR WHEEL?

A front-wheel-drive car has to steer and propel itself with the same pair of wheels – not great for handling under pressure, especially with no traction. They do not, however, over-steer as violently as rear-wheel-drive cars. These push from the back and leave the front wheels free to steer, but too much throttle (and it doesn’t need to be much on ice) will send the back of the car round the front: in other words, oversteer. This can be hard to correct and a rear-wheel-drive car poses the greatest challenge in these conditions.

Four-wheel drive is the best option. As all four wheels drive, less power is needed by each wheel which means less slip and more grip. If a wheel or two are slipping, the others should still get you going. What four-wheel drive doesn’t do, however, is help you stop.
What happens when it goes wrong? Tales of motoring mishaps in icy conditions are generally rather amusing. Take the chap in his low-slung sports car in Northumberland. The inside of the windscreen had iced up so he sprayed it liberally with de-icer, almost fainting from the fumes. Luckily, he got plenty of fresh air as the car took on snow-ploughesque tendencies and every 20 minutes he had to get out and free the radiator grille, which had become clogged with snow, by hand.

Another unfortunate driver wrongly assumed that his Land Rover 110 was immune to the conditions, bounced off the high banks of the country lane he was driving down and laid the poor vehicle down on its side. As for the BMW owner who put snow chains on his front wheels… there are no words. Especially when you remember that BMWs are rear-wheel drive.

Fortunately, there are various solutions.

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: THE SOLUTIONS

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: SNOW SOCKS

These are, literally, a pair of grippy fabric socks that can be kept inside the car for use in an emergency. They fit over the tyres in minutes and are safe for use up to 50mph. They must not be used on bare tarmac as they will wear out quickly. Less bulky and lighter than snow chains, they are ideal to buy just in case: £45 upwards.

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: SNOW CHAINS

Compulsory in the Alps (snow socks are not approved), they are harder to fit than socks but are slightly more effective and likely to last longer. You can’t drive fast with chains (around 30mph) and they make for quite a noisy, bumpy ride: £35 upwards.

Snow chains are compulsory in the Alps.

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: TYRES

The most expensive solution but also the best. Winter tyres offer more traction and better braking than chains or socks. You can drive at any speed (within reason) and they will last years, especially if you remove and store them at the end of each winter. A set of good winter tyres for an Audi A4 will start from £230 per tyre for a premium brand (such as Goodyear) or £140 per tyre for a mid-range tyre (Kumho).
Who better to ask about technique than the holder of the world record for the fastest crossing of the Antarctic? Jason de Carteret smashed the previous record in December 2011, reaching the South Pole in 15 hours and 54 minutes in a Toyota Tacoma truck.

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: ELECTRONIC DRIVING AIDS

Virtually every new car on the planet has traction control now, mostly electronic. But sometimes this just leaves you motionless as the computer has a row with reality. On detecting that the wheels are slipping some systems won’t let you move at all. You need to know how to drive correctly when you turn all the systems off. Many modern four-by-fours even have sophisticated programs for ascending and descending and will, literally, drive themselves up or down the slope. Handy, but, as ever, don’t rely on technology – you still need to know how to land the plane.

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: COURSES

With most things in life, getting some decent instruction has a positive effect on one’s skill set. Driving is no different and the skills mentioned can be taught and honed.

HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: SKID PANS

The simplest way to learn how to control a skidding car is to go to a skid pan. Cars are mounted on special trolleys that reduce traction, so the instructor can teach the driver how to respond to and correct loss of control at various speeds and levels of grip, as well as learning how to try to avoid a skid in the first place. From £99 upwards.

 HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW: OFF-ROAD DRIVING

Land Rover offers courses aimed at improving off-road driving skills. You can take your own 4×4 and it doesn’t have to be a Land Rover. Land Rover Experience, from £365 upwards.

THREE GENERAL RULES FOR HOW TO DRIVE IN SNOW

1. Never spin the wheels. If you get stuck, just stop, reverse and take another run at it, keeping a steady speed. Use the torque of the vehicle to keep the wheels turning and not the power, as if you keep too high a rev range you have a much higher chance of spinning the wheels and digging yourself a hole.
2.  If you do find that you are digging yourself a hole, stop immediately. If it is small, you may be able to rock the vehicle forwards and backwards and get out of it in reverse. If it is deep, dig the snow away from the rear of the wheels and reverse out.
3. The correct speed is important: too slow you will get stuck, too fast and you will lose directional control and will more than likely end up in a ditch or hitting another car. If it is desperate that you must get out, you could try letting air out of your tyres to give you more flotation on the snow. However you need a lot of experience to get this right so you don’t let too much out and ruin your tyres and wheels when you get back on to normal roads.

The best fountain pens are a necessary luxury for those who love to write. In a world of throwaway thank yous and the constant deluge of emails, putting pen to paper is a joy.

The best fountain pens are a hand held luxury. There is something entrancing about writing with a fountain pen; a little bit of civilisation in the world of instant messaging, constant updates and incessant electronic interaction. Of course, these Luddite tendencies extend only so far. Few of us would raid the nearest Apple store wielding a hammer. But it is necessary to retain some elegance in everyday life, be it in the field with one of the world’s 20 best shotguns, sporting in style with the best vintage hunting and shooting clothes or the choice of best fountain pens.

BEST FOUNTAIN PENS. BEGIN IN BURLINGTON ARCADE.

Penfriend was founded in 1950 by Ivan Mason, originally a Parker employee. In 2007 it was taken over by Amaya Cerdeirina. From the small shop in Burlington Arcade and new, larger store on Fleet Street, it delivers personal service and the best fountain pens. “The best thing about coming to us is that you can have your pen fitted to you,” she says. “People can spend hours in the shop, trying different pens and nib styles. It is essential to try a pen before you buy one.” Penfriend offers a choice of modern and vintage pens, from Montblanc, “a great present”, to bolder Italian brands and older models. “There is a fountain pen for everyone,” Cerdeirina says, “and we are here to help you find it.”

SWISS STYLE

Montblanc doesn’t sell pens but lifelong companions. “No one buys one of our writing instruments because they need something to write with,” says Christian Rauch, managing director of writing culture and leather.

The Montblanc Meisterstück can be found in the draws of the finest desks.

“A Montblanc is an expression of a cultivated lifestyle. It is for signatures on important documents, thank-you notes or letters,” he says.

The classic Meisterstück 149 (£535), entirely hand-crafted on site in Hamburg, is made to bequeath. The last design changes were made in the Fifties. “I still write with the Meisterstück my parents gave me on graduation,” says Rauch, “although I test all our new products.” There are nine Montblanc nibs, but for €1,200 you can visit the factory, have your handwriting computer-analysed and a bespoke nib made to your requirements. If you covet something even more rarified, then a limited-edition Montblanc can run to €100,000. The Alfred Hitchcock limited edition 80 (£17,900) sports a special surface effect on the barrel and cap (think stairs in Vertigo) and a knife-shaped clip recalls Psycho.

“We are proud that everything is developed in our workshop in Geneva,” says Frank Barelle of Caran d’Ache. The Swiss manufacturer’s standard range incorporates noble materials, precious metals and carbon fibre in the design. Nibs come in eight widths. The iconic Varius Ivanhoe (£333) is sparingly elegant thanks to its chainmail barrel. The company was the first to introduce coloured lacquer on its pens. One of the best fountain pens is the Leman bicolour (£450) is vibrant and sure to add dash to one’s script.

Caran d’Ache leman Bicolour in Turquoise

“The best fountain pens shows what we call a certain ‘savoir vivre’,” says Barelle. “The art of good manners is to write with a fountain pen.” Its limited editions signal the fountain pen as a luxury. The latest, “Caelograph”, (£3,500), features a map of the sky.

A THRIVING MARKET FOR FOUNTAIN PENS IN BRITAIN

The British fountain-pen market is thriving. Tim Tufnell is the third generation in the family business Yard-O-Led, specialising in best fountain pens and pencils that are all individually hand-crafted and hallmarked.

The British fountain pen market is thriving. Yard-O-Led is a third generation family business. Above, the wonderfully florid Yard-O-Led Viceroy Grand Victorian.

Fountain pens come in fine, medium and broad nibs and offer a pleasing element of tradition for the writing enthusiast. “There are very few businesses left in Britain which are as reliant as we are on the skill of craftsmen. Certainly, no other fountain pen manufacturer does nearly as much as us by hand. For example, it takes eight separate processes just to make a fountain pen’s clip,” Tufnell says. The best-selling Viceroy Barley Standard (£345) is elegantly understated.
“I love using the Grand Retro (£370) with black ink,” says Tufnell, and the Viceroy Grand Victorian (£570) echoes those confident early industrialists with aplomb.

THE BEST FOUNTAIN PEN EVER MADE?

Onoto Magna in silver, The Onoto Magna is considered by many as the best pen ever made.

The Onoto pen company had been mothballed in 1958 until James Boddy and Alastair Adams bought it in 2005. “James had a dream of creating a set of pens to celebrate Admiral Nelson but couldn’t find a pen manufacturer interested. A chance meeting led him to track down Onoto and buy the company,” says Adams. All Onoto fountain pens are made in the UK, either in Petworth or Tewkesbury. Two or three new models are released per year. The Onoto Magna plunger filler is the company’s most famous fountain pen, “considered by many as the best fountain pen ever made,” says Adams.

The initmitable Magna from Onoto. Top drawer.

The 1937 design is timeless and covetable, with the Onoto name engraved on the barrel. It has been revived, from original drawings, in black acrylic with 23ct gold fittings (£795). The Magna Classic in sterling silver (£1,085) or in blue-ice acrylic (£330) is well balanced and stylishly art deco. “Everyone has a Montblanc, so for people who want something even better, from a British maker, buy an Onoto,” says Adams.

RETRO STYLING

“Our flagship model is the Churchill (£532), based upon a design used by Sir Winston Churchill in the Twenties,” says British fountain pen company Conway Stewart.

Highly covetable. The Belliver from Conway Stewart will fit most hands.

A classical-style, oversize fountain pen, it can come with a lever filling mechanism. The Belliver (£363) will fit most hand sizes and is sure to add flair to letters, and the distinctive, limited-edition Kipling (£514) has words from If and The Elephant’s Child on cap and barrel. “We pride ourselves on using the best materials. Some of our limited editions still use casein [a form of resin created from milk proteins in the late 19th century] and regular editions use more practical acrylic resins,” the company claims. Conway Stewart nibs allow anything from spider-web-thin script to an extravagant flourish, with three sizes of italic nib, too.

THE TRUSTY PARKER FOUNTAIN PEN

The Parker Duofold has been in production since 1921. The most recent incarnation, the Duofold International Pearl and Black Gold Trim (£349) is pure Parker in its simplicity and usability. The contemporary monochrome (£295) in rose gold would make a fitting tool to tackle piles of thank-you letters, while the vintage Parker 51 is one of the most covetable collector’s models.

The Parker Pearl and Black (above). It’s hard to beat a Parker, and the company continue reinventing and modernising, while keeping older models in production too.

The best fountain pens need ink. Many brands have their own, although “our formulas are such that they are suitable for most types of fountain pen,” says Phil Davies of Liverpool-based Diamine Inks. “All our ink is made in the UK. We listen to our customers and try to give them what they want. Blue is generally in demand but, at the moment, ancient copper is proving a runaway success. In autumn seasonal browns are popular, although my favourite colour at the moment is a dark green.” The company’s website is a treasure trove for the inky fingered, with 100 inks on the books and another 10 in the pipeline. Write regally in Monaco Red or channel the Ceasars with Imperial Purple or even blend your own; my current preference is a wintry teal.

The fountain pen may have fallen out of favour but the revival is well underway. If one is going to write make sure it is with distinction using the most elegant instrument for the job. And, of course, a beautifully hued ink. One can flirt, fawn or fantasise on paper, but it is always done best with a fountain pen.

David Shepherd's paintings of African elephants and endangered species are instantly recognisable. And anyone who dreams of Africa will want one on their wall.

David Shepherd leaves a trail. If, on your next African safari, you stumble across a succession of anthills topped with sunglasses, tread carefully: you are on the trail of the Greater Famous Wildlife Artist, genus David Shepherd. “I love being out in the bush photographing and observing animals and when I get excited I take my sunglasses off and put them down on the nearest anthill,” Shepherd confesses. “Then, of course, I forget them, so I have to have lots of pairs.”
It is rare for an artist to become iconic in his own lifetime but David Shepherd’s paintings of African elephants and other endangered species are instantly recognisable. In December 2014 he exhibited at the Rountree Tryon Galleries. “It was 99% new paintings. I paint every morning; it is a discipline, though I don’t go on painting much after lunch. I am doing a rhino at the moment but I must admit I do get a bit tired.” He is 83.

AN UNTRAINABLE ARTIST

Shepherd is endearingly modest about his success. “I had no painting talent whatever at the beginning and might easily have ended up driving a bus. My dad gave me the chance to try to be an artist and I entered the Slade School of Fine Art – they chucked me out. But, really, I think I am the luckiest man on God’s earth because it all came good in the end. I happened to be at a cocktail party in Winchester where I met a wonderful artist, Robin Goodwin, who said he would have a look at my work. I showed him some ghastly bird painting and he said, ‘You are untrainable!’ However, he did agree to take me on. I had to be at the studio every morning by eight and paint. It is a job – you have to work.”

HIGH FLYER AT HEATHROW

David Shepherd obviously turned out to be trainable after all, because after three years he went out on his own as artist in residence at the then relatively new Heathrow Airport. “It was a magical place in those days,” remembers Shepherd. “I was allowed to go wherever I wanted to paint and I loved the airplanes.” His images of Fifties aircraft and wartime airplanes captured the zeitgeist of the new jet-set era and attracted the attention of the RAF. “They invited me out to Aden and then to Kenya in 1960 to do a painting to go in the officers’ mess. It hadn’t really occurred to me to do a wildlife painting but I ended up painting a rhino chasing a plane along the airstrip. It’s now in the RAF Club in Piccadilly. That painting did everything for me. People wanted my pictures then.”
Shepherd’s love of African big game had been with him for years. “As a boy, I had read a lot of books about Africa so my first choice of career was naturally to be a game warden, which I assumed was just a matter of turning up. So off I went to a game lodge in Kenya and, of course, they sent me packing. But I have never met anybody who has been to Africa just once.”
Sure enough, David Shepherd and his wife, Avril, soon found themselves in the Serengeti. Shepherd won’t forget their experience there. “We saw an elephant who had trod on a land mine and blown his foot off and you have to do something. The things you see. When you see an elephant die of old age it is natural but to see them being slaughtered for these awful products is dreadful. So I am very lucky to be able to paint a picture that will raise a reasonable amount of money that goes into the foundation. I can repay my debt of gratitude.”

DAVID SHEPHERD WILDLIFE FOUNDATION

He started the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation in 1984 and the charity is now involved in a range of wildlife protection and conservation projects, not just in Africa but in India and around the world. Even after 30 years, Shepherd is as passionate as ever about its work. “I am so emotional about what is happening,” he says. “I have tears of rage and anger. I have been trying to save the tiger and you think, ‘Why do I bother?’ and then when you actually see a tiger, you believe in creation but they are the most astonishingly endangered animals. For me now, conservation is the motivation for painting and for life.”