BASC centenary reception

That's me second from right. Thanks to Helen at BASC for locating the photo

Attended the excellent BASC Centenary reception in London last night, where their patron, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh spoke about the huge amount of conservation work done by shooters. Whilst there I met, among others, Labour MP Martin Salter who it seems is being bombarded by hate mail after shooting his first brace of pheasants.

I was in the middle of chatting to Martin when I turned around to see HRH advancing on me, hand extended! It's one of those moments when you hope that some intelligent comment would spring to mind - but caught totally off-guard I fear I just mumbled 'er, er, good evening'. We talked briefly about the wide variety of shooting magazines on the market, before he moved on.

Predictably, my teenage daughter was totally underwhelmed by the news that her father had met HRH, which put me firmly back in my place. The BASC photographer snapped the meeting, so I'll see if they can let me have a copy to inflict on readers! (Update: Helen at the BASC press office came up trumps and located the photo now shown at the top of this post).