b'THE BIT AT THE ENDThis column is about the slingshot-related adventures you got into as a kid. Ia poacherous little git and took pheasantAll this was after the house move. Aged will be blunt. Catapults caused biblical grief to me, my family and even gotbreast meat into the cookery classes (overthirteen in the hot summer of 1976, I my best friend expelled from theat the girls school next door) only for theslept under my brand newshing brolly same public school that Damon Hill,teacher to tell me I was gifted and shouldin the garden in suburbia. I recall that a David Baddiel, Ali G and me all wentgo to cookery school in Switzerland. (Istray marble I had shot daftly, had made to. The one next door to the release-pentold her it was rabbit.) And another timea literal bullet hole perforation in the pheasant reserve. took a brace to gift to the butchers atfront door glass of aat over the shops My slingshots had to be secret. my Saturday job on the cheese and delibehind our house. We backed on to a This is going to sound rugged but Icounter in Liptons supermarket at the1930s massive mock Tudor parade. It was had to wait until after my parents wereback of Debenhams in Harrow. therst time a policeman had been to gathered unto their ancestors before Ithe house. Somehow the occupants had thought about making a magazine aboutseen me and called them. My mum was catapults. Before then, I had worked as amassively unimpressed.journalist in my other passions of angling,That was therst con scation. I had a cars and above all (and an odd mix)Milbro that I had to regard as sacri cial. technology and hiaudio equipment. ButLess important to me than my lovely catapults and killing things? No way. DeadShot and precious Goliath, I had These ears that could tell betweento give up the Milbro to protect them. a blackbird digging around in leaf litterMy Bowie sheath knife mysteriously tond worms and the same leaf litterdisappeared when my mum found it, when walked through slowly by a cocktoo. Later, there was another incident pheasant that you couldnt see, workedin which my mate Martin basically got a treat in hireviewing. You just have tocaught (of the two of us) remained LISTEN. staunch, didnt report me and was asked I wrote before how a book calledto leave rather than be expelled. But my Brendon Chase by B.B. had had a hugefolks got wind of it and that was when in uence upon me. I was the same agethe DeadShot went.as the lads in the book and I too was aWhen my dad died and we cleared posh schoolboy with a deep urge to runthe house, I found something buried ointo the woods and eat wild things. Ideep in the back of a drawer in his old even took my sixth form General Studiesmahogany roll top antique desk. It was group out in the spring time to foragemy DeadShot, bands crumbling gently for, cook and eat some nettle tops andwith age.goosegrass. Although tasty, goosegrasssHe had kept it in that drawer in his scratchy burr surface remains throughoce all down the years. I think he knew light cooking and adds texture as youhow much I cared about it and thought swallow it. Lord of the Slings -better of disposing of it.I have also regaled you with how I wasMY PRECIOUS! This sturuns deep for me.Quote of the Season: With regret the ESF have decided to reschedule the upcoming open championshipsKeith Dighton, ESF FB page 16th March, 2020066 SlingshotWorld066_SSW004 adventures Scrapes.indd 66 01/08/2020 15:10'