The sound of light gunfire took me to the windows overlooking the church square. There was the owner of the local grocery shop, crouched in the vicolo behind the house opposite, shooting pigeons as they failed to find footholds on ledges fitted with pigeon repelling wires. He remarked later to a household shopper that we needn't worry as he wouldn't hit the house. I thought 'couldn't hit a house' was an insult in shooting circles but clearly 'wouldn't hit a house' is a sign of skill.
There's a robust attitude to gun and other arms -law observance in this part of the world. Some time ago there was an amnesty for undeclared arms (various) and on searching the building (ever-suspicious of the strain of individualistic behaviour that sleeps, and often wakes here, through the centuries) I found, 1 bayonet (used, horridly, by the look of it), 1 long, curved sword which I would call a scimitar (used, positively viciously-nicked from top to bottom of the blade), 4 duelling swords of various thicknesses (used, possibly only in sport, but who knows what the house inhabitants might define as sport?) a carabina case which, worryingly, had no carabina inside, where is it?, and an air gun (new, unused, thank goodness the grocer is doing the honours across the square).
So I put them all in a safe place, deeming the missing carbine to be in a safe place already, except for the duelling swords which are looking decorative in a stanza del terrazzo .
Once the arms had been declared to be in the house there was no requirement to hand them in; just so long as it's known they are there, they said.
I didn't declare the Landrover Defender, even though its booklet describes it as tried, tested and approved in use by armies throughout the world.
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What on earth do you live in HG a hostel for reformed murderers Sounds grim. I canot work out if you are in Hatfield or Camden
N, I am from Hatfield and I have a Comet carved in balsa wood to degrees of miniaturised accuracy that only Hatfield aerospace stock could aspire to, to prove it. Family come from further afield.
I remember the comet so well . We went swimming at the Hatfield pool and for some reason the comet seemed thrilling as you passed it .
Are you part of the Hatfield, St Albans, Wheathampstead, Sandridge Common-y part of the world N? Harpenden/Watford/Tringish perhaps?
St. Albans ..yes I wento to St. Albans school and new many people from all those places especially Wheathampstead and Harpenden. My father is stil a Coucillor in Harpenden.I have lived in Islington for 2o years and we are moving down to the South coast now
'we are moving down to the South coast now,'
But you will take Hertfordshire in your mind; very clingy, Hertfordshire, even with the cementing over.
Likewise HG - I've just remembered that at the back of a dark cupboard somewhere are not only the late old man's own swords but a variety of edged weapons from around the world collected during a life of military service. There's a long bayonetty-thing that we use to free a kink in the sash cord on the study window that makes it stick; I'm certain the sight of me standing in the window jabbing the frame with it caused some palpitations amongst the nervous new-age architects who live next door. I wonder what they'd say if I gave their young Tristram and Justin (banned even from playing with plastic guns) a pair of Gurkha kukris to play with ....
R, I think many of us had rather fierce grandparents (and sometimes parents). It's all been reliably sameish for us. But when I look at diaries and photographs, at maps and weapons of earlier generations I quite fear them;they are quite unknowable because of what they did and where they found themselves when young.
R, Is your sash cord adjuster an entrenching tool do you think? Do you keep it on the mantel piece?
no, not an entrenching tool - that has a folding shovel on the end, I think.
Of course to us these things are just curios - but you're right, our fathers and grandfathers lived in a world in which it was quite normal for people to poke at eachother with pieces of sharpened steel.
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