His hart's in the Highlands
James Teacher
OUTSIDE DAYS, SOME ADVENTURES WITH ROD AND GUN by Max Hastings
Michael Joseph, £14.95, pp.216
his is a collection of articles on coun- try sports that have already appeared in publications such as the Field, the Shooting Times and the Daily Telegraph. The re- verse of the dust-jacket pictures the author in various macho poses that sail dangerous- ly close to self-parody. Indeed, such is his penchant for recording his deeds of derring-do on video and box brownie that his oeuvre might more accurately have been subtitled 'Some adventures with rod and Canon'.
Most of his stories are self-deprecatory though of his own abilities as a writer he is more sure: '1 possess a certain facility with words which confers an unjust advantage when it comes to telling a tale.' The book starts with a friendly portrait of his mildly eccentric father, Macdonald Hastings. This is followed by Max's introduction to shoot- ing and his early and still undiminished enthusiasm for Scotland and Scottish sports which dates from 1970 when he took the House of Tongue. He recounts disas- ters and triumphs (invariably in that order) while fishing the Naver, Helmsdale and Tweed and while on the hill in pursuit of grouse and stalking the red deer.
His stalking tales are best described as cautionary and contortionary. His first stalk is executed without a stalker. His efforts are crowned with success (of a sort) despite committing most of the sins in the stalking repertoire. He takes a 150 yard shot over the back of the stag as it runs away from him. He sees it is wounded . . racing down the hill towards him I run, thrilling to see the beast motionless'. Luckily he (not Max) walks two steps and lurches over dead, otherwise our stalker might be running still. When out with the Hart-Davises we find him 'crawling down a scree . . I dared not move and took a desperate shot lying on my back with rifle between my feet.' He kills the stag with a high shot through the spinal cord — this is naturally considered a duff performance from which his reputation has apparently yet to recover.
Foreign trips tell of fishing forays to Iceland and Alaska, the shooting of guinea-fowl in Kenya and haphazard duck flighting in India. While fishers and shoot- ers are well catered for there is sadly only one chapter on fox-hunting. It is the article he wrote for the Observer in 1980 when hunting was under continual harassment. It is much to his credit. No trimming here. The final chapter goes on to deal with the political and practical problems facing the future of field sports. Max Hastings is an all-round countryman who believes that field sports make a valuable contribution to the conservation of the nation's national heritage. He is critical of those who bring the practice of their sports into disrepute and is just as forthright over the Govern- ment's feeble attitude to environmental issues.
Max Hastings has chosen a particularly difficult genre. The classics against which his book will be judged have a period charm with which his cannot compete. The romance of the Highlands is continually shattered by the roar of Argocat and Suzuki. When Tricia shouts 'Oh, you're so
urban! Why don't you take that Shogun of yours back to London' I naively thought his wife was referring to the family fowling piece which had been the victim of a printer's error. The awful presence of the Shoot-Captain — not a romantic figure regularly intrudes. Try 'Chilly mornin' Shoot-Captain' as a matutinal greeting next time you are asked to a grand shoot and see if you make it to the first drive.
If I find Max Hastings' stories a bit short on humour it may be because I was introduced to the world of fishing and stalking by those two stalwarts Capt. Ken- neth Garra and Major Ben E. Glow, pseudonyms of Mr Johnny Noble of Ardkinglas who not only excels at both sports but also has a highly developed sense of the ridiculous. Field readers of a certain age may remember the Captain's wonderfully bizarre correspondence on `the problems of the left-handed stalker' and the Major's radical criticism of what he termed 'the Maginot line attitude to grouse-driving'. But Outside Days is a bed- side book which conjures up memories of happy days amid the high hills. It is unfair to ask for more.
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