BY KEVIN BORRMAN

When I was a boy my father would take me everywhere with him, he taught me many skills at a very early age, going around the traps with him was one of them. I loved it. One of my jobs was to carry the trap setting hoe, a bag or a spare trap, if I dragged the trap along the ground by the peg dad would go off at me and said it will bend or break the plate off.

Dad always took the rabbits out of the traps but this particular day he said to me “get that rabbit out of that trap and don’t let the bugger go as it will be our tea tomorrow night”. I can still remember this as if it happened yesterday, the rabbit was a big buck, when I grabbed him all hell broke loose, he went into a jumping and kicking routine, with me hanging onto him one end, the trap on the other end, he also scratched hell out of my arms, however I held him and removed him from the trap. I was pleased with my effort and dad said “I done a good job”.

All was well until we came home, mum saw my arms bleeding, she was shocked when dad told her of my heroic deed mum told him I could pick up any disease from the rabbit, dad said it was a nice clean healthy bush rabbit, this failed to convince mum. Out came the hot water, soap, salt and dettol, mum will fix it; dad was in the bad books with her until my wounds healed.

When I was older I realized dad was having a bit of fun with me, but those happy memories of living and trapping in the high country will stay with me forever.

By…Lee Newman-retired Gamekeeper

 A number of years ago I was employed as a Gamekeeper on a Worcestershire Estate. To ensure a good stock of wild game, free from the threat of predation from a multitude of beasts, I used to keep a thorough network of vermin traps working all year round.

I remember making some trap tunnels from a piece of 6 inch timber and an arched tin roof to hold the trap, as a trial against my normal 3 sided timber or land drain pipe tunnels. I set up four or five in a hedge bottom near the road which divided my shoot, along with a number of fox snares against a stock wire fence that bordered the field.

The next morning - full of expectancy - I ventured from trap to trap without success until, after a blank week, I reached the penultimate tunnel to find a large white ferret held squarely across the ribs and neck in the Fenn Mk 4 vermin trap.

He was very much alive, although fairly placid and dazed from his ordeal. I extracted him from the trap as best I could and checked him over. He was in pretty bad shape - badly bruised and badly shaken up inside, but he went on to bolt a couple of dozen rabbits for me that morning from the honeycomb of holes in the nearby bank. He was rewarded for his efforts at lunchtime with a charge of No.6 shot from the 12 bore – I couldn’t afford for such a brute to be loose in my preserves after all!

How’s that for gratitude – he shot me!!!