The British film Shooting Party though I dont think I should say too much about the story line, except was adapted from the novel of the same name by Elizabeth Colegate. Just to say it is a snapshot of an Edwardian country house shoot attended by members of the British aristocracy and their friends in the autumn of 1913 just prior to the outbreak of the Great War. The films attention to detail of a country house shoot was of a high standard, dress location (Knebworth House Hertfordshire) beaters keepers and every thing necessary for the shoot including a fine vintage Shooting-brake. Though there have always been doubts cast on the type of retriever dogs used in the film for that date. I became a beater for a shoot resembling this one some fifty years ago at one of the largest private estates in the County of Cheshire here in the UK even then not much had changed in the particulars and organisation of a large shoot though sadly even in the span of my lifetime that shoot is now a thing of the past. My reason for mentioning the film is in 1984 a friend of mine who worked in the Birmingham Gun trade contacted me and asked would I be prepared to lend a customer of his my Purdy shotgun. It turned out that his customer was a property master working in the British film industry and was searching for a usable antique Purdey shotgun, it had to be the type of gun an elderly member of the aristocracy would have owned around the 1900s my gun was exactly what he was looking for. After extracting the usual assurances that if there where any damage no matter how slight to the gun my friends life would become forfeit and his children and wife would be sold into slavery and any profits from the sale would of course be mine, not to harsh a deal I thought for what they where about to have on an extended loan. In reality to find a usable Purdey Bar in wood thumb lever shotgun built in 1860s, complete with its original unsleeved Damascus barrels Nitro Proof is rather a rare gun to come across yet alone borrow for the duration of a film. The gun was used in two scenes of the film firstly Sir Randolph Nettleby (James Mason) is holding it talking to Cornelius Cardew (John Gielgud) after Cardew had walked in front of the gun line with a placard, lastly in the scene after Tom Harker (Gordon Jackson) is shot Sir Randolph Nettlebys loader is supporting it on his shoulder. The gun was not actually fired in the film because the Insurance company where not to keen for the actors to use a hundred plus year old gun it being the oldest gun on the set even though they where assured the gun was perfectly safe to use with black powder charges by the Birmingham Proof house, possibly because of the disaster that occurred on the first attempt to start filming was still very fresh in their minds. The financial reward I received for my help in solving his problem was not a large sum but enough to have some cosmetic work done on the gun.
At the time, I had no idea what the gun was to be used in but as the saying goes if only I did know then what I know now I would have asked for a film poster signed by all the actors. I do find the final scene of the film extremely haunting because it does not need much imagination to know what is approaching to take the lives of the young men in the film as we the audience are looking at it with full knowledge of the Great War to come. And just a personal note I have always believed that the decline of the English bespoke gun industry was caused in no small way by the untimely deaths of thousands upon thousands of sons on all sides from the upper middle and working classes, caused by the War no customers after the war and no sons to continue to purchase later on and of course the same fate was to become the artisans and craftsmen which accelerated the industries demise to the now shadow of its former self. The film is of a deliberate slow pace and extremely well acted though to be able to understand the English class system which I personally do find unacceptable and very difficult to rationalise as to why so few people should be so privileged and own so much, but there is always a but isnt there, without it we would not have some of the most beautifully designed and mechanically refined sporting guns the world has seen, built by such names as Holland & Holland, Purdey, Boss, Churchill, Grant, Lancaster, Lang, the list could go on and on. Though the picture of a driven shoot painted in the film of guns at their pegs having loaders passing a reloaded gun to increase the overall take speed all surrounded by the swirl of black powder smoke and falling pheasants you can call it slaughter if you like, though Sir Randolph Nettleby does have a few words to say on that subject in the film. This film is as close as a film maker can get to looking through that window in time to an Edwardian aristocratic house shooting party in Britain.

The only lessons in my life I truly did learn from where the ones I paid for!