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IN pursuit of Africa’s Big Five – elephant, lion, buffalo, rhino and leopard – camera-toting tourists and gun-carrying “hunters” spend small fortunes. Uncle Opie and my son, Matthew, his apprentice, pursue the small edible six around us with homemade equipment, clear eyes and sharp hearing. Wild game is still an important part of the diet in our parts of rural Africa, far from the expensive and tasteless protein offerings in supermarkets. They recently updated me on local trends and strategies. Wild pigeons are downed with a robust catapult using smooth pebbles from the bed of our stream or placing a mousetrap baited with maize seeds or groundnuts under a likely tree. Several months ago we began breeding pigeons in a homemade loft and, as ignorant learners, were surprised when they returned every evening. While less exciting than traps and catapults, this does ensure a regular tasty meal. A cousin in Scotland used to repeatedly pepper pigeons on their farm with airgun pe
The law for us kids in the 1950s and 1960s meant the local police. They walked their beats and turned up in awkward places. They knew everyone and took no nonsense. Worse yet, many were my father’s patients or in his St John Ambulance first aid class, so they had a vested interest in his offspring not going off the rails. In my fifth year at Stirling High School, my parents were made aware that possible expulsion was in the air. There had been continued absences from cross-country running afternoons, and a chemistry class had to be evacuated due to the sudden production of clouds of dense white smoke.