Tuesday 19 December 2023
The roads in this area are littered with pheasants, dead and alive. A lot of them come from pheasant farms (I doubt they’re called that) and are bred to be shot. When I was driving home on Saturday, a narrow road near Lockerbie was made even narrower (it’s not a busy road) by 4x4s parked all along one verge. Twenty or so men, for I did see only men, were gathered at one point, having to move to the side to let me pass. They had all been pheasant shooting. A bit further down the road, by which point I was driving slower than I normally would, a man emerged from a break in the hedgerow with three dead pheasants and two hunting dogs, one of which ran straight across the road in front of my car. Fortunately, I was going slow enough to stop easily. The dog then seemed to wait on the other side of the road so I continued very slowly, but it ran right in front of me again, so close in front of the car that I couldn’t see it. I did an emergency stop, obviously. At that kind of speed, a few miles per hour by then, it was unlikely I would have hit/injured the dog anyway, but obviously the man was very thankful. It struck me that had I hit his dog, I would most likely have been shouted at (maybe I’m being unfair but I know there’s an element of shock and upset that would bring about that kind of reaction). The nod and ‘thanks’ wave was entirely appropriate for what did happen, but it just made me think about human nature and how and who we lay blame on. His dogs were not on a lead and one of them ran out into a road, which he hadn’t even looked up and down to check for traffic. The speed limit on that country lane is actually 60mph, though I’d be horrified if anyone ever went down there that fast. I was probably doing even less than 20mph when I slowed down for the big group in the road and was still driving slowly because I could see a (living) pheasant in the road ahead so knew there were still some alive and likely to run in front of the car. He wasn’t physically with the group he’d been shooting with but I think there was an element of group mentality, that they were ‘owning’ that area between the cars (parked on the other side of the road from the shooting ground) and where they’d been shooting; a different take on the kind of entitlement I increasingly see and feel in London. I also think he would have held me responsible if I had hit his dog despite the fact of my having done absolutely nothing wrong.
Since being back, I have seen ‘our’ pheasants, though not all six. Fortunately, we don’t live near the killing fields but there are foxes around and there is a road.
Yesterday, I did some errands in Lockerbie and wanted to do my 10,000 steps while I was there so I walked to the Lockerbie air disaster garden. I’ve been before, having thought for the first few months of living in the area that I had no desire to go there. The plane was brought down 35 years ago, on 21 December 1988. The garden of remembrance is within the Dryfesdale Cemetery. I’m not entirely sure why but there is something about the small area that makes me feel deeply touched. I think I said this after my first visit as well, but maybe it’s at least in part because of seeing the same date repeatedly as the day of death.
