It was warm for the time of year, no sign of the cold winter to come. All thoughts centred on the competition to find the marksman from the group of hard-looking men that had arrived at The Tunnel Sports Centre that morning. This year the team had grown to seven eager and highly competitive OHs, each one with well over half a century of experience. This year’s line up included Nigel Clist (Ch 1967-72), Nigel Hankey (St 1967-70), Chris Bryan (V 1966-72), Howard Roberts (V 1967-72), Peter Philips (V&St 1958-62), Jeremy Best (C 1967-72) and of course Jim Rowe (M 1966-71).

This year there was an added incentive to win and be named the OH Marksman of the Year, there was the shiny and prestigious OH Shooting Challenge Shield to be won which had been kindly donated by Richard Clist, the owner of the Tunnel Target Sports Centre. Following a strong coffee and some wrist muscle exercises, we all entered the 100-metre range. We each pinned a couple of targets at the end of the range and walked back to the firing points. It was at this point we realised that with 14 targets in front of us, it looked more like a fairground shooting gallery, not what we had expected.

The competition started, the targets were only 11cm in diameter with a bull at the centre, a mere 1cm in diameter, that is less than a small fingernail from a distance of 100m! We used AR15 Assault Rifles, which are semi-automatic rifles that enable firing without the need for cumbersome bolt action loading that is normal with an SLR, or Self Loading Rifle. We had 20 sighting shots and then a further 10 scoring shots from which our scores were calculated. This time there was a win for Howard and Nigel Hankey with a score of 68, Nigel Clist came third with 65, Chris came fourth with 63 and a missing bullet, Peter and Jeremy came 5^th equal with 62 and Jim with 60.

At this stage, we moved onto the 25-metre range where the targets appeared so much closer to us. As time ticked away we realised there wasn’t sufficient time to score at this range so we resorted to our scores at the 100m range.

We stepped outside into the warm sunlight for a few team photographs, following which the event moved to the Hunters Lodge with many memories of the school and our times there. The conversations moved onto farming when we realised that half of us are indeed farmers, a very challenging career these days.

Next year, we’ll hold the event on Saturday, October 4^th at 10.00, all OH’s are welcome, same place – The Tunnel – Target Sports Centre, just off the A35 near Charmouth DT6 6BY and let’s make it 8 next year!