While attending to some household chores recently, Giles Haley (Th 86) came across an envelope of photographs which brought memories flooding back of a grand day at Bisley back in 1990. Giles himself takes up the story…

Over the weekend I discovered an envelope of photographs which I suspected were 30 years old this year. Just to confirm this, I went hunting for the medal with which they are associated and this confirmed the fact it was July 1990, the year Haileybury won the Public Schools Snapshooting competition at Bisley!

A great day of shooting

There’s a short anecdote about this victory, which came as rather a surprise. As was usual with Bisley week, we were in and out of the billet in between competitions, meals, armoury trips and the odd visit to the London & Middlesex Clubhouse (the less said about that the better…).

On this occasion the selected team of four drew their weapons for the afternoon session and were dropped off in the minibus by the dependable Mr Humphrey Nye – not sure who was “rear gunner” that day ! – with instructions to return promptly upon knockout from the competition, such was the confidence in our collective ability.

(the photo above shows, l-r, Kelvin Tan (B 86); Steve Abraham (Th 86); Paul Hughes (Th 86) and Giles Haley (Capt.) (Th 86) and (centre) the Public Schools Snapshooting Trophy

However, it just seemed to be one of those days when we were on fire and the scores kept on coming. In fact we were slightly perplexed by this unusual experience and the repeated invitations to return to the firing point. At one stage I remember looking at each other, shrugging and deciding we’d better do as we were told !

The perfect response to a grilling

To cut a long story short, we won the final, dropping just 5 points between us and decided we’d better get ourselves back to clean the rifles before the armoury locked up and, more importantly, in time for dinner.

Image of Haileybury Shooting Trophy Bisley 1990 — *Above: A day long remembered by looking on the spoils – the winning medal itself*

A short while later, in walk four grinning champions to be met with a right grilling, “where the hell have you been, you should have been back hours ago…!” Once we managed to get a word in edgeways we politely explained that we were very sorry, but we’d been rather busy winning a competition ! I think champagne was involved later that evening.

I was re-united with Paul (see photograph) at the Haileybury Veterans match last year, but I don’t think we’re going to manage it again this year…

Still passionate today!

Image of Giles Haley (Th 86) — *Above: Giles as a grown man, and carrying on his passion by now instructing others*

I had a great time on those trips to Bisley and on the indoor or outdoor ranges at school where I found my niche in target shooting thanks to Humphrey Nye, Richard Campling and Julian Ford-Robertson who managed to get me into County level smallbore shooting. I continued into adulthood, representing Hertfordshire as both Junior and Senior, then Buckinghamshire and now latterly Bedfordshire.

I now find myself instructing target rifle (as well as Navigation and Engineering) to cadets as the CO of both TS Ocean and TS Invincible, having first attained my Club Instructor qualification over three Sundays in the biology labs at Haileybury! To say that youth participation in the sport is weak these days would be rather an understatement, so I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunities and encouragement during my time at school.

Giles Haley (Th 86)