A richly hand written first person narrative detailing stag hunting trips in the Strathmashie area of the Scottish Highlands in the year 1929, written by young JWC Cameron. His account, written up in a lined text book, fills almost every leaf (circa 60 pp) and is illustrated with pasted in b/w photographs and cuttings. The text book is covered in brown paper and includes a colour image depicting a stalker which decorates the front. The hand written title page reads ‘A Book of Sport Vol IV’. The narrative commences with a 15 pp. description of JWC Cameron’s hunting trip covering 4 days between September 21st and September 24th 1929 before he is forced to catch the South train home to return to school. Trips through Big Wood and Black Wood with his beater Campbell are documented in great detail. The first of his three kills is ‘a stag with a good body 15 stone but only a small head of 8 points’. The second ‘a stag with a curious head, heavy double brows,... 7 points and weighed 13 stone 6lbs.’
The narrative continues in the same hand in the form of a transcription of the first person diary kept by his father on his subsequent stalks covering the period September 28th - October 15th 1929. A first kill on September 29th elicits celebration and captures the tension and excitement of the pursuit, ‘My wife seemed surprised that we had got a stag so quickly....... And when I told her it was a royal she flung her arms round my neck and next second was dancing a triumphant... round the room! I suppose we are all barbarians at heart’.
October 4th in the Odown Hill area is a day of misses and disappointments. ‘I had a shot at a smallish stag, missed him with the first shot, broke his shoulder as he went off with the second. Found him again not far off - knocked him over with a shot in the head. He lay still as we stood over..... the stag struggled up, staggered a few yards and disappeared without giving another chance.’ Deer are spotted in Englishton where the grouse shooting has been let for the season to two Americans in the company of Lord Bury who join together with JWC Cameron’s father on that day’s stag drive.
Original b/w photographs of scenery including Ben Nevis, Invergarry and woods on the way to Glenfinnan are pasted in alongside a pencil drawn image of 3 stags signed JW Cameron. Numerous hand written notes and cuttings of reports from the forests for the year 1929 include details of numbers of stags shot and notes including weather and weights in geographical areas including Glenfiddich, Strathcowan, Wyvis, Ben Alder and many more. Further clippings detail some of the best heads with photographs and hand written details of 24 individual heads pasted in. A striking pasted in double page cutting depicts 2 stalkers bringing down a record head of 16 points shot in Lord Kenmare’s forest of [Denicumichy] by the Hon Rupert Baring the eighteen year old son of Lord Revelstoke.
A 4 pp segment of what appears to be a similar text book style account sits loosely to the rear and may be from an earlier ‘Book of Sport’ dated possibly 1926.
